The British archaeologists discovered an ancient skull containing an amazing surprise. The scientists found inside the skull a well-preserved brain which the experts called a “freak of preservation.” A statement released on Friday announced that the brain was more than 2,000 years old, being the oldest discovered in Britain.

Richard Hall, a director of York Archaeological Trust, said the skull had been removed from its owner’s body sometime before the Roman invasion of Britain and it had been found this fall inside a muddy hole during a dig at the University of York in the northern England.

Rachel Cubbitt, the one who dug it out, said that she had discovered that the skull had something inside it while she was cleaning it. In search for the moving thing, she saw that the skull contained an unusual yellow substance, which after further tests at York Hospital, proved to be brain tissue.

Yet, the scientists stated that it was unclear how much of the brain had survived because the tissue had contracted over such a long period of time. Another mystery was that the skull was buried without its body. Hall suggested that a possible explanation could be the one of sacrifice or ritual burial.

Sonia O'Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford in northern England, who also helped to authenticate the discovery, said that such a happening is rather impossible, but still, very rare to take place. She added that this brain is a wonder because it had been so well preserved.

Yet, Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology at Oxford University, told the Associated Press that such an old brain wouldn’t be the subject of neurological findings because human brains haven’t changed in the last 2,000 years. Gosden added that this is the oldest preserved brain found in Britain, but that there were older brains which had been found in 1986 in Florida. Those were nearly 8,000 years old.