The Bridge at the Bottom of the Sea

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Hob H
Hob Nov 17, 2005 19:40:55
Replying to PeterH

>The geology is not going to give much if anything in the way of megaliths
Probably true, but you never know. We can live in hope. Though the Cornish and Irish coasts most likely offer a better chance of stoney stuff than the North Sea does.

>the people of the time when it was dry land would have been nomadic

Depends on how far from the present coastline you go I guess. I'm under the impression that there were still some fairly mobile folk kicking about in the neolithic. Admittedly, my Northumbriocentric perspective probably skews my view towards thinking that the meso/neo transition was longer than it may have been in other areas, but I do think that this underwater stuff could provide genuinely new information. Especially in expanding on the really old stuff. Maybe they'll dredge up some evidence about that alleged seaborne activity along the ice sheet.

What Fitz says about offshore dumping is so very true though, as is the point about erosion by currents. I've watched the ship that takes the aluminium smelting effluvia go about it's business of concreting the surface of a patch of the seabed off the Northumberland coast. Maybe in a strange way, this could protect sites from the erosion of currents. In ref to the shifting of the sands, the beaches up here are very different from the way they were even just 30 yrs ago. Yet still, in situ evidence of neolithic settlement has been found off the mouth of the Tyne, despite millenia of shifting currents and centuries of industrial shenanigans. Best think positive eh?

Cheers for't links PH, they look most interesting too.

P PeterH
PeterH Nov 17, 2005 20:12:06
Replying to Hob

Yes I do think its tremendously interesting too and what is really new is the ability to get information on the land formation beneath the accumulated sediment although it will never be possible to reach it other than by core sampling.

The other point to be stressed is that most of the land was lost at the end of the Palaeolithic and into the Mesolithic when house structures would have been largely temporary or seasonal. However, land has continued to be lost ever since and is still continuing. So there is every likelihood of Neolithic and later settlements and structures - Seahenge was constructed on dry land of course. Very important medieval towns like Dunwich and Walton were lost just a few hundred years ago and their stone remains are now several miles out to sea. The soft cliffs of East Anglia are being swept away at the rate of something like 20 and even 50 metres in a single season at some locations - modern houses, hotels and even streets are still being lost to the sea.

Forget Atlantis - there is a whole multi-period Lost World out there on our own doorstep. Exciting!