BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — In a place where spaceflight is soaring to new heights, one group of students is stuck on the ground as they explore history and find ancient artifacts at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. 

What You Need To Know

  • Local students from UCF are looking for artifacts near Cape Canaveral

  • The dig began with ground-penetrating radar

  • Some of the artifacts are 6,000 years old

Lauren Lehman is a senior archaeological student at UCF. She's working on completing her PHD. Her passion is digging for clues from the past.

"We cut it in half and see if there's a shape," Lauren explained as she worked inside the dig. "We take a trawl and take out what we want from that feature, so everything is as accurate as we can get it."

And being a part of the crew meticulously and carefully unearthing a trove of artifacts near two old gravesites at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This dig began as a ground penetrating radar survey of the graves.

The Pennys are thought to have settled here in the 1800s. But what the students discovered predates the couple by thousands of years. Sifting through the dirt has unveiled some incredible finds.

Like where early inhabitants may have built fires for warmth and cooking. "If we find a whole bunch of charcoal in here out of a screen, it goes into a bag," Lauren explained. "Then they can do AMS dating on it on this site."

"This was found with no pottery, no other artifacts, and it was found almost at the very bottom of a shovel test bed," said Tom Penders, the 45th Cultural Resources Manager, who oversees the base's historic sites. "So this tells me this was out here several thousand years before the people that were living here, were here."

During the dig the students have found remains of shellfish used for tools, seeds for planting crops, and pieces of pottery. Some of the artifacts date back six thousand years. What the students are discovering is history, but will be useful for their own futures.

Like Lauren who hopes to make this a career by working in archaeology in Southeast Asia. "I'm really excited about it," she says with a smile. Some of the site surveys completed by students can be used by the Space Force in new locations for launch pads and launch related facilities.