What is believed to be Britain`s earliest known man has been discovered by a rambler out walking his dog near the famous Ballynahone bog in County Antrim.
     `I was just standing admiring the view when homer began scratching in this shallow depression in the ground`, said the walker Mr Sean Connelly, a retired Classics teacher. `And then I saw what looked like part of a bony hand, with two splayed-out fingers, sticking out of the ground.`
      Mr Connelly immediately called the police on his mobile phone and the area was cordoned off whilst further investigations were made.
      It soon became apparent that the well-preserved skeleton was that of a male, five foot six to six foot in height. Although the head is quite large and bony the brain cavity is extremely small, pointing to the creature being of very low intelligence. What makes the find so interesting is the partial preservation of clothing due to the conditions in which the body was found. The upper torso appears to be clad in a rough, shirt-like material, and amazingly some of the original red colour can still be made out. The lower part of the torso contains remnants of what appears to be some sort of flimsy, cotton type material which an expert on the site says could have been the forerunner of what we now know as shorts. Although most of the colour has leeched from this garment it appears to have been white in nature. The lower legs, which show signs of several compound fractures, seem to have been encased in some form of long, woolen socks, but these are so disintegrated as to make a positive assessment impossible.
      Another remarkable discovery is the creature`s footwear. Previously it was thought that prehistoric man went about bare-footed, but this species seems to be wearing some sort of laced, studded boot, possibly made out of animal hide.
      The only artefact found with the body was a spherical, gourd-like object placed between the feet of the creature. Speculation has been rife amongst the experts as to what this may have been used for. Some are of the opinion that it may have been a water carrier, whilst others think it might have been used in some form of ancient sport.
      But the most exciting discovery has not been on the body but what was found in the smooth peat in which the body was lying. When the skeleton was carefully removed from its position for further detailed examination, the experts were astonished to see what appeared to be letters and numbers formed in the peat. Although quite faded, what appears to be the capital letter `R` and two zeros or `Os` are still clearly visible.  Equally exciting is what seems to be the number nine directly below these letters. 
     `We are not yet certain as to how these markings came to be in the peat or what their significance is,` exclaimed an enthusiastic member of the site team. `But they could well have been formed by being transferred gradually over a number of years from the back of the shirt-like material. This discovery is particularly exciting because it has long been assumed that prehistoric man never developed numbers or the written word.`
     Professor Alex Auld-Traffod, Research Fellow in Paleontology at the University of Manchester has stated that the skeleton could be up to six thousand years old and is the most significant find since the discovery of`Gazza` the prehistoric man found in a glacier in the Italian Alps in 1991.
    But not everyone shares the Professor`s views. Dr Ian Von Trapp, the eminent Austrian expert in carbon-dating techniques says he thinks the Professor is wildly out with his age of the skeleton. In a rare outburst he said the Professor`s findings were at best dubious, and at worst, a load of old balls....