[ad_1]
One by one, archaeologists stumbled upon pieces of garbage. Using techniques typically reserved for documenting stone and bone tools, the team searched items such as plastic spoons, glasses, bottle caps, straws, mobile phone batteries, paint can lids, candy wrappers, and plastic wrap. When the experiment ended, the archaeologists had discovered about 3,000 items, the vast majority of them made of the plastic.
That the plastic was found on the site, an old fort in Wales, was not a surprise. In fact, it was expected, but not to this degree.
Since the 1980s, there have been two replicas of circular Iron Age houses at this location, matching the ones that once stood in the Iron Age fort of Castell Henllys during the end of the first millennium BC. C.
Most of the visitors to the site were children on field trips, whose legacy is only now being understood. Like the new Antiquity paper shows, plastics have a habit of sticking around, even in heritage sites that existed long before these synthetic materials were invented. It is yet another sign that we have entered the Anthropocene, a period in which we are remaking the planet in our image.
G / O Media can get a commission
The replicas of the Castell Henllys round houses served two different purposes. The first, called the Cookhouse, was set up as a royal Iron Age circular house, while the second, called Earthwatch, was set up as a classroom, where students sat on benches to learn and eat their snacks.
The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, which manages the site, recently decided to dismantle the roundabouts due to to health and safety concerns. However, before building new structures, archaeologists thought it wise to excavate the site. It would be a good opportunity to study decomposition processes, to determine what human activities result in leftover debris and how replicated structures could affect the integrity of prehistoric structures located at the same site. Here, the two replicas of circular houses were literally built in the same location as the real ones that existed more than 2,000 years ago. As the authors wrote in their study, “We anticipate that the artifact assemblies and distributions at Castell Henllys could act as valuable evidence to correlate accidental discard with activity patterns.”
This turned out to be the case, but the amount of residues observed at the site exceeded its Expectations.
“We often find a small amount of fresh rubble when starting an excavation, or if we find a deliberate dump, but never inside a heritage or occupation building,” Harold Mytum, archaeologist at the University of Liverpool and first author of the new document, explained in an email.
This is not to say that the heritage site has been poorly managed. The circular houses were regularly cleaned to maintain the appearance of a prehistoric setting from the Iron Age. But as the new research shows, a surprising amount of trash managed to sneak into the ground, leading to the discovery of many elements. Needless to say, the vast majority of recovered items were found on Earthwatch, where the students ate their sandwiches. Most of the items were small and fragmentary in nature, such as broken packages, which explains why all the trash was not collected.
“Packages for children [lunch packs] they can damage the planet, they contain a lot of plastic and items fall off and are lost, ”Mytum said. “In addition, the candy wrappers are plasticized and are another environmental threat.”
Needless to say, the discovery of all this plastic, while it was certainly part of the experiment, forced archaeologists to alter their approach. The scientists had been recording all the findings, but had to adjust their resources “to do the evidence justice,” Mytum said. That said, it didn’t affect archaeologists’ ability to examine how buildings had deteriorated over decades. and to the document the different signatures left by our modern civilization.
“In fact, it revealed how the artifacts were incorporated into the floor and also where they were densest inside houses,” Mytum explained. “Prehistoric houses have fewer finds, but we can think about how the activities leave their mark on archeology.”
In the future, Mytum and his colleagues will continue to work with the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park to educate the public on these issues. and find more effective ways to keep these important spaces clean.
But it won’t be easy.
“Even well-managed rural places can have a significant accumulation of plastics in the soil,” Mytum said. “The Age of Plastic, an indicator of the Anthropocene, has in fact reached not only the oceans of the Blue Planet, but also its soils. Reducing the use of plastics is essential – these wastes were a by-product of our lifestyle, even in a place where obviously modern materials, such as plastic trash, are disposed of to avoid affecting the heritage visitor experience. “
To which he added: “If it’s that bad here, it’s a sign that our lifestyle needs to be rethought.”
