By: Alice Baghdjian LONDON (REUTERS).- An early prehistoric
hearth has been discovered on the planned construction site for
a branch of major British supermarket chain Sainsbury's. The
charcoal remains, excavated from the site in Nairn, a town in
the Scottish Highlands, date back to the Mesolithic period
(10,000 to 4000 BC). They are believed to have been a temporary
traveling stop rather than a settlement, due to the absence of
any further Mesolithic findings at the site. "An extremely large
quantity of wood charcoal fragments was recovered from the
hearth. The size of the fragments suggests either deliberate
deposition or in-situ burning," said Headland Archaeology, who
carried out the excavation, in a report. Archaeologists used
carbon-dating of the charcoal to determine the age of the
hearth. However, dating a site from this particular substance is
problematic, due the potential time lag between the felling of
the tree and the burning of the material, the report said. The
excavation, commissioned by Briti