Posted on 08/10/2007 11:53:32 AM PDT by neverdem
Washington, Aug 10 (ANI): Archaeologists have found the remains of a busy Stone Age settlement dating back 8000 years on the floor of the English Channel.
The site, just off the Isle of Wight, dates back to the time when Europe and Britain were still linked by land.
Garry Momber, director of the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology, which led the recent excavations, said melting glaciers probably filled in the Channel, driving the settlement's last occupants north to higher ground.
"This is the only site of its kind in the United Kingdom," said Momber.
"It is important because this is the period when modern people were blossoming, just coming out of the end of the Ice Age, living more like we do today in the valleys and lowlands," he said.
Scientists discovered the site accidentally 10 years ago, when lobsters mucking around the seabed revealed a cache of Mesolithic flints. This prompted further excavations that uncovered two hearths dangling precariously from the edge of an underwater cliff.
Burnt wood fragments gouged with cut marks and a layer of wood chippings was found lying under 35 feet of water during the latest dig.
Divers brought the material to the surface still embedded in slabs of the sea floor that were carried up in specially-designed boxes, which were then pieced back together and examined and dated in the lab.
"We now have unequivocal evidence of human activity at the site," said Momber.
"There were people here actively making stuff and being quite industrious," Livescience quoted him as saying.
Momber said at 8,000-years-old, the settlement was the only underwater Mesolithic site in Britain, though it was probably part of a much larger area of occupation yet to be uncovered.
"As the climate began to warm up near the end of the Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, people were moving into Northern Europe and settling down in the many river valleys left behind by melting glaciers. Many of the valleys, such as the ones now beneath the English Channel, were eventually inundated completely when temperatures returned to normal," said Momber.
"A good chunk of the material left behind from this cultural period is eventually going to be found underwater," he said. (ANI)
GGG ping.
GW/CC ping
“There were people here actively making stuff and being quite industrious,”
Europeans and industrious
No way mate.
ping
“Wwwwwiiiillllmmmaaa,” yells Fred Flintstone.
8,000 yrs ago? Then that got to be the lost Garden of Eden....
We’ve melted the glaciers and slain the Mastodons!! My carbon credit payment must have bounced.
I bet Global warming was the cause........
Huh, Huh, Global warming again...........
This is why all of you deniers need to be rounded up and put into camps where you can’t interfere with the plans of your intellectual superiors. Isn’t this exactly what Pope Al warned us about: Its getting warmer, the oceans are going to expand, drowning all of our coastal cities and we are all doomed unless we embrace socialism now.
What’s that you say? Its already happened? The Earth got warmer, the glaciers melted, and we all had to move to higher ground. When? 10,000 years ago. Oh, never mind.
This site was discovered accidentally by lobsters?
Obviously doing stuff Americans won't do anymore.. Obviously their southern border was also very porous - let in too much water..
How'd they make the lobsters talk?
"Tell us where you found them flints boys or we'll boil you alive!"
I always question the professionalism and the integrity of any scientist who makes absurd absolute statements like that one.
is it too much trouble to state what is known?
...the settlement was the only [known] underwater Mesolithic site in Britain...
Is much more accurate. Totally different "larger area of occupation" may remain to be found.
8000? they must have found those calenders you get from the local funeral homes
Bush’s fault...
waitaminut....glaciers 8000 years ago melted?? Ya mean glowbull warming was going on 8000 years ago??
Global warming 8000 yrs ago- Bush’s fault!
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