alt Hacker NewsStone Age settlement found under the sea in Denmark
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Given human propensity to settle near bodies of water (exhibited even to this day), and the change in sea levels after the last ice age, the bulk of intra-ice age settlement artifacts are probably submerged within a relatively short distance from our existing coastlines. I would be personally interested in an effort to systematically investigate these areas.
Related BBC podcast "In Our Time" about Doggerland, a landmass which was inhabited about ~10k years ago, but is now submerged in the north sea.
Every time I read an article like this I end up in a rabbit hole of reading about ice ages, sea level changes, and how the human evolved throughout it. It’s mind boggling that only 20000 years ago the sea level was 120 meters lower and much of Northern Europe was covered in ice
Not far away, but partially preserved by the mudflat, lies Rungholt. A city of ~1000-1500 (some sources say 3000) inhabitants that was drowned in the Grote Mandrenke (1362 AD). That's a very big city in that time. In my childhood we were told, while wandering the tidal flat, that we should listen closely if we could hear the church bells under the mud. Only in 2023 the whereabouts of the sunken city were definitely confirmed and mapped. "Rungholt" probably means "wrong/low wood".
Stonge Age settlements can be found in numerous cities around the world, above water and bustling with contemporary human activity.
One of the fun parts of genetic genealogy is that it's always exciting to see what old DNA turns up in archeological projects like these. It's a stretch to hope for, but wouldn't a paternal-line relative from Doggerland be cool...
It's interesting to me that items are well preserved. I thought salt water was particularly damaging and corrosive.
On a related note, since the Paleolithic rarely comes up on HN, something that seems to rarely come up in English language content; Menhir [1] (Long stone) or standing stones, which are spread all across Europe, some very elaborately decorated, others with sight holes cut in them, others extremely large, i.e., 30-40 feet tall before they were knocked over by the invasive meme, Christianity.
They are found from Portugal all the way to Siberia, but very little is known about them following the Christian meme eradicating the indigenous cultures through the many purges and programs from 300CE on.
There are some references that imply at least in some places they were a kind of connection to the afterlife and ancestors that would turn into birds that would perch on top of the standing stone, something that is still part of indigenous beliefs and practices in parts of Asia. It's basically the indigenous culture of the Native Europeans that middle eastern Christianity destroyed and eradicated like it destroyed and eradicated the Native Americans and so many other native people and cultures around the world.
This is not related to the story as such, but I live in Aarhus and this is the first I hear about it. I read three national news outlets and one specific to my local region of Østjylland a couple of times a day. I wonder if I should swap some of them. I know about black trashbags being thrown out of a window in the white house and then I find an actually interesting non-tech story about something happening right outside my house here on HN...