BAY OF AARHUS, Denmark (AP) — Beneath the darkish blue waters of the Bay of Aarhus in northern Denmark, archaeologists seek for coastal settlements swallowed by rising sea ranges greater than 8,500 years in the past.
This summer season, divers descended about 8 meters (26 ft) beneath the waves near Aarhus, Denmark’s second-biggest metropolis, and picked up proof of a Stone Age settlement from the seabed.
It is a part of a 13.2 million euro ($15.5 million) six-year worldwide mission to map elements of the seabed within the Baltic and North Seas, funded by the European Union, that features researchers in Aarhus in addition to from the U.Okay.’s College of Bradford and the Decrease Saxony Institute for Historic Coastal Analysis in Germany.
The objective is to discover sunken Northern European landscapes and uncover misplaced Mesolithic settlements as offshore wind farms and different sea infrastructure broaden.
International sea ranges rose after the final ice age
Most proof of such settlements up to now has been discovered at places inland from the Stone Age coast, stated underwater archaeologist Peter Moe Astrup, who’s main underwater excavations in Denmark.
“Right here, we even have an outdated shoreline. We have now a settlement that was positioned immediately on the shoreline,” he stated. “What we truly attempt to discover out right here is how was life at a coastal settlement.”
After the final ice age, enormous ice sheets melted and international sea ranges rose, submerging Stone Age settlements and forcing the hunter-gatherer human inhabitants inland.
About 8,500 years in the past, sea ranges rose by about 2 meters (6.5 ft) per century, Moe Astrup stated.
Moe Astrup and colleagues on the Moesgaard Museum in Højbjerg, simply exterior Aarhus, have excavated an space of about 40 sq. meters (430 sq. ft) on the small settlement they found simply off immediately’s coast.
Rising sea ranges preserved historical past “like a time capsule”
Early dives uncovered animal bones, stones instruments, arrowheads, a seal tooth, and a small piece of labored wooden, possible a easy device. The researchers are combing the positioning meter by meter utilizing a type of underwater vacuum cleaner to gather materials for future evaluation.
They hope additional excavations will discover harpoons, fish hooks or traces of fishing buildings.
“It’s like a time capsule,” Moe Astrup stated. “When sea stage rose, the whole lot was preserved in an oxygen-free surroundings … time simply stops.”
“We discover utterly well-preserved wooden,” he added. “We discover hazelnut. … All the things is effectively preserved.”
Excavations within the comparatively calm and shallow Bay of Aarhus and dives off the coast of Germany shall be adopted by later work at two places within the extra inhospitable North Sea.
The ocean stage rise 1000’s of years in the past submerged, amongst different issues, an unlimited space often known as Doggerland that related Britain with continental Europe and now lies beneath the southern North Sea.
To construct an image of the speedy rise of the waters, Danish researchers are utilizing dendrochronology, the research of tree rings.
Submerged tree stumps preserved in mud and sediment could be dated exactly, revealing when rising tides drowned coastal forests.
“We will say very exactly when these bushes died on the coastlines,” Moesgaard Museum dendrochronologist Jonas Ogdal Jensen stated as he peered at a piece of Stone Age tree trunk by means of a microscope.
“That tells us one thing about how the ocean stage modified by means of time.”
As immediately’s world faces rising sea ranges pushed by local weather change, the researchers hope to make clear how Stone Age societies tailored to shifting coastlines greater than eight millennia in the past.
“It’s exhausting to reply precisely what it meant to individuals,” Moe Astrup stated. “But it surely clearly had a huge effect in the long term as a result of it utterly modified the panorama.”
Sea ranges rose by a worldwide common of round 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches) within the decade as much as 2023.
