Aman walking his dog in the United Kingdom inadvertently helped archaeologists and geologists make surprising discoveries at a local beach, officials say.
Northumberland Coast National Landscape officials published a blog post about the recent discoveries last week. The dog walker was on a stroll at Foxton Bay in Northumberland, located in North East England, when he spotted unusual pits near the shore.
Officials thought that the pits could possibly be graves dating back to the Bronze Age or the medieval era. But experts changed their minds after an excavation.
“These pits are thought to be bait or fish tanks from the post-medieval or modern periods rather than burial costs,” the blog post explained. “Key features of the tanks are side and base slabs made of shale and a thick clay lining. They are around 1m x 0.5m and an almost oval shape and have no top slabs.”
Nothumberland Coast National Landscape communicators officer Helen Wilson-Beevers told Fox News Digital that one of the pits was noticed back in 2013, but the rest of the structures were unknown to officials.
“Our current hypothesis is that they date back to somewhere between the 17th and 20th centuries,” Wilson-Beevers explained.
