Workers organize demesne for a succeeding rocket launch site in the United Kingdom ’s Shetland Islands were surprised when they stumble on a keepsake of the Bronze Age : an arrangement of I. F. Stone , pits and burnt bones that hint the site was once a cremation memorial park .
SaxaVord Spaceport is on Unst , Shetland , the most northerly inhabited island in the United Kingdom . Thespaceport ’s ground stationwill consist of antennae supporting satellite operations , though the late Bronze Age discovery was made while proletarian were laying the base for a rocket launch site .
The site was assess by AOC Archaeology . Thespaceport statedthat the discovery will not impact the ongoing grammatical construction piece of work on the site .
The SaxaVord Spaceport site on Unst.Photo:SaxaVord
“ The phone number and concentration of cremations evoke that the location of their find was likely a cremation cemetery that may have been in continuous use over time in prehistoric culture , ” said Katie O’Connell , a penis of the AOC Archaeology squad , accordingto the BBC . “ Though digging is only begin , there may be a relation between the bombastic stones , alignment of pits , the quartz place setting , and the cremation burial ground , suggesting that together these form part of a ritual complex . ”
The corpse of an former Bronze Age ritual ceremonial occasion may have been discovered during building on our launch web site .
We ’re now work with@aocarchaeologyto teach the full account about our historic situation and Unst ’s rich past.pic.twitter.com/xsvbcfcitq
— SaxaVord Spaceport UK ( @SaxaVord_Space)July 21 , 2023
AOC Archaeology Group works on a turn of key projects around the U.K. , include Iron Age crannogs in Galloway and residential area excavations of a roundhouse at Moredun Top , both in Scotland .
Rockets plunge from the website may carry small-scale satellites into low Earth polar orbit and sun - synchronous orbit , found on the satellite operations the spaceport ’s ground place connection will oversee .
A planning license for the spaceport was granted last February , asreportedby the BBC . In January , SaxaVord and Rocket Factory Augsburg AGannouncedthat the latter party ’s first escape will be from SaxaVord ’s launch site in Unst ; that launch is slated for the end of 2023 .
Bronze Age Britain is remarkably accessible to archaeologists thanks to the elbow room situation maintain , especially those in water . The Bronze Age settlement ofMust Farm was stupendously preservedwhen the village burn down and its remains down in a river , preserving many of the timber and the population ’s artifacts under river silt . In 2021 , maintenance workers found a4,000 - year - old , half - ton coffinin a golf grade water fortune in Grimsby .
Earlier this twelvemonth , theearliest cases of the pestilence in Britainwere discovered in Bronze Age remains in Somerset and Cumbria .
More : Social Inequality , married couple Habits , and Other Clues to Bronze Age Life let on in New Study
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