This image issued by the York Archaeological Trust on Friday December 12, 2008 shows staff from York Archaeological Trust excavating in the general area where a 2,000-year-old skull with unusually well-preserved brain tissue still inside was located. Scientists said Friday that the more than 2,000-year-old mass of gray matter was the oldest ever discovered in Britain. One expert unconnected with the find called it 'a real freak of preservation.' The skull — which was severed from its corpse sometime before the Roman invasion of Britain — was found in a muddy pit during a dig at the University of York in northern England in the fall of this year, according to Richard Hall, a director of York Archaeological Trust. [Agencies]