Ancient underwater world could be key to finding evidence of past civilisations

What we know today as the North and Baltic seas looked a whole lot different thousands of years ago (8,000 to 6,000 BCE to be exact), where there were vast plains.

Of course, this meant ancient human civilisations living in areas, but alas, the most recent Ice Age resulted in rising water levels, which submerged the low-lying lands - and ultimately goodbye to any civilisation thriving on these lands.

Now, these long-lost civilisations are set to be explored as part of a research collaboration known as SUBNORDICA with The University of Bradford’s Submerged Landscapes Research Centre in the U.K., TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands, Flanders Marine Institute, and the University of York.

Whereabouts are researchers planning to explore?

Doggerland is one of the ancient drowned lands located in the North Sea around 8,200 years ago that is set to be explored, while researchers say this area around the North and Baltic seas is "the most attractive land for prehistoric settlement anywhere in the continent.”

“Twenty-thousand years ago, the global sea level was 130 metres lower than at present. With progressive global warming and sea-level rise, unique landscapes, home to human societies for millennia, disappeared,” explained Vincent Gaffney, leader of the Submerged Landscapes Research Centre, in a press statement.

"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.”

You could say there is a time crunch for this kind of research, given that thousands of years ago since an extra 7.7 million square miles were above water (1.16 million square miles of this located along Europe’s existing coastline).

Fast forward to today, and this land is being developed for offshore wind farms installation to help prevent climate change - but as these greener alternatives develop, it could prove trickier for researchers running projects similar to SUBNORDICA to examine the area, hence the speed to carry out these investigations..

What could this research mean for our understanding of the past?

“SUBNORDICA will investigate the significance of ancient coastlines and its resources for humans. Through diving surveys in Aarhus Bay [in Denmark], we will determine how widespread coastal settlements were compared to those in the interior and determine how marine resources were exploited 9000 to 8500 years ago,” said Peter Moe Astrup, underwater archaeologist at Denmark’s Moesgaard Museum, in a press statement.

“This knowledge will then be used to target archaeological investigations in less accessible areas.”

Elsewhere from Indy100, Strange signal from the bottom of the ocean detected by scientists, and Archaeologists uncover identity of 1700s Orkney shipwreck.

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