Arqueólogos en Inglaterra han analizado un ataúd de media tonelada que data de principios de la Edad del Bronce y que fue encontrado debajo de un campo de golf en el condado de Lincolnshire.

York Archaeological Trusts Ian Panter traslada parte del ataúd del árbol a su baño de conservación.Un extremo del ataúd del árbol tiene una muesca cortada, que los científicos quitaron para determinar el determinar la edad del árbol mediante dendrocronología, pero como era una especie de rápido crecimiento, sólo la datación con carbono 14 funcionaría.

El ataúd, cortado de un solo roble y que se cree que tiene unos 4.000 años de antigüedad, contenía restos humanos, un hacha con mango y un lecho de material vegetal destinado a amortiguar el cuerpo en su sueño eterno.

Los trabajadores de mantenimiento descubrieron el entierro en julio de 2019 mientras atendían un obstáculo de agua en el Tetney Golf Club en Grimsby. El ataúd estaba bajo un montículo de grava, una situación especial que indica cierta participación de la comunidad en el entierro.

As is standard for objects of historical significance found in England and Wales, the find was reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which processes such reports and ensures that the objects are properly handed.

Objects made of old wood (think shipwrecks, coffins, and even ship burials) are prone to disintegration when they are removed from water or soil after millennia and exposed to sunlight and air. To prevent that from happening to the find, the excavated objects were immediately put in bags filled with groundwater, and the coffin was put in cold storage for a year.

Afterward, the coffin was moved to the York Archaeological Trust, where conservators have been working on it and the associated artifacts, including an axe.

Ian Panter works on the 4,000-year-old oak coffin.

“The man buried at Tetney lived in a very different world to ours, but like ours, it was a changing environment; rising sea levels and coastal flooding ultimately covered his grave and burial mound in a deep layer of silt that aided its preservation,” said Tim Allen, a Sheffield-based archaeologist for Historic England, in a York Archaeological Trust press release.

An interesting component of the work was the environmental analysis of the plant bedding.

Hugh Willmott, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield who participated in the excavations, said on Twitter that moss, yew or juniper, hazelnuts, and leaf buds were found in the coffin.

The types of floral remains indicated that the burial likely took place toward the end of spring, some four millennia ago, when a few woolly mammoths still survived. Willmott said in an email to Gizmodo that the hazelnuts may have been a food offering, while the moss could have been a sort of bed for the deceased.

Not much is currently known about the human remains, though the archaeological team suspects it was an individual of some social importance.

Willmott said that initial attempts to extract DNA have been unsuccessful. Dating the coffin is still ongoing—the archaeologists need to do a combination of dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating, which they can cross-reference to find out the year the tree was felled, give or take a couple of years.

The long-shafted axe found in the coffin has a small head.

A shockingly well-preserved axe was found with the person; the handle looks like it could have been varnished yesterday. The axe head is a combination of stone and fossilized coral.

Based on the object’s shape and size—the axe head is less than 4 inches across—the team believes it was a symbol of authority rather than a practical tool. There are very few such axes known in Britain, perhaps only 12, according to the York Archaeological Trust, making this one of the most eye-catching elements of the discovery.

El ataúd de madera se suma a unos 65 objetos como los encontrados en Inglaterra. Los conservacionistas dijeron en el mismo comunicado que el hacha debería conservarse por completo dentro de un año, pero que el ataúd tardará al menos dos años en tratarse por completo debido al tamaño del objeto.

Esta investigación llega inmediatamente después de la decisión de la Universidad de Sheffield de cerrar su departamento de arqueología, según informó la BBC en julio, y del anuncio de la Universidad de Worcester del cierre de su departamento de arqueología, también informado por la BBC.

La Campaña para Salvar la Arqueología Británica se lanzó en respuesta a los cierres. Esta tendencia es preocupante. Si el equipo arqueológico de Sheffield no hubiera estado cerca cuando se desenterró el ataúd de la Edad del Bronce, el patrimonio cultural podría haberse deteriorado rápidamente.

Gracias a la rapidez de pensamiento de los arqueólogos cercanos, los objetos se están conservando y se exhibirán en el Museo de la Colección en Lincolnshire.