When a skull is buried and sediment accumulates above it over tens of thousands of years, the weight compresses it.

Bone is strong under the right conditions, but not indefinitely strong under sustained geological pressure.

What had once been a three-dimensional cranium — a rounded vault housing a brain — had been pressed almost flat, breaking into fragments in the process.

The Cambridge team extracted those fragments over multiple field seasons.

Working slowly, carefully, under controlled conditions, they removed piece after piece from the surrounding sediment.

Each fragment was documented in its precise three-dimensional position before removal, using digital mapping technology that recorded spatial relationships with accuracy not possible in the 1950s.