Ipswich girl’s mammal bone find ‘could be 500,000 years old’

A chunk of bone discovered on a beach by a schoolgirl could be up to half a million years old, according to an evolutionary biologist.

Nina Evans, from Ipswich, was looking through the rocks on Felixstowe beach with her dad, David Evans, 41, and brother, Ivan, nine, on Easter Saturday.

After searching for shark teeth, the seven-year-old found a piece of bone which an AI app – after assessing photos of the find – said may have belonged to a mammoth.

Professor Ben Garrod, from the University of East Anglia, said while the piece could potentially be a mammoth’s bone, it is possible it may also have come from a multitude of other large mammals.