In November 2004, Nigel was asked at short notice to excavate and lift a large bison skull discovered in an
archaeological excavation in the Ebbsfleet Valley
near Swanscombe, in Kent, by
Dr Francis Wenban-Smith of Southampton University. He was working on the
building site of the new high-speed Channel Tunnel Rail Link on behalf of the Oxford Archaeological Unit
(who in turn were working on behalf of
Rail Link Engineering (RLE)) where it runs through a well-known richly fossiliferous area. He called one afternoon
to ask if it were possible for Nigel to be on site (300 miles away) first thing the following morning to excavate
a bison skull and have it lifted
out of the ground by 2pm.
This magnificent find, a fairly complete skull with both horn-cores intact had just been discovered on the
very last stretch of link road to be carved out of the landscape, and the workers with their bulldozers were waiting
to finish off the final section of the roadway.
The particularly large and intact yet fragile specimen clearly needed specialist attention. A very solid jacket was made to encapsulate
the whole specimen once it was fully excavated - one robust enough to protect it, without flexing, when lifted by the bulldozer and to keep it safe on the journey
back to Oxford.This jacket was made of plaster of paris and coarse hessian scrim with wooden splints over protective layers of tissue paper and foil.
