Tracing Our Ancestors at the Bottom of the Sea

wave-sepia
Photograph: © SAF — Coastal Care

Excerpts;

A specialist group of European researchers are studying traces of prehistoric human settlements which are now submerged beneath our coastal seas. Some of these drowned sites are tens of thousands of years old, and have been found in the coastal waters and open sea basins around Europe..

The European Marine Board (EMB) report titled Land Beneath the Waves: Submerged Landscapes and Sea-Level Change, describes how during the successive ice ages of the last 1 million years, the sea level dropped at times by up to 120m, and the exposed area of the continental shelf added 40% to the land area of Europe; a terrain occupied by vegetation, fauna, and people. Consequently, many of the remains and artefacts of Europe’s prehistory are now underwater.

The drowned land includes some of the earliest routes from Africa into Europe, and the areas where people survived during the multiple Ice Ages…

Read Full Article, European Science Foundation

Europe’s Oldest Footprints Uncovered On English Coast, Science Daily (02-10-2014)

Prehistoric North Sea ‘Atlantis’ Hit By 5m Tsunami, BBC News (05-05-2014)
A prehistoric “Atlantis” in the North Sea may have been abandoned after being hit by a 5m tsunami 8,200 years ago…

Archaeological Sites and Rising Seas: The Channel Islands’ Region, California; Smithsonian Institution (11-06-2010)

Latest Posts + Popular Topics