Some 300 years ago , the minuscule land town of Broo in Scotland ’s Shetland Islands , Britain ’s northernmost group of island , became engulfed in grit after an onset of freak sandstorms . Around the mid-1750s , the once - prolific land was riddled with sand and the house physician were finally force to abandon the town after their dwelling house were obliterated . A clergyman visiting the island in 1774 said the area see like an “ Arabian desert in miniature ” .
Despite the ruinous terms inflicted on this small settlement , most of the surrounding farms and communities remained relatively whole . Ever since , people have been unsure about what the hell went on all those years ago . It turn out , sheep and cony might be to blame .
In a new study published in theJournal of Archaeological Science , a team of geographers , archeologist , and historians from theShetland Islands Climate and Settlement Projectdescribe how they have now excavate the site and helped put together some of the pieces of the puzzler .
They used a combination of historic documents , artifacts , geomorphology , and sand analysis . They even used a winding - simulator to observe how far the sands could move in the outcome of a gusty storm . As shown by the multiple layers of sand , the township ’s destruction come about over decades although the last abandonment was probably abrupt .
One of the independent drivers of the freak sandstorms was a “ Little Ice Age ” in the 16th and 17th centuries that caused an strange amount of storminess in the Northern Isles , the Western Isles , and Mainland Scotland . This geological fault in clime also caused erosion damage , have the exposure of more sand on the beach due to drop ocean levels . These two events combine seemed to be the perpetrator .
However , other neighboring settlements managed to stand solidly against these storms without too much damage . So what was so different about Broo ?
It appears that the shoreline around Broo had a significant personnel casualty of vegetation around the meter of the town ’s abandonment . The investigator speculate this was induce by sheep overgrazing or an invading species , such as coney , which were brought from mainland Scotland before the 1500s , munching down on all the pot . The absence of this grassy flora , which antecedently maintain the flaxen shoreline " anchored " together , think of the Baroness Dudevant was easily sprayed across the poor Ithiel Town of Broo when storms surged .
That ’s the theory so far , at least , although the research worker will uphold to carry out fieldwork and gather data in a bid to put this run whodunit to layer .
[ H / TScience Magazine ]
