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Archaeologists find 2,000 pieces of plastic at Iron Age site
elisfkc2 / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
Plastic will be the likely calling card of our time on Earth when modern sites are excavated by future researchers. And plastic is leaving its mark at historic sites as well, according to a new study.
Castell Henllys is the site of an Iron Age village in the Welsh Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. It was once home to a wealthy family that included a community of up to 100 people who worked together to produce food and materials 2,000 years ago.
The rural site of the hill fort includes four reconstructed roundhouses, which are circular structures with conical roofs made of wood and straw. Archaeologists and researchers rebuilt these structures using the same materials villagers would have used during the Iron Age.
Archaeologists just found a lot of plastic at an archaeological site
More than 2,300 pieces of plastic were found in a digging site in Wales.
There’s plastic everywhere. We’re living in a plastic age, and we see this every day around us: on the ground, in the seas, even in the air we breathe and that’s not even it. Now, researchers have even found plastic (including a Godzilla thermos wrapper) inside an archaeological site.
The roundhouses that were demolished. Image credit: The researchers
Located in Wales, Castell Henllys Iron Age Village is an archeological site and a tourist attraction. It’s essentially an Iron Age fort with reconstructed roundhouses that visitors can walk through while learning about history. The roadhouses were reconstructed on the same spot where the original structures stood around 2,000 years ago.
Archaeologists find 2,000 pieces of plastic at Iron Age site kitv.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from kitv.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Archaeologists Uncover Disturbing Amount of Plastic Waste at Iron Age Site
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Godzilla-themed thermos wrapper: One of over 2,000 waste items found at the Castell Henllys site. (Image: H. Mytum et al., 2021/Antiquity)
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One by one, the archaeologists stumbled upon pieces of junk. Using techniques typically reserved for documenting stone tools and bones, the team recorded such items as plastic spoons, eye glasses, bottle caps, straws, mobile phone batteries, paint can lids, candy wrappers, and plastic wrap. By the time the experiment was over, the archaeologists had uncovered nearly 3,000 items, the vast majority of them made of plastic.