Posted on 02/01/2007 8:59:25 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The map in front of me is 12 feet across, and glows in unfocused luminous orange. When I put on battery-operated polarizing glasses, it jumps sharply into three dimensions... Through the millennia that people have been in northern Europe, sea levels have risen and fallen as glaciers have retreated and advanced, periodically exposing land the size of California around Britain's shores. Often this land supported a variety of terrestrial life, from mammoths to people, in environments ranging from tundra to forest. Deep under the North Sea today are likely to be perfectly preserved plant and animal remains, human bones, and stone tools, sealed in stratified deposits--a historic archive of rare value now threatened by industrial activity... "No one knows where the great European rivers once flowed," says Vincent Gaffney, a driven, ebullient archaeologist... The techniques developed here could do the same around the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...
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