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Deep beneath the North Sea, scientists have discovered a fossilized forest that could hold traces of prehistoric early humans who lived there around 10,000 years ago, before the land slipped beneath the waves a few thousand years later. The discovery gives the researchers new hope in their search for "lost" Middle Stone Age — or Mesolithic — settlements of hunter-gatherers, because the find shows that they have found a particular type of exposed ancient landscape.

Archaeologists in Germany have uncovered the bodies of children and of one adult man who was buried, strangely, standing upright. One of the oldest cemeteries in Europe has recently been discovered, with graves dating back almost 8,500 years. Two of the most intriguing finds are the skeleton of a six-month-old child and a mysterious upright burial of a man in his early 20s. The German cemetery, called Gross Fredenwalde after a nearby village, belongs to a time known as the Mesolithic, when Europe was populated by hunter-gatherers. At a press conference Thursday morning in Berlin, excavators announced that nine skeletons...

The remains of hazelnuts eaten by some of Skye's earliest inhabitants were found at a dig on the island, archaeologists have revealed. Hazelnuts were a favourite snack of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, according to archaeologists at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI). The shells found at an excavation above Staffin Bay could be 8,000-years-old. UHI carried out the dig along with Staffin Community Trust, school children and volunteers. Dan Lee, lifelong learning and outreach archaeologist at UHI, said: "We have found lots of fragments of charred hazelnut shells in the lower soil samples. "They are the ideal thing to date...

A genetic study of snails, combined with other factors, suggests a migration of Mesolithic peoples from the Pyrenees to Ireland. A recent study of the mitochondrial DNA of the Cepaea nemoralis land snail, a snail curiously common only between Ireland and the Pyrenees region of Southern France, has led researchers to conclude the possibility that ancient Mesolithic people carried the fauna with them in a migration from the French region to Ireland about 8,000 years ago. This correlates with studies of human genetics and the colonization of Ireland, according to the research* published June 19 in the open access journal...

Underwater archaeologists are taking to Loch Tay to try to uncover more about a submerged prehistoric woodland. The stumps of about 50 trees were discovered in 2005 - some of them are thought to be about 6,000 years old. The experts are now aiming to find their root system and establish the depth to which the trees are buried. Meanwhile, a campaign has been launched to help restore the reconstructed crannog, an ancient loch dwelling, which attracts thousands of visitors. The Scottish Trust for Underwater Archaeology will spend the next two weeks inspecting the drowned forest. They will be focusing...

Southeastern Norway is the most populous part of Norway today. Based on an analysis of more than 150 settlements along Oslo Fjord, the area apparently also appealed to Stone Age people. Eleven thousand years ago at the end of the last ice age, Norway was buried under a thick layer of ice. But it didn't take long for folks to wander their way north as the ice sheet melted away. The first traces of human habitation in Norway date from roughly 9500 BC. Steinar Solheim is an archaeologist at the University of Oslo's Museum of Cultural History who has worked...

Source: University of Southampton Date: August 5, 2007 Stone Age Site Surfaces After 8000 Years Science Daily — Excavations of an underwater Stone Age archaeological settlement dating back 8000 years took place at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton between 30 July – 3 August 2007. A diver working at the site just off the Isle of Wight coast. (Credit: Copyright Simon Brown 2007) Maritime archaeologists from the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (HWTMA) have been working at the site just off the Isle of Wight coast. Divers working at depths of 11 metres have raised sections of the...

Archaeologists working on Stone Age remains at a site in North Yorkshire say it contains Britain's earliest surviving house.The team from the Universities of Manchester and York reveal today that the home dates to at least 8,500 BC - when Britain was part of continental Europe. The research has been made possible by a grant from the Natural Environment Research Council, early excavation funding from the British Academy, and from English Heritage who are about to schedule the site as a National Monument . The Vale of Pickering Research Trust has also provided support for the excavation works. The research...

Scientists discover lost world A prehistoric lost world under the North Sea has been mapped by scientists from the University of Birmingham. The team used earthquake data to devise a 3D reconstruction of the 10,000-year-old plain. The area, part of a land mass that once joined Britain to northern Europe, disappeared about 8,000 years ago. The virtual features they have developed include a river the length of the Thames which disappeared when its valley flooded due to glaciers melting. This is the most exciting and challenging virtual reality project since Virtual Stonehenge. Professor Bob Stone Professor Bob Stone, head of...

Divers have found traces of ancient land swallowed by waves 8500 years ago Doggerland once stretched from Scotland to Denmark Rivers seen underwater by seismic scans Britain was not an island - and area under North Sea was roamed by mammoths and other giant animals Described as the 'real heartland' of Europe Had population of tens of thousands - but devastated by sea level risesBritain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams from the University of St Andrews. Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that...

Lost world warning from North Sea By Sean Coughlan BBC News education How a homestead might have looked in the flooded area Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea. This lost landscape, where hunter gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age. University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe". This large plain had disappeared below the water more than 8,000 years ago. Scientists at the University of Birmingham have been using oil exploration technology...

Stone Age Settlements Found Underwater in Britain Thu Sep 11, 5:38 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - Archaeologists have stumbled across the first underwater evidence of Stone Age settlements in Britain. Missed Tech Tuesday? Become a Wireless Whiz -- get connected in every room and secure your wireless network in six steps A team from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England say they found flint artifacts including tools and arrowheads off the coast near Tynemouth during a training session to prepare them for dive searches elsewhere. They say the items pinpoint two sites dating as far back as...

The coastline and landscape of what would become modern Britain began to emerge at the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000 years ago. What had been a cold, dry tundra on the north-western edge of Europe grew warmer and wetter as the ice caps melted. The Irish Sea, North Sea and the Channel were all dry land, albeit land slowly being submerged as sea levels rose. But it wasn't until 6,100BC that Britain broke free of mainland Europe for good, during the Mesolithic period -- the Middle Stone Age. It is thought a landslide in Norway triggered one...

Nature experts have discovered a remarkable submerged forest thousands of years old under the sea close to the Norfolk coast. The trees were part of an area known as 'Doggerland' which formed part of a much bigger area before it was flooded by the North Sea. It was once so vast that hunter-gatherers who lived in the vicinity could have walked to Germany across its land mass.

As they map Germany's changing coastline, members of a research team called SINCOS are learning about settlements that were covered by water 6000 to 8000 years ago On a warm afternoon in September, archaeologist Harald Lübke looked out from the pilot house of the Goor, a bright red dive boat moored 200 meters off Germany's Baltic seacoast. Three meters below the water's glassy surface, divers in bulky drysuits were excavating a prehistoric hunting camp. A deafening motor mounted on the Goor's deck powered a pressure pump, which they were using to suck sediment from the sea bottom into mesh bags....

Excavations of a Mesolithic site on Skye could give new insights into the lives of some of the island's earliest residents. Archaeologists believe the location above Staffin Bay has the remains of a house that could be 8,000 years old. Mesolithic flints have previously been found in an area of eroded grazing land near the site. Archaeologists will work with Staffin Community Trust and volunteers in making small excavations. The University of the Highlands and Islands' Archaeology Institute will lead the investigation. Archaeologist Dan Lee said the dig at the site of "important prehistoric occupation" had "huge potential". Staffin Community...

The site of what is now Rotterdam's Yangtzehaven was inhabited by humans in the Middle Stone Age. At a depth of 20 metres, in the sea bed, unique underwater archaeological investigation found traces of bone, flint and charcoal from around 7000 BC. These finds are the very first scientific proof that humans lived at this spot in the Early and Middle Stone Age. Up to now, very little was known about this period in particular, the Early and Middle Mesolithic, so far to the west of the Netherlands... Some 9000 years ago, the area where the North Sea and the...

Just over 8,000 years ago a huge landslide occurred off the coast of Norway, known as the Storegga Slide. The event created a catastrophic tsunami, with waves almost half as high as the Statue of Liberty, that battered Britain and other land masses. And now the most accurate computer model ever made of the tsunami suggests that it wiped out the remaining inhabitants of a set of low-lying landmass known as Doggerland off the coast of the UK. A new model by researchers at Imperial College London has revealed the devastating effects of a tsunami caused by a landslide off...

Archaeologists believe the remains of burned oak uncovered at the site of the first Sainsbury's in the Highlands to be evidence of an ancient "rest stop". The supermarket and a filling station are being constructed on the outskirts of Nairn, at a cost of about £20m. Headland Archaeologists investigated the site ahead of building work. They radiocarbon-dated the hearth to the Mesolithic period, which started as the last Ice Age ended about 12,000 years ago. ...the archaeologists said the fire appeared to have been made to provide heat and not cooking, because no food waste was found... "The dating of...

Dating a massive undersea slide Sid Perkins From San Francisco, at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union Pieces of moss buried in debris deposits along the Norwegian coast have enabled geologists to better peg the date of an ancient tsunami and the immense underwater landslide that triggered it. Carbon dating of the newly unearthed moss suggests that the landslide occurred about 8,100 years ago. Sometime after the end of the last ice age, the largest landslide known to geologists took place off the coast of Norway. Called the Storegga slide, this slump of seafloor sediments included about 3,000 cubic...