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The latest on the Tregaron Elephant

13.04.2011

Project director Dr Jemma Bezant from the School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology gives us the lowdown:

After a really successful weekend (the weather helped) and over 300 visitors we are well underway with the dig. So far we have started to recover Victorian artefacts such as clay pipes, glass, blue and white china and the odd piece of beer bottle glass.

This is the right period for the elephant that died on 10th July 1848 so we are encouraged. Although bone survival is likely to be poor here we have actually recovered a few fragmentary pieces.

Bone expert Dr Ros Coard from the School of Archaeology, History and Anthropology visited the site today and confirmed that the some of the bone fragments were from a mammal skull but probably from a much smaller animal than an elephant, perhaps a dog.

Another fragment was likely to have been from a cow. This is encouraging to the team and indicates that perhaps we might expect better bone survival than originally thought.

The excavation team lead by Archaeology and Anthropology student Olwyn Pritchard as part of a community project were helped today by schoolchildren from Tregaron Primary school who excavated more Victorian material that they then helped to clean.

Project director Dr Jemma Bezant is keen to thank the school and other members of the community who have welcomed the opportunity to get involved in their own history and heritage.

Everyone has been enormously supportive of this project and this is really what it’s all about. This story belongs to the people of Tregaron and surrounding area and we hope that it will boost the profile of the town to their benefit.

We are still hopeful that we will find the elephants resting place and have until the end of the week to find out.

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