A Glaswegian insurance broker and amateur archaeologist made an incredible discovery in the clay near the River Kelvin.
Ludovic McLellan Mann, born in Langside, carried out small-scale amateur archaeological digs around Glasgow and Ayrshire when he wasn’t working as a chartered accountant and insurance broker.
During one such dig in August 1932, Mann was sifting through the red clay close to the River Kelvin just north of Bishopbriggs, when he discovered the ice age bones of woolly rhinoceros.
The huge beasts were more than 11ft long, over 5ft tall, weighed more than two tons, and were covered in long reddish-brown fur. The bones were later carbon-dated and found to be 27,500 years old, despite being found just 18 inches below the surface.
The rhinos once roamed the glaciers of Scotland and other parts of northern Europe, with specimens found as far away as Siberia. In all, four specimens were found at Bishopbriggs.
Sophia and Finn French-Munro view the woolly rhino specimens discovered by Ludovic McLellan Mann at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum with mum Nicola French-Munro (right), Helen Munro and Emma Chesney.
(Image: Glasgow Live)
A woolly rhino tooth and part of a leg bone found by Mann during the dig were donated to Kelvingrove Museum in 1947, and can now be viewed as part of the ‘Creatures of the Past’ exhibit. Mann initially believed the leg bone had been fashioned into a ‘shoe-horn type’ tool, according to his original illustrations, also held at the museum.
Mann wrote: “Out of this bone the Palaeolithic craftsman has fashioned a smoothing tool. He bisected the shaft by a well-calculated oblique cut and dressed slightly the condyles to serve as a hand-grasp.
“The length, width, and thickness of the tool were adjusted so as to fit into the scheme of ancient craftsmen’s measurements.”
Ludovic McLellan Mann’s original sketches of the woolly rhinoceros bone from Bishopbriggs.
(Image: Glasgow Life Museums)
Ann Ainsworth, Curator of Geology at Glasgow Life Museums, said Mann’s theory of the bone being fashioned into a tool was “quickly disputed”, with there being “a lively correspondence lasting some months” about the idea in local newspapers at the time.
Mann is described by Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum as “a great publicist for archaeology, both in radio talks and in articles for newspapers”. Mann was chairman of Mann, Ballantyne & Co. Insurance Brokers and Independent Neutral Advisors, but also had a long-standing interest in archaeology and history.
Two of Ludovic McLellan Mann’s woolly rhino finds, a tooth and part of a leg bone, are on display at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, seen here at the front-right of the case.
(Image: Glasgow Live)
He was president of both the Glasgow Archaeology Society and Provand’s Lordship Society and organiser of the Prehistoric Section of the Scottish Exhibition of Natural History, Art and Industry held in Glasgow in 1911.
He lived at 144 St Vincent Street in Blytheswood Hill and at 4 Lynedoch Crescent, where he died in 1955 at the age of 86.
Ludovic McLellan Mann’s original sketches of the woolly rhinoceros bone from Bishopbriggs.
(Image: Glasgow Life Museums)
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