In a startling archaeological find that sheds light on the lives of ancient inhabitants, a gas pipe has been unearthed, running directly through the skull of an Anglo-Saxon woman buried approximately 1,500 years ago in Cambridgeshire. This discovery adds a new layer of intrigue to the study of burial practices and the daily realities of individuals in early medieval England.

The dig, which spanned multiple seasons from 2012-14, featured in Series 3 episode 1 of “Digging for Britain”.

Unintentionally, a yellow pipe, likely to be a gas line, was punched clean through an ancient burial.This particular skeleton was buried very close to the modern road, which modern underground infrastructure supplying the village follows.

The yellow pipe was installed by the standard practice of directional drilling – this involves machinery tunnelling a long route for pipes, between small access trenches, minimising the disruption that would be associated with the more obvious “cut and fill” method for laying pipes.

Although geophysical sensing methods are used to scout for anomalies, hazards, or archaeological remains ahead of the drilling, these cannot reliably detect human bone.

It is overwhelmingly likely that the installer of the pipe was entirely unaware they had punched through the ancient burial.The archaeologists noted during the 13-hour excavation how impressively the boring of the pipe had punched through cleanly, with minimal disruption to the burial, and missing the grave-goods by a matter of centimetres.