Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service

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In 1990, around 600,000 years after it died, the remains of the West Runton Elephant was discovered after winter seas had eroded the cliffs at West Runton, near Cromer, Norfolk, U.K. The huge pelvis was the first bone to be revealed in the base of the cliff, and a year later many more bones were found. By 1992, some 25 % of the skeleton had been recovered and plans were made to recover the remainder, still buried beneath 20 metres of cliff, and to obtain evidence of the elephant's ancient environment from the abundant associated plant and animal fossils. The excavation (Phase I of the project) was made possible in 1995 by a grant from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, and by commercial sponsorship. The excavation of the elephant was carried out under controlled archaeological conditions by the Norfolk Archaeological Unit and specialist surveying and computing services from the Swedish consultancy Arkeologikonsult. This work resulted in the recovery of almost the entire skeleton. Some 10 tonnes of sediment samples were taken to be processed for small fossils, ranging from pollen and seeds to beetles, snails, fishes and small mammals.

The West Runton Elephant
Reconstruction by Sam Brown

The elephant, a male, has been identified as an early form of mammoth Mammuthus trogontherii. It stood about 4 metres at the shoulder, and at ten tonnes would have been nearly twice the weight of a modern African elephant. It had died in its 40's, long before old age, in a shallow, swampy river channel. Hyaenas had scavenged the carcass, leaving tooth marks on some of the bones and their characteristic fossil droppings (coprolites). Other elephants appear to have scattered the bones and trampled one of the tusks. Similar behaviour has been observed with modern elephants who seem curiously drawn towards the remains of their own species. The river mud and silt which buried the skeleton comprises the fossil horizon known as the West Runton Freshwater Bed, now exposed in the cliff face. West Runton is the international type-site for the Cromerian Temperate or Interglacial stage, currently dated to about 600,000 years ago. At this time, Britain was connected to continental Europe across what is now the southern North Sea and the climate was similar to that of today.

West Runton is a Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (S.S.S.I.) and is of great significance in our understanding of the complex changes in climate, flora, and fauna of the Quaternary period, or 'lce Age'. For more than 170 years fossil remains of elephants, rhinos, deer and many other animals have been collected from what is known as the Cromer Forest Bed Formation, which includes the West Runton Freshwater Bed, exposed along the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk. However, never before has an entire skeleton been reported from these well-searched deposits.

A second grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has substantially aided the current phase of the project (Phase 2) - conservation of the elephant bones and research on the elephant and its ancient environment. More than fifteen specialist researchers are gathered together as the West Runton Elephant Project Team, led by Dr Tony Stuart, drawn from the Natural History Museum, Cambridge University, University of East Anglia, University College London, Royal Holloway College London, University of Nevada, Coventry University, Michigan State University, and University of Hull.

The conservation of the elephant bones, and the research programme is scheduled to take two years. The final phase of the project (Phase 3) will be a major display, somewhere in Norfolk, to tell the story of the elephant and its vanished world of over half a million years ago.

Dr. A.J. Stuart, 1996

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