Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 15 hours ago
In 2017, the femur of a mammoth was discovered by Sally and Neville Hollingworth in a commercial gravel quarry close to the village of Cerney Wick, on the Gloucestershire/Wiltshire border in England. Subsequent exploration of this site yielded further remains of Pleistocene megafauna including horses, bison, hyena and elk, as well as Neanderthal hand tools.
In the following years, the excavations at Cerney Wick expanded in scope into what is now the largest palaeontological dig in the UK. The potential for public interest in the site and its finds was quickly realised and the documentary ‘Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard‘ was produced by Windfall Films for the BBC in 2021. Now, as additional fossils are recovered and a deeper understanding of their depositional environment is gained, we are able to paint a progressively more detailed picture of this exciting locality.
For 2024, Palaeocast was granted special access to the dig, allowing us to record media from within the field. On our website, you'll find hours of multimedia captured at different stages throughout the field season. We begin with a podcast that introduces Cerney Wick and details the plans for the upcoming dig, this is followed by several days of recording at the site itself and finally a record of the legacy of this year’s fieldwork.
Website:
palaeocast.com/cerney-wick
Introductory podcast about the site:
youtube.com/watch?v=w2gL0wIL74Y
We'd like to thank Sally and Neville Hollingworth for their help with putting this series together and for accommodating us in the field. We recognise Hills Quarry Products for making their site so accessible for research and science communication. Thanks to all the volunteers who have contributed to the multimedia in this series and especially to Laura Hobbs who has provided assistance throughout. Finally, thanks to all our backers on Patreon who help make projects like this possible.
In 2017, the femur of a mammoth was discovered by Sally and Neville Hollingworth in a commercial gravel quarry close to the village of Cerney Wick, on the Gloucestershire/Wiltshire border in England. Subsequent exploration of this site yielded further remains of Pleistocene megafauna including horses, bison, hyena and elk, as well as Neanderthal hand tools.
In the following years, the excavations at Cerney Wick expanded in scope into what is now the largest palaeontological dig in the UK. The potential for public interest in the site and its finds was quickly realised and the documentary ‘Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard‘ was produced by Windfall Films for the BBC in 2021. Now, as additional fossils are recovered and a deeper understanding of their depositional environment is gained, we are able to paint a progressively more detailed picture of this exciting locality.
For 2024, Palaeocast was granted special access to the dig, allowing us to record media from within the field. On our website, you'll find hours of multimedia captured at different stages throughout the field season. We begin with a podcast that introduces Cerney Wick and details the plans for the upcoming dig, this is followed by several days of recording at the site itself and finally a record of the legacy of this year’s fieldwork.
Website:
palaeocast.com/cerney-wick
Introductory podcast about the site:
youtube.com/watch?v=w2gL0wIL74Y
We'd like to thank Sally and Neville Hollingworth for their help with putting this series together and for accommodating us in the field. We recognise Hills Quarry Products for making their site so accessible for research and science communication. Thanks to all the volunteers who have contributed to the multimedia in this series and especially to Laura Hobbs who has provided assistance throughout. Finally, thanks to all our backers on Patreon who help make projects like this possible.
