Fossils: What England's discoveries have told us about our past

Palaeontologist Dr Dean Lomax (being used for scale) said it was an honour to lead the excavation of a 33ft (10m) long ichthyosaur fossil in Rutland

For two centuries England has punched well above its weight in terms of discovering its ancient creatures. A fortnight ago, the skull of a colossal pliosaur that was unearthed from the Jurassic Coast in Dorset went on public display, and since then, about 5,000 visitors have flocked to see it. But what other significant fossils have been unearthed in England?

Most of the UK's dinosaur fossils have been discovered in southern England at coastal sites such as the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and the Isle of Wight, the clay quarries of Surrey or the Cotswolds.

But in February 2021, Britain's largest fossil of a sea predator around at the time of the dinosaurs, was uncovered in Rutland Water Nature Reserve in the East Midlands.

The 33ft (10m) long ichthyosaur fossil, which was about 180 million years old, was discovered during the routine draining of a lagoon island for re-landscaping.

Found by Joe Davis of Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, it was then excavated by a team led by ichthyosaur expert Dr Dean Lomax and palaeontologist Nigel Larkin.

Ichthyosaurs became extinct around 90 million years ago

Similar in shape to dolphins, the reptiles - known as sea dragons - varied in size from 3ft (1m) to 82ft (25m).

As well as being the biggest, it was also the most complete fossil of its kind found in the UK and is thought to be the first ichthyosaur of its species (Temnodontosaurus trigonodon) found in the country.

World's first dinosaur

A partial jaw of Megalosaurus, the iconic fossil used in the very first scientific description of a dinosaur

During the 17th and 18th centuries, people around Oxfordshire began finding mysterious bones.

Items such as a single tooth or part of a leg bone were puzzled over by academics, but it wasn't until around 1818 that geologist and theologian William Buckland began to study the remains, including one discovered in a slate quarry in the village of Stonesfield.

In 1824, Buckland used this bone of a massive reptile-like creature in the first scientific description of a dinosaur - Megalosaurus - meaning "great lizard".

On display in the university's Museum of Natural History, the dentary bone is just the front half of the lower jaw, and has serrated teeth which points to the creature being a meat eater.

Fast forward to 1842, and the term 'dinosaur' was coined by biologist Richard Owen to describe a group of animals including Megalosaurus and other giant lizards.

Britain's oldest human fossil

Prof Chris Stringer CBE at the site where the Boxgrove hominin tibia was discovered in 1993

Boxgrove Man is a 500,000 year old fossil, thought to belong to the species Homo heidelbergensis, an extinct relative of modern humans.

Discovered in 1993 in Boxgrove, West Sussex, the remains of two pieces of the tibia (shinbone) and two teeth, are considered to be the oldest human fossils ever discovered in Britain.

The first piece of tibia was found by Roger Pedersen, a Danish volunteer on the project. Boxgrove Man was named "Roger" after him.

Researchers believed the site was a spring or water hole where hominid hunters butchered giant deer and rhinos, as primitive flint and antler tools used were also uncovered.

A fossil tibia or shinbone from Homo heidelbergensis, discovered in 1993 in a quarry

The site is an exceptionally preserved 26km-wide ancient landscape of stone, and provides a virtually untouched record of early humans, according to Dr Matthew Pope, associate professor at UCL's Institute of Archaeology.

The best preserved area of the site is known as the Horse Butchery Site, as it is where a large horse was slaughtered and processed some 480,000 years ago.

What is a fossil?

• Fossils are the preserved remains of plants and animals that were buried in sediments, such as sand and mud, under ancient watercourses

• Soft tissues decay soon after death, but harder elements such as bones or teeth can be replaced by minerals that eventually harden into rock

• In order for a fossil to form, the specimen must be rapidly buried by sediments that were previously suspended in water

• This isolates the remains from the biological and physical processes that would otherwise break up or dissolve them

Source: British Geological Survey

'One of UK's biggest Ice Age discoveries'

The remains of at least five Ice Age mammoths were found at the quarry

In 2017, a couple hunting for marine fossils at a former quarry just outside Swindon, Wiltshire, noticed something unusual protruding from the mud.

It turned out to be the top of a huge fossilised leg bone of a mammoth. Sally and Neville Hollingworth had stumbled across the discovery of a lifetime - a mammoth graveyard in the old prehistoric riverbed of the Thames.

When they returned to dig up more mammoth bones and tusks, Sally discovered a stone hand axe made by an early human.

Unlike most mammoth discoveries that date back tens of thousands of years, the fossils appear to be hundreds of thousands of years old.

When Sir David Attenborough heard about their finds he was keen to see them for himself, and the discovery was featured in the BBC One documentary Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard.

Sir David Attenborough joined Ben Garrod and a team of investigators at a mammoth graveyard to explore whether Neanderthals might have killed the ice age beasts

At the time, Historic England chief executive Duncan Wilson said the discovery represented "one of Britain's most significant Ice Age discoveries in recent years".

"The findings have enormous value for understanding the human occupation of Britain, and the delicate environmental evidence recovered will also help us understand it in the context of past climate change," he said.

T. rex relative

Dinosaur fossils were discovered on the beach at Shanklin

In 2019, fossils thought to belong to a relative of the T. rex were found by three different people on the Isle of Wight.

Palaeontologists at the University of Southampton believe the four bones found at Shanklin beach belong to a new species of theropod dinosaur.

It lived in the Cretaceous period, 115 million years ago, and is estimated to have been up to 13ft (4m) long.

Named Vectaerovenator inopinatus, it belongs to the group of dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and is a distant predecessor of modern-day birds.

Robin Ward, a regular fossil hunter from Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, was visiting the Isle of Wight with his family when they made their discovery, as was James Lockyer, from Spalding, Lincolnshire, when he found another of the bones.

Paul Farrell, from Ryde, was walking along the beach kicking stones, and came across what looked like a bone from a dinosaur.

"I was really shocked to find out it could be a new species," he said.

This silhouette of a theropod indicates where in the body the bones were from

The Latin name Vectaerovenator inopinatus, which translates to "unexpected Isle of Wight air-filled hunter", refers to the large air spaces found in some of the bones from the neck, back and tail of the creature.

It was one of the traits that helped the scientists identify its theropod origins.

These air sacs, also seen in modern birds, were extensions of the lung, and it is likely they "helped fuel an efficient breathing system while also making the skeleton lighter", the University of Southampton said.

• Correction 17 January 2024: This article has been updated to include the name of the person who discovered the Boxgrove Man tibia - Roger Pederson.