Science

Lucky fossil hunter finds prehistoric sea creature inside ‘golden snitch’ on English coast


Aaron Smith, a medical student and amateur archaeologist, discovered the 185-million-year-old “golden snitch” containing an extinct sea creature inside. The amateur archaeologist found spiral-shaped fossils of cleviceras, an extinct type of cephalopod creature, within the Quidditch ball-shaped rock. The reasons for the rock’s striking appearance is because it is coated in Iron Pyrite, also known as “fool’s gold”.

The golden spheres are common along the Yorkshire coast and can be found often among the rocks.

Speaking about his lucky find, Mr Smith gave some tips to budding fossil hunters about the effort that goes into finding fossils.

He said: “In order to find fossils, pretty much anywhere in the world, you just need to put in a lot of dedication!

“The majority of the time there is nothing really to be found but every now and again, if you’re lucky enough, and something has appeared due to a storm for example, then you might find a rock with a fossil inside it.

“When you find a fossil, then the long intricate process begins of carefully removing the stone to expose the fossil, this can take hundreds of hours in many cases.

“It’s very exciting discovering the fossils. It makes it all worthwhile after spending months of searching.”

The striking finds come as archaeologists in South America have unearthed the 2000-year-old bodies of two infants, wearing “helmets” made from the bones of other children, in a major discovery.

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“Isolated heads were often included in mortuary contexts, representing captured enemies, revered persons, and symbolic ‘seeds’”.

They continued: ”At Salango, a ritual complex on the central coast of Ecuador, excavations revealed two burial mounds dated to approximately 100 BC.

“Among the 11 identified burials, two infants were interred with ‘helmets’ made from the cranial vaults of other juveniles.

“The additional crania were placed around the heads of the primary burials, likely at the time of burial. All crania exhibited lesions associated with bodily stress.”

The reasons for deaths remain unknown, but researchers have come up with a number of interesting theories.

They believe that the deaths may be linked to a volcanic eruption that took place just before the infants’ deaths.

The children could have died from starvation as a result of volcanic ash severely disrupting food production.

Or they might have been sacrificed as part of a “ritual response to the environmental consequences of the eruption”.



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