by Archaeologists research the dark blue water of the Denmark bay of Aarhus and search for old settlements on the coast, which were swallowed by increasing sea level more than 8,500 years ago.
This summer, the divers rose around eight meters below the waves near Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, and collected evidence for a stone time settlement from the sea floor.
This is part of a six -year international project of € 13.2 million (€ 11.3 million GBP), which is financed by the European Union. This includes researchers from Aarhus, the British University of Bradford, and the German Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research.
The aim is to map parts of the Baltic and North Sea beds, to explore sunken Northern European landscapes and to uncover lost mesolithic settlements, while offshore wind farms and other sea infrastructures expand.
The global sea level rose after the last ice age
A diver covers an 8,500-year-old coastal settlement from the Stone Age, which is immersed by the increase in sea level in the Bay of Aarhus (Soren Christian Bec).
The underwater archaeologist Peter Moe Astrup, which conducted leading underwater excavations in Denmark, noticed that most evidence of such settlements has so far been found in locations in the interior of the Stone Age coast.
“We actually have an old coast here. We have a settlement that was positioned directly on the coast,” he said. “We actually try to find out how life was in a coastal settlement.”
After the last ice age, huge ice sheets and the global sea level rose, with the settlements of the Stone Age immersed and the human population of the hunter collector forced in the interior.
About 8,500 years ago, sea level rose about 2 meters (6.5 feet) per year, said Moe Astrup.
Moe Astrup and colleagues at the Moesgaard Museum in Højbjerg, just outside of Aarhus, have excavated an area of around 40 square meters (430 square meters) at the small settlement that they discovered directly off today’s coast.
Increasing sea level saved the story “like a time capsule”
Tree stumps in the mud and sediment can be dated exactly and show when the tides drowned drowned coastal forests (Associated Press/James Brooks)
Early dives discovered animal bones, stone tools, arrowheads, a sealing tooth and a small piece of wood processed, probably a simple tool. The researchers comb the location knife with a kind of underwater vacuum cleaner with a measuring device to collect material for future analysis.
They hope that further excavations will find harpoons, fish hooks or traces of fishing structures.
“It’s like a time capsule,” said Moe Astrup. “When the sea level rose, everything was preserved in an oxygen -free environment … The time just ends.”
“We find completely well preserved wood,” he added. “We find hazelnut. … everything is well preserved.”
Excavations in the relatively calm and flat bay of Aarhus and dived off the coast of Germany, later in two places in the inhospitable North Sea.
The sea level rises thousands of years ago, including a huge area known as Doggerland and combined Great Britain with continental Europe and is now located under the southern North Sea.
In order to build a picture of the fast rise of the water, Danish researchers use the Dendrochronology, the examination of Baumrings.
Excavations in the relatively calm and flat bay of Aarhus and diving off the coast of Germany later in two places in the more inhospitable North Sea (Associated Press/James Brooks)
Tree stumps in the mud and sediment can be dated and show when the increases of the coastal forests drowned rising tides.
“We can say exactly when these trees died on the coasts,” said dendrochronologist Jonas Ogdal Jensen, the dendrochronologist of the Moesgaard when he spied through a microscope in a section of the Stone Age tree trunks.
“That tells us something about how the sea level has changed over time.”
Since today’s world is increasing by climate change, the researchers hope for light on how the Stone Age companies adapted to the relocation of the coast more than eight years ago.
“It is difficult to answer exactly what it meant to people,” said Moe Astrup. “But in the long run it clearly had a big influence because it completely changed the landscape.”
The sea level rose by a global average of around 4.3 centimeters in the decade by 2023.
