Ancient chariot grave found at construction site for Intel facility in Germany

German archaeologists discovered a complex ancient burial ground, including a chariot grave, while excavating an industrial park where construction is set to begin on a new facility for Intel, the American chip manufacturing company. 

The site is near Magdeburg, about 100 miles west of Berlin, and plans to build two semiconductor plants on the land is meant to begin later this year. Archaeologists from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt have been examining the area in the Eulenberg municipality since 2023, and, ahead of the construction project's start date, realized that a small hill in the industrial park actually contained burial mounds dating back to the Neolithic period. 

Beneath the hill were were two "monumental mounds" covering wooden grave chambers with multiple burials inside, the state heritage office said in a news release issued Friday. The burial sites are believed to be around 6,000 years old and included remnants of ancient rituals like a chariot grave, where cattle were sacrificed and buried with a human body in a particular formation to mimic a cart with a driver or a plow pulled by the animals.