Learning English

The story…

Bone in the river

Learn language related to…

rivers

Need-to-know language…

lurking – remaining hidden, often used to talk about things waiting to attack

shallows – area of water which is not deep

causeway – raised path, often across water

low tide – time when river water levels are low

mudflats – area of wet soil that is normally covered by water at high tide

Answer this…

How old is the bone found in the river?

Transcript

On a fine September day last year, Simon Hunt took his boat from Team Keane Rowing Club down to the River Thames at Brentford, just as he normally does most days. But on that day, he spotted something lurking in the shallows.

Simon Hunt - Team Keane Rowing Club
At first, I thought maybe it's an animal bone and it just would be quite funny just to sort of say to everyone on the water 'look, I found a bone'. But it was obviously from looking at it, you see the hip, the hip joint. And I thought, no this is human bone. So, therefore, best to phone the police and report it.

To determine if the river where Simon rows was now, in fact, a crime scene - having found a human femur there - they took it for carbon dating.

Simon Hunt - Team Keane Rowing Club
And I got a phone call from the detective about a week ago. And she phoned me up and said: ‘We've got the date, what do you think?’ And, so, my only, it shows my education now - my frame of reference for things that are old - medieval maybe? Then she goes 'keep going'. So, then she tells me that between three, I think it’s like – 3,500. And I was thinking that then 3,000 [years old]? And then of course, at the end, she adds BC.

The bone is 5,300 years old - one of the most ancient objects ever found in the Thames.

Simon Hunt - Team Keane Rowing Club
It predates the pyramids, predates Stonehenge. What was going on? What was this place like? Who was this person?

Well, like today, there's almost a causeway across this part of the Thames at low tide.

But 5,000 ago, the river was much wider and shallower. Mudflats extending beyond into woodland. The landscape [was] sparsely populated by Neolithic man, semi-nomadic herder hunter-gatherers, who used flint tools and crude pottery vessels.

An artist's impression of Ötzi, the Iceman found in Italy, gives us an idea of what they might have looked like.

Simon Hunt - Team Keane Rowing Club
I'm going to give it to the Museum of London. That's my plan. I have no place for it in my house. The initial thing was: ‘Oh, my word, it's a really old bone.’ And then obviously the kind of ... OK, be respectful. Because this was actually a human being. This was a person. They had a life. They were doing stuff around here and so that's why I hope to say to give it to the museum so that they can put it on display and hopefully people will, as I have done, connect with the past.

Wendy Hurrell- BBC Reporter
How's it feels to you to have been part of this extraordinary adventure?

Simon Hunt - Team Keane Rowing Club
From the initial ‘oh, it’s quite funny I found a bone in the river’ to ‘actually then there it could be potentially criminal’, to then finding out it's actually archaeologically significant. So, it has been an amazing adventure.

Did you get it?

How old is the bone found in the river?

The bone is 5,300 years old.