Researchers have collected thousands of ancient rotting brains from across the world

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Researchers have created a new archive of ancient human brains which challenges ideas of how they are preserved. open image in gallery Fragments of the brain from an individual buried in a Victorian workhouse cemetery Researchers compiled a new archive of preserved human brains which highlighted that the brain and other parts of the nervous system persist in much greater numbers than previously thought. Co-author Professor Erin Saupe, from the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, said: “This record of ancient brains highlights the array of environments in which they can be preserved from the high Arctic to arid deserts.” Co-author Dr Ross Anderson, also from the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, said: “These ancient brains provide a significant opportunity for unique insights into the early evolution of our species, such as the roles of ancient diseases.” The findings, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, bring together the records of more than 4,000 preserved human brains from some two hundred sources, across six continents. “We’re finding amazing numbers and types of ancient biomolecules preserved in these archaeological brains, and it’s exciting to explore all that they can tell us about life and death in our ancestors.”