Scientists find new evidence of massive tsunami that devastated ancient Britain in 6200BC

The North Sea, Storegga underwater landslide event run-out, associated deposit locations

and core ELF001A [Credit: Gaffney et al. 2020]

Evidence of the catastrophic event has already been found in onshore sediments in Western Scandinavia, the Faroe Isles, northeast Britain, Denmark and Greenland but now for the first time confirmation of the event has been found on the UK’s southern coasts.

The giant tsunami, known as the Storegga Slide, was caused when an area of seabed the size of Scotland (measuring some 80,000sq km and around 3,200 cubic km) shifted suddenly.

This triggered huge waves that would have brought devastation to an inhabited ancient land bridge, which once existed between the UK and mainland Europe - an area known as Doggerland - that is now submerged beneath the North Sea.

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The clues to ancient humans hidden beneath the sea

Submerged in eleven metres of water sits a landscape that could contain tantalising clues to Britain’s earliest farmers. It’s also at serious threat from erosion by the sea - meaning a race against time to discover and preserve as much as possible.

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Neanderthal extinction in Western Mediterranean area not caused by climate change

Stalagmites are ecellent paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental archives

[Credit: O. Lacarbonara]

The study, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, focused on the Murge karst plateau in Puglia, where Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived together for at least three thousand years, from about 45,000 to 42,000 years ago. A period during which data extracted from stalagmites do not show significant climate change.

"The Apulian area we are researching emerges as a 'climate niche' during the transition between Neanderthal and Modern Man," explains researcher Andrea Columbu, the first author of the study. "It is therefore unlikely that drastic changes in climate have led to the disappearance of Neanderthals in Apulia and, by extension, in similar Mediterranean climatic areas".

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New research shows climate was the key factor impacting the movement of the first farmers across Europe

The four major axes of expansion of the Neolithic migration, with key dates noted

[Credit: University of Roehampton]

The research, a collaboration between the University of Roehampton, the University of Cambridge and several other institutions, combined archaeological data with palaeoclimatic reconstructions to show for the first time that climate dramatically impacted the migration of people across Europe, causing a dramatic slowdown between 6,100 BCE and 4,500 BCE.

The research team, including Dr. Lia Betti, Senior Lecturer of the University of Roehampton, assembled a large database of the first arrival dates of Neolithic farmers across the continent and studied the speed of their migration in relation to climatic reconstructions of the time. They also re-analysed ancient DNA data to understand the interaction between early farmers and local hunter-gatherers.

They discovered migration started quickly out of south-eastern Europe, with Neolithic farmers pushing out the existing hunter-gatherer population. This was demonstrated by how little the DNA of the two groups mixed. As they moved north, the climate became less suitable for the crops they had bought with them. Their pace of movement slowed, changing how they interacted with local hunter-gatherers, which can be seen through increased genetic admixture of the two groups.

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Klima war der Schlüsselfaktor bei der Ausbreitung der ersten Bauern in Europa

Die vier Hauptausdehnungsachsen der neolithischen Migration in Europa.
Karte: University of Roehampton

Das Forschungsteam stellte eine große Datenbank mit den ersten Ankunftsdaten neolithischer Bauern auf dem ganzen Kontinent zusammen und untersuchte die Geschwindigkeit ihrer Wanderung im Zusammenhang mit klimatischen Rekonstruktionen der damaligen Zeit. Sie analysierten auch alte DNA-Daten erneut, um die Interaktion zwischen frühen Bauern und lokalen Jägern und Sammlern besser zu verstehen.

Dabei stellten die Wissenschaftler fest, dass die Migration von Südosteuropa aus schnell begann, wobei die neolithischen Bauern die bestehende Jäger-Sammler-Population verdrängten. Dies zeigte sich daran, wie wenig sich die DNA der beiden Gruppen vermischte. Als sie nach Norden zogen, wurde das Klima weniger geeignet für die Feldfrüchte, die sie mit sie mit sich brachten. Die Ausbreitungsgeschwindigkeit verlangsamte sich und veränderte die Art und Weise, wie die Neuankömmlinge mit den lokalen Jägern und Sammlern interagierten, was sich an der zunehmenden genetischen Vermischung der beiden Gruppen ablesen lässt.

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Ancient peoples in Patagonia who adapted to changing climate offer insights for today

Torres del Paine National Park in southern Chile. Credit: Akshay Nanavati via Unsplash

New research has uncovered how an ancient human population adapted effectively to climate change, offering insights that are useful for the environmental challenges of today. The recent study examines the fishing patterns of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Patagonia, a region at the southern tip of South America. Archaeologists used fish remains to piece together thousands of years of history in the region, painting a fuller picture of the area's prehistoric societies and how they interacted with and transformed their natural surroundings.

A team of Chilean and French archaeologists examined the bones of tadpole codling, a native fish, to determine the seasonal fishing habits of the area's ancient societies. Tadpole codling live on the rocky continental shelves along southern Patagonia's coastline and in the Strait of Magellan, a channel that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Along with fishing artifacts, tadpole codling remains are abundant throughout the region, indicating that they were a common food source for prehistoric peoples.

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Prehistoric ocher mine in Mexico delights archaeologists

A diver collecting samples in the ocher mine

An ancient ocher mine discovered in submerged caves on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula has given insights into the lives of some of the first inhabitants of the Americas. The site goes back around 12,000 years.

Researchers in Mexico have published findings over a huge ancient ocher mine lying in caves filled with water beneath Yucatan Pensinsula.

In an article published on Friday in the journal Science Advances, scientists said more than 100 dives totaling more than 600 hours had been carried out at the site, during which a large number of mining artifacts were discovered. Divers explored some 4.3 miles (7 km) of subterranean passages in three separate cave systems.

Operations to mine ocher at the site in what is now Quintana Roo state began some 12,000 years ago, as human populations first spread through the region, and went on for about 2,000 years.

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New discoveries at the Underwater Park of Baia

Credit: Parco Archeologico Campi Flegrei

During the research activities that the Archaeological Park of the Phlegrean Fields is carrying out in view of the opening of new routes, a marble table support (trapezoforo) decorated with a feline head was recovered from the seabed this morning.

The operation was carried out by technicians from the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park supported by the Harbour Master's Office - Locamare di Baia and Naumacos Underwater Archaeology.

Immediately after the recovery operations the find was transported to the laboratories of the Bay Castle for the first preservation measures.

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Medieval Italian village may resurface in 2021

The waters of Lake Vagli in Tuscany are the hiding place of a medieval village. Plans are now being made to reveal this site once again in 2021.

Media from Italy and around the world have been reporting that the waters of Lake Vagli, a man-made reservoir, will be drained next year, which would expose the village of Fabbriche di Careggine. This village was founded around the year 1270 by blacksmiths and existed for hundreds of years as a small mining community. However, in 1946 the creation of a hydro-electric dam forced the village to be abandoned, with its 150 residents being moved to the nearby town of Vagli Sotto.



The waters of Lake Vagli in Tuscany are the hiding place of a medieval village. Plans are now being made to reveal this site once again in 2021.

Media from Italy and around the world have been reporting that the waters of Lake Vagli, a man-made reservoir, will be drained next year, which would expose the village of Fabbriche di Careggine. This village was founded around the year 1270 by blacksmiths and existed for hundreds of years as a small mining community. However, in 1946 the creation of a hydro-electric dam forced the village to be abandoned, with its 150 residents being moved to the nearby town of Vagli Sotto.

Lorenza Giorgi, a local resident, was the first to report that municipal officials were working with the dam operators to have the lake drained in 2021, which would allow tourists to explore the ruins of Fabbriche di Careggine. This has happened on four previous occasions – in the years 1958, 1974, 1983 and 1994 – because of maintenance work on the dam. On the last occasion about a million visitors came to see the ruins, which include homes, a bridge, cemetery and church.

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Australian scientists discover ancient underwater Aboriginal sites

Australia’s first underwater archaeological sites off its west coast dating to more than 7,000 years ago will help with the understanding of the cultural and technology development of its first peoples, scientists said Thursday.

Archaeologists in Western Australia discovered hundreds of stone tools made by aboriginal people when the seabed was dry, at two ancient sites now submerged in the Dampier Archipelago.

While the region is well known for its rich ancient history and its rock-art carvings, the two sites are the first confirmed underwater locations holding evidence of human civilization on Australia’s continental shelf.

“The future work that we will be doing is ... to look at the skill, the technology, how they made these tools, to see if they represent a different cultural approach to tool making that we haven’t yet identified in Australia,” marine geoscientist Mick O’Leary, a co-director of the project, told Reuters.

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The Australian story, told beneath the sea

The survey area in the Dampier Archipelago, Western Australia. Credit: Flinders University.

Submerged archaeological sites discovered off Australia’s northwest coast offer a new window into the migrations, lives and cultures of Aboriginal people thousands of years ago, when the continental shelf was dry.

This was a time when around 20 million square kilometres of land was exposed, before the last glacial loosened its grip on the planet and melted ice drowned coastal areas – and large swaths of human history – under the sea.

In Australia alone, two million square kilometres were flooded, hemming back a third of the continent.

“You’re talking about a huge, expansive cultural landscape inhabited by Aboriginal people all over the country… which is just a blank, empty map,” says Jonathan Benjamin from Flinders University, lead author of a paper published in the journal PLoS ONE.

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11,000-year-old mine in underwater cave surprises archaeologists

A diver examines stones stacked into a pile by ancient miners who extracted ocher pigment at La Mina, a site deep inside a cave in Yucatán, Mexico between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago. Rising seas later flooded the cave, preserving the evidence of mining for thousands of years.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY CINDAQ.ORG

In the spring of 2017, a pair of divers shimmied fin-first through a narrow passageway in a water-filled cave beneath Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. They had already swum for nearly half a mile through the cave system, winding around spires of rock jutting from the ceiling and floor, when they finally arrived at the threshold that spanned a mere 28 inches across.

In the chamber that lay beyond the tiny passage was an ancient scene preserved in stunning detail: an 11,000-year-old mining site for red ocher pigments, complete with tools and fire pits. The mine, described in a new study published today in Science Advances, is one of the few archaeological sites to reveal where and how ancient humans extracted the vibrant pigments that have been put to a host of uses around the world, including mortuary rituals, cave painting, and even sunscreen.

“I’ve spent a lot of time imagining the different ways that people in the past have gone about collecting mineral pigments,” says study author Brandi MacDonald, an archaeologist at the University of Missouri and expert on ocher pigments. “But being able to see it like this in such an interesting state of preservation, it just kind of blew me away.”

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Underwater caves in Mexico preserve one of the world’s oldest ochre mines

A diver examines a rock pile thought to be an ancient navigational marker inside a 12,000-year-old ochre mine in Quintana Roo, Mexico. © CINDAQ.ORG

Crouching as she wound her way through a pinched underground corridor, a young woman grasped a torch in one hand, soot blackening the craggy ceiling above her. Guided by stacks of stones deeper and deeper in the darkness of the cave, she finally spied her prize: a blood-red vein of rock in the fire-lit wall. It would be 10,000 years before another pair of eyes saw it again.

Now the blood-red rock—a treasured crimson mineral known as ochre—has been found again, this time by underwater divers who were the first people in tens of centuries to return to these now-submerged caves. Scientists have confirmed that the site, now part of a coastal cave system in Quintana Roo, Mexico, is one of the Western Hemisphere’s oldest known ochre mining sites. Ochre, which was used for rock art, body decoration, tanning animal hides, and possibly medicine, was a prize miners would go to great lengths to obtain, from the jungles of Mesoamerica to the grasslands of Africa.

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