Photo courtesy of Australian Institute of Marine Science via AIMS website.
By Sarah Grinnell ’26
Science and Environment Editor
In the modern world, we see plastic everywhere: It’s in our clothes and technology, it litters the streets and it abounds in the ocean.
Now, a new study by the University of York shows plastic is now even being found in the traces of our distant history, as microplastics have recently been identified in ancient remains for the first time — some were even found in soil deposits from as far back as the first or second century CE, CNN reported.
According to NDTV, the findings — published in the Science of the Total Environment journal — were made by analyzing both modern and archived soil samples, which CNN said were buried more than seven meters deep beneath the ground. Sixteen different microplastic polymer types were then identified in the deposits.
Microplastics are small particles of plastic, roughly between 1μm — one-thousandth of a millimeter — and 5 mm in size, Science Daily explained. They are created when larger pieces of plastic are degraded. Microplastics can also be made from resin pellets, which were used in plastic manufacturing and particularly in the production of beauty products until 2020.
While, according to CNN, microplastics and their proliferation have been a topic of concern for human health and the environment for many years now, they could now also pose a threat to the field of archaeology. The discovery has raised alarm about the consequences of human activity on archaeological preservation as, according to Chief Executive Officer of York Archaeology David Jennings, the plastic particles “may compromise the scientific value of archaeological deposits.”
According to, John Schofield, a professor and director of studies in the University of York’s Department of Archaeology shared that “what were previously thought to be pristine archaeological deposits, ripe for investigation, are in fact contaminated with plastics, and . . . this includes deposits sampled and stored in the late 1980s.”
Similarly to Schofield, Mount Holyoke College Professor of Geology Mark McMenamin called this an “awful development” in an email interview with Mount Holyoke News, asserting that “microplastic infiltration and contamination can damage the integrity of archaeological sites in multiple ways.”
According to McMenamin, “plastics can infiltrate and interact with buried organic materials,” and “the process of using geochemical proxies to understand recent and ancient climate fluctuations will be compromised if artifacts, organic remains and sediment matrix chemical signatures become contaminated by microplastics.”
McMenamin continued, saying that “there is a real spectrum from completely untouched to thoroughly spoiled by grave robbers, artifact hunters and uncaring excavation crews.” However, for McMenamin, “a pristine site has three things intact: the physical relationships between its various items, its stratigraphy and its geochemistry,” all of which could potentially be threatened by plastic’s presence.
Jennings added in the CNN article that because “the presence of microplastics can and will change the chemistry of the soil, potentially introducing elements which will cause the organic remains to decay . . . preserving archaeology in situ may no longer be appropriate.”
McMenamin explained “in situ” as the “old time gold miners’” logic that “artifacts are where you find them.”
Using the example of the “fluted projectile points” that were excavated at the Templeton, or 6LF21, site in Western Connecticut, McMenamin said that archaeological samples such as these “take on much more significance because they [are] found with associated artifacts in an undisturbed stratigraphic setting.”
According to Digging into the Past, the fluted fragments found at this particular site offered evidence that Paleo-Indian groups employed the area as a tool-making camp, affirming that, in their settlement patterns, temporary camps would be erected to make tools while on the move.
According to the Smithsonian website, an artifact that is not studied in the location it is found in will be “out of context and will not provide an accurate picture of its historical context.”
McMenamin used the example of fossils that are "naturally displaced from their original stratigraphic context" by geological processes and how this “can lead to deceptive situations where fossils of different ages are right next to each other."
Therefore, according to CNN, in-site contamination with plastic could have drastic ramifications for this cornerstone of archaeological study and the accuracy of the data recorded in the event that contamination renders in-situ study inert.
Given the magnitude of plastic pollution that this discovery disconcertingly displays, McMenamin stressed that the best way we can “help prevent further contamination” to these historic sites is “by improving our rate of plastic recycling, which currently stands at an abysmal 10%.”
That being said, not much is currently known about the exact chemical effects that microplastics will have on the deposits, CNN reported. However, the article noted that York researchers are committed to further investigation, with Schofield stating that “to what extent this contamination compromises the evidential value of these deposits and their national importance is what we'll try to find out next."