Rabbits Find Stone Age Treasures When Digging Holes On A Welsh Island

I think that most people would agree that bunnies are adorable. Even when they grow up to be adult rabbits, they continue to be cute. As it turns out, they also have some skills that are often overlooked, including their abilities as archaeologists.

Skokholm Island in Wales was the location where a family of rabbits was digging their new home when they came across an amazing find. Pottery shards were unearthed and pushed into the daylight at the entrance to their home. It was perhaps the first light that those treasures had seen for thousands of years.

There are only two humans who live on the island but they share their home with many of the fuzzy critters in the area as well.

Richard Brown and Giselle Eagle saw what those rabbits had found and they were happy to share the discovery with the world. They took pictures and then sent the find to researchers for further study.

The items were sent to the National Museum Wales, where they are being studied. The curator of prehistoric archaeology, Jody Deacon, and a prehistoric stone tools expert, Andrew Davis have been studying the finds.

Included in what was unearthed was a “bevelled pebble” that was likely used thousands of years ago by hunter-gatherers during the Mesolithic period. They also found a 3,750-year-old bronze age burial urn. The island shared photos of the find on Twitter.

The Vikings used Stokhold Island as a rabbit farm about 1000 years ago and some of the rabbits left on the island may have been descendants of those original animals. Who knows, perhaps they even played a part in this unique find.

We look forward to learning more about what they found. Once COVID restrictions are lifted and they can conduct a more thorough archaeological investigation.