Spanish archaeologists believe a treasure trove of about 200 Roman-era coins was discovered thanks to the efforts of a hungry badger hunting for food.
Described as "an exceptional find", the coins were discovered in April in La Cuesta cave in Bercio in the Asturias region of north-western Spain, according to a paper in the Journal of Prehistory and Archaeology published last month.
"On the floor of the cave … in the sand likely dug up by badger at the entrance to its sett (den), we found the coins with more inside," the archaeologists wrote after finding 209 coins dating back to between the third century AD and the fifth century AD.
Dig director Alfonso Fanjul, from Madrid's Autonomous University, told CNN the coins were found by a local man.
"When we arrived we found the hole that led to the badger's nest, and the ground around it full of coins," Dr Fanjul said.
"We've taken out the first deposit, but we think there is a lot more to take out."
The coins may have been dug up by a badger searching for food during the vast snowstorm that paralysed Spain in January 2021.
At that time, many creatures struggled to find berries, worms or insects to eat, with this luckless mammal only unearthing a handful of inedible metal discs.
Most of these late Roman-era coins came from the north and eastern Mediterranean — places like Antioch, Constantinople and Thessaloniki — although at least one coin came from London, the archaeologists wrote in the paper.
"The quantity of coins recovered, as well as the undoubted archaeological interest of the transition to the early medieval period, make the hoard discovered at Bercio an exceptional find," they wrote.
The researchers said the coins had likely been moved there in the "context of political instability" linked in particular to the invasion of the Suebians, a Germanic people, who pushed into the north-western part of the Iberian peninsula in the 5th century.
Dr Fanjul said the coins would go on display at the Archaeological Museum of Asturias.
AFP
