Huge 10,000-year-old Ice Age horse skull found on Isle of Wight

Wight Coast Fossils guide Jack Wonfor found the skull whilst out collecting, spotting it sat in the waves just on the beach with the top stuck out the water.

Thinking it was a piece of floating plastic, he picked it up, only to be surprised when the whole fossil emerged from the water.

Wight Coast Fossils said: “From what we know, this is the first known horse skull ever to be found from our Ice Age sediments on the Island.

Jack Wonfor found the skull whilst out collecting on an Island beach (Image: Wight Coast Fossils)

“It would have belonged to a Eurasian wild horse, which once roamed the Isle of Wight in large herds.”

Eurasian wild horses once roamed the tundra of the Island, grazing on tough Pleistocene grasses, often falling victim to wolves, lions and humans.

The horse was shorter and stockier than our familiar domestic horses, closely resembling the Przewalski’s horse, also known as the Mongolian wild horse.

10,000-year-old Ice Age horse skull found on Island (Image: Wight Coast Fossils)