Stone Age Sites Found Under North Sea (8,000BC)

University Of Newcastle On Tyne ^ | 9-12-2003

[blam]

Stone Age sites found under North Sea

Date released 12 September 2003

Experts have discovered the first ever evidence of Stone Age settlements in the British North Sea, dating back as far as 10,000 years. Subject to further investigation, one of them could be the earliest underwater archaeological site in the UK.

The exciting find, discovered by accident by a team from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, could lead to a rewriting of the history books and revolutionise our understanding of the way our ancestors lived.

The discovery of several stone artefacts, including tools and arrowheads, have pinpointed two 'submerged sites' - as archaeologists call them - off the coast of Tynemouth, near Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England, as potential Mesolithic settlements. Mesolithic people were hunter-gatherers and lived in the Middle Stone Age - the era between the end of the last Ice Age, ten thousand years ago, until the start of the agricultural revolution, five thousand years ago.

One site dates back to the late Mesolithic period (8,500 to 5,000 years ago), while the other, found further out to sea at the end of a of a long, rocky outcrop which would have once been a small cliff face, is thought to be early Mesolithic (8,500 to 10,000 years ago).

Both sites would once have been on dry land but have been gradually submerged as sea levels rose following the end of the last Ice Age.

An archaeological team, from the University's School of Historical Studies, discovered the sites by accident while they were training to enable them to look for suspected submerged sites elsewhere on the British coast as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Board project.

The flint artefacts they have found at the sites, which are under up to eight metres of water, range from a core, which was used to make knives and other sharp objects, to a microlith - the experts' word for an arrowhead.

This is only the second such find in the UK. An early Mesolithic site has been discovered in the Solent near Southampton, and because so little evidence of submerged sites exists, archaeologists know little about these early coastal dwellers.

Dr Penny Spikins, who is leading the international research team behind the Submerged Prehistoric Landscapes Project, said: "Archaeologists thought that the sites left by people who lived five to ten thousand years ago had simply been lost to the sea but our finds could change our understanding of the earliest occupation of the British Isles."

Explaining how the find came as a surprise, she said: "I was learning to scuba dive and was in the middle of a training session in the sea when I noticed lots of pieces of flint beneath me, on the sea bed. To the average person they would seem like ordinary stones you would find on the beach, but to a specialist they were something very exciting indeed.'

David Miles, chief archaeologist, English Heritage, said: “This is a tremendously exciting discovery. We know that there is a prehistoric Atlantis beneath the North Sea where once an area equal to the size of present day Britain attached us to the continent and where prehistoric people and animals roamed.'

[Ciexyz]

Atlantis bump.

[katana]

It's possible that (like hydrocarbons) there is an unknown quantity of subsurface ice on our planet which is imperceptibly rising to the surface over time but I would still maintain that whatever quantity of water we see and can measure (liquid, solid, and vapor) has remained roughly the same over time (certainly over the geologic blink of the eye that ten thousand years represents) but that the proportions among the three states it can assume have been in constant flux.

Supposedly there's evidence that at one time the entire surface of the earth was covered in a kilometer thick ice sheet (super ice age about 750 million years ago, see web page: http://millennium-debate.org/ind10ap035.htm). As far as I understand, besides temperature (at least partly a function of what the sun is up to) the only other variable affecting sea levels would be the amount of volcanic and tectonic upthrust (and decline) which the seafloor and land masses have undergone.

[Havoc]

Umm, you aren't paying attention to the question. You're arguing that it just exists with a mild swipe and positing that because of the theory of an ice age, we should just accept it.. I'm asking where it came from. Saying it was "just so" doesn't explain the physical model that allows it to be without destroying the planet. Where'd it come from. I'm aware of the goofy ice age theories. I'm also aware that the theories change whenever part of the theory makes someone look dumb. Note: a theory is still an opinion.

[lawdude]

"ATLANTIS FOUND!"

Again?

[Havoc]

Subsurface Ice? You mean like subsurface where all the magma rotates around and bubbles up.. Or are we mixing our theories? Water at the subsurface level would be under great pressure which would tend to have it hot, not cold.

I would argue that we've likely lost water rather than gaining it. But, I also would argue against plate techtonics. It isn't a given, it isn't observeable nor do the physics seem to work. But that's another story. cubic miles of ice and water don't just get out of the way and hide in places that can't support them or don't make sense. Ice doesn't stay ice in warm climate just because a mountain top seems like a reasonable place for a mile of extra ice to hide. That isn't the way it works. 70 percent of the earth is covered by water. Remove the volume down to the tributaries extending toward the ocean floor then tell me where you can hide that volume of water without it being problematic. I can; but, can you.

[Ophiucus]

"Coastlines change, landmasses shift, rise, and fall, the ice caps expand and contract. The Earth is a dynamic system."

Nice general dodge. Where'd all the extra water come from?

Ok...let's try again. You are familiar Archimedes principle, I assume. Fill the bathtub with water - get in - the water rises - where did the extra water come from? - get out - the water level falls - where did the extra water go?

Second experiment - take a big cooler, pour water in so there's about a half inch of water in it, put a little pile of sand in one end, make a little sand city, in the other end, put a big block of ice (the kind where the entire container for your fridge's ice maker freezes into one big art deco ice blob), close the lid and let your cooler sit for the day and then check it - the ice melts and the little sand beach city is partly underwater - where'd the extra water come from?

Earth goes through warm and cold phases. Cold phases, water concentrates at the caps as ice and water levels in the oceans fall. Warm phases, the ice melts and the ocean levels rise. Also, the surface of the Earth moves. Sections rise and fall. This will "move" the coastlines. There's no extra water.

[Spirited]

Thanks, blam.....

[Cronos]

The Germans would surely take France again again.

I don't think so. Remember that in the 1800s France under Napoleon comprehensively defeated the Germans and were only defeated by the Russian winter.

[Cronos]

Ice -- would form at the coldest places -- high altitudes and high latitudes. This occurred during the ice ages when glaciers stretched over land and sea. When the ice age ended and the glaciers melted, the water went to the lowest spot due to gravity -- the oceans. the oceans expanded to accommodate this extra liquid H2O and ate into the coastlines.

[Ophiucus]

Note: a theory is still an opinion.

Incorrect. A theory is "An entire body of knowledge associated with a particular area of study, including the basic postulates, predictions based on these postulates, observations and experimental data, and their interpretation. [Cal Poly Physics Colloquium, 9/23/99]Theories are well described, repeatedly observed, and verified statements. When they have repeatedly confirmed over a long period of time, the theory for all practical purposes is used as true or fact, (sometime referred to as superb theory such as quantum mechanics).

Theory does not imply uncertainty or opinion - not in science.

Where'd it come from. I'm aware of the goofy ice age theories

This is the first time I've seen the phrase "goofy ice age theories." There's a considerable amount of evidence for the ice ages and their affects.

If you're looking for the ultimate 'where did the water come from' answers, I guess you'll have to start with matter clouds and planetary formation. As planetesimals formed, the atoms and molecules clumped together to form larger molecules of all kinds, including water.

Outside of that, I don't know what to say except cut back on the Hoagland readings.

[ASA Vet]

Where'd all the extra water come from

Imported from Mars.

[InvisibleChurch]

funny, in yesterday's post, they were only 8,000 years old

[R. Scott]

Don’t forget about all that methane generated by giant elephant and rhino flatulence.

[SevenDaysInMay]

200 years ago, "Germany" did not yet exist. NB had many "germanics" in his Armee.

Most of the 1/2 million troops lost by NB in Russia were from lands to the north of France.

[Cronos]

Mea culpa. It would be more accurate to say that Nappy defeated the Prussians.

[TADSLOS]

Man, I would have hated to have been in the beach front real estate business around 8,000 BC. when all the property values tanked.

[Southron Patriot]

esquirette got the right answer.

Genesis 7

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.
6 And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10 And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13 In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14 They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18 And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20 Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land , died.
23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive , and they that were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Genesis 8

1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;
2 The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;
3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually: and after the end of the hundred and fifty days the waters were abated.
4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
5 And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month , on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Where'd all the extra water come from?

Comets I'm sure!

[Havoc]

Doesn't pass the sniff test.. She just found this stuff laying on the bottom.... The Atocha and the Margarita were part of a Plate fleet in the 1700's sunk off the coast of Florida. And after something more than 200 years under water, the bulk of the ships and their treasure were not just laying on the bottom. They had to sift through quite a bit of sand to find much of what was brought up. The idea that someone goes happily swimming by and just happens to find a pile of flint chips is absurd to say the least - especially considering silting - even mild silting - for the number of years they'd like to claim. If we go even for a young earth model, it still doesn't stand up.

[MacDorcha]

add me please :)