Giant Hippos Roamed Britain in Warmer Past

Wed Jun 30,11:13 PM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON (Reuters) - A huge find of fossils in Eastern England has revealed a pre-glacial period when the area basked in temperatures now more closely associated with the African savannah, scientists said on Thursday.

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The bones of seven-tonhippos half as big again as today's descendants have been found alongside those of horses, hyenas, deer, primitive mammoths, rodents and plants giving an unprecedented insight into the distant past.

"This is a very significant find," said palaeontologist Simon Parfitt at London's Natural History Museum. "The site is unique in that we have this huge variety of different species all perfectly preserved."

The site, inland from the East Anglian port of Lowestoft, was a steamy coastal swamp 700,000 years ago.

The herds of animals that lived and died there were either quickly eaten or equally quickly buried in the soft earth to lie undisturbed until several thousand years later -- a blink of an eye in geological terms -- the ice came.

"The ice brought with it huge quantities of glacial deposits as well as itself being about one kilometer thick," Parfitt said. "When it retreated it left behind a geological time capsule. These fossils are 10-15 meters under the surface."

The perfect state of preservation of the fossil remains has provided the scientists with a wealth of information and previously unseen detail.

They have found the clear marks of hyena teeth on the bones of one of the hippos and, close by, droppings that could well have come from the same hyenas.

But most intriguing of all is the clear evidence of climate change that can been seen through the layers of fossils -- unearthed by chance in a gravel pit -- as the climate slowly cooled and the ice age arrived.

"It is a very rich environment. We have a clear picture of how the climate changed. We can see the switch to the glacial system," Parfitt said. "We can start to interpret the landscape."

The fossils collected to date go on show from Thursday at the Natural History museum as part of its Festival of Fossils.

Scientists are also seeking evidence of early man at the site which is now some 15 km inland from the Norfolk coast, but so far with no luck.

"It would be wonderful if we found some worked flints or a hand axe. But it is almost literally like looking for a needle in a haystack," Parfitt added.

And time is not on their side. In just six months the whole site will be lost again, covered over and returned to agricultural use.