New Project Will Search for Lost Stone Age Settlements on Sea Floors
An international team of researchers has been awarded a grant of more than £11.5 million (about $14.5 million USD) to organize an underwater archaeological survey of ancient ruins that are currently submerged beneath the Baltic Sea and the North Sea in northwestern Europe. These now-flooded and ruined Stone Age settlements, existed more than three million years ago and only ended sometime between 4,000 and 2,000 BC.
The upcoming explorations of the underwater Stone Age settlements will be carried out under the auspices of the SUBNORDICA project, a cooperative venture to be undertaken by underwater archaeologists and other researchers from several European nations, including Germany, Denmark and the United Kingdom. The first SUBNORDICA missions will be launched sometime in the first half of 2024, and they are expected to produce results that will illuminate ancient mysteries about the lifestyles and settlement patterns of Stone Age peoples.
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The SUBNORDICA project is being funded by the European Research Council, a collective enterprise that supports scientific and technical research conducted in nations that are a part of the European Union.
In total there are four institutions participating in SUBNORDIA: the Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research (NIhK) in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, Aarhus University in Aarhus, Denmark, and the Museum Moesgaard, an archaeological museum in Denmark that is affiliated with Aarhus University. The project team will also include researchers from the University of York in England, the Geological Survey of the Netherlands and the Flanders Marine Institute of Belgium, highlighting its unquestioned international flavor.
Submerged landscapes (in red) at the end of the last Glacial Maximum. Archaeologists are hoping to encounter Stone Age settlements during their upcoming explorations. (The University of Bradford)
Resurrecting Submerged Stone Age Settlements
Archaeologists and ancient historians are certain that abundant ruins and artifacts from ancient civilizations are lying around on the North and Baltic Sea bottoms, frozen in time beneath the rough waves of these northern outlets of the Atlantic Ocean. Fortunately, these ruins have been protected from the erosive forces that would have left them crumbled and decayed had they remained on the earth’s surface.
At the end of the last period of glaciation, which occurred between 15,000 and 8,000 years ago, the melting of all that ice caused a dramatic rise in sea levels across the globe. Since prehistoric people often settled along coastlines, just as humans commonly do now, the flooding that followed the melting of the glaciers would have inevitably submerged many of these ancient Stone Age settlements.
According to the latest calculations, sea levels around the globe were at least 330 feet (100 meters) lower than they are today before the end of the last glaciation. By the time sea waters had finished rising to their current levels, approximately 7.7 million square miles (20 million square kilometers) of land adjacent to the planet’s coastlines would have been flooded and ultimately lost forever beneath the surfaces of Earth’s oceans.
As a result of this global catastrophe, an incredible collection of ruins and other artifacts from ancient civilizations disappeared from view, as the people who built and occupied them were displaced and forced to move inland. This has created a gap in researchers’ understanding of ancient history, one that can really only be filled through the efforts of underwater archaeological experts to explore sea floors located near present-day coastal areas.
Underwater excavation, example from the NIhK excavation at from Strande, Germany. (Christian Howe)
Conducting Underwater Exploration Before It’s Too Late
Along the prehistoric coasts of the North and Baltic Seas, there were more than 1.2 million square miles (three million square kilometers) of inhabitable land flooded by rising sea levels. This land included fertile coastal plains, verdant river valleys, crystal clear fresh-water lakes, expansive shorelines and a few offshore islands. The area would have been ideal for human settlement, which is why the SUBNORDICA project experts have targeted the North and Baltic Sea bottoms for extensive exploration.
There is another reason why the SUBNORDICA initiative is being launched now. There are growing concerns that wind farms and other renewable energy projects being installed along northern European sea coasts could result in the destruction of sensitive underwater archaeological sites, which would be most abundant relatively close to shore.
“Twenty-thousand years ago, the global sea level was 130 meters lower than at present. With progressive global warming and sea-level rise, unique landscapes, home to human societies for millennia, disappeared,” archaeologist Vincent Gaffney, the leader of the Submerged Landscapes Research Centre at the University of Bradford.
“We know almost nothing about the people who lived on these great plains. As Europe and the world approaches net zero, development of the coastal shelves is now a strategic priority. SUBNORDICA will use the latest technologies to explore these lands and support sustainable development.”
The SUBNORDICA mission will be nothing if not thorough. Its roster of researchers will include experts in archaeology, marine geology, geophysics, paleoclimatology, computer modeling and simulation, artificial intelligence, submersible technology and other fields who will either be assisting in the underwater explorations or helping to interpret their findings.
Principle Investigators: Dr Katrine Juul Andresen, Professor Vincent Gaffney, Dr Svea Mahlstedt, Dr Peter Moe Astrup. (Katrine Juul Andresen)
Beneath the Oceans, Lost Ancient Civilizations are Waiting to Be Found
One of the most experienced participants in this exciting project will be Geoff Bailey, a British archaeology professor from the University of York who also teaches at Flinders University in Australia. Professor Bailey was recruited to the project in part because he has led underwater explorations of submerged landscapes before, in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea and the coastal areas of western Australia.
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“The submerged landscapes of the continental shelf are a major gap in our understanding of human history and their investigation is a worldwide challenge,” Professor Bailey stated in a University of York press release. “This project will bring together the necessary concentration of resources and expertise to make decisive advances in knowledge, especially in exploring the more deeply submerged landscapes that were drowned by postglacial sea-level rise.”
While there has been much speculation over the last few decades about sunken ruins from lost civilizations (like those from Atlantis, for example) that might be found off of the world’s coastlines, the SUBNORDICA project will be the most extensive effort yet launched seeking tangible proof of this fascinating possibility.
Top image: Representational image of a marine archaeologist. Source: Microgen / Adobe Stock
By Nathan Falde
