Aarhus Bay, Denmark – Below the waters of the dark blue Aarhus Bay in northern Denmark, archaeologists are looking for coastal settlements that have been swallowed by sea more than 8,500 years ago.
This summer, divers landed about 26 feet below the waves near Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, and collected evidence of the Stone Age settlement from the seabed.
This is $ 15.5 million. The part of the USD six -year -old international project for the Baltic and northern seas funded by the European Union, which includes Aarhus researchers, as well as researchers from the UK Bradford University and Lower Saxony Historical Coastal Research in Germany.
The aim is to investigate the sinking landscapes of Northern Europe and reveal the lost Mesolithic settlements, with wind farms and other marine infrastructure expanding.
A member of the 8500 -year -old stone age coastal settlement, submerged in sea -level carpet in the Gulf of Aarhus, Denmark, excavates. 2025 August 8 / Credit: Søren Christian Bech / Ap
Most of the evidence of such settlements was found in inland waters from the Stone Age coast, said underwater archaeologist Peter Moe Astrup, who led Denmark underwater excavation.
“Here we actually have an old coast. We have a settlement that was laid out right on the coastline,” he said. “What we really try to find out is how life was in the coastal settlement.”
After the last Ice Age, huge ice sheets dissolved and the global sea level rose, dipping the Stone Age settlements and translating the people of the hunter-gathers.
About 8,500 years ago, sea level rose about 6.5 feet over the centuries, said Moe astrup.
Moe Astrup and colleague Moesgaard Museum in Højbjerg, just near orhus, excavated an area of about 430 square feet in a small settlement, which they discovered right next to today’s coast.
Early diving uncovered animal bones, stone tools, arrow heads, stamp teeth and a small piece of wood, probably a simple tool. Researchers comb the site meter with a meter using a peculiar underwater vacuum cleaner to collect material for future analysis.
Underwater archaeologist Peter Moe Astrrup has a piece of natural wood, probably a simple tool found in an 8,500 -year -old stone age coastal settlement, dipping at sea level carpet in Oarhus Bay, Denmark. 2025 August 18 / Credit: James Brooks / Ap
They hope to find traces of harpūnai, fish or fishing structures in subsequent excavations.
“It’s like a time capsule,” Moe asthrup said. “When the sea level rose, everything was saved in an environment that does not have oxygen … time just stops.”
“We find the wood completely well preserved,” he added. “We find hazelnut. … all is well saved.”
Excavations in relatively calm and shallow Oarhus Bay and diving on the German coast will later work in two places in a more irresistible North Sea.
The sea level rises thousands of years ago, including immersed in a huge area called Doggerland, which has connected Britain with mainland Europe and is now under the southern North Sea.
To create a quick image of the water, Danish researchers use dendrochronology, a study of tree blossoms.
Underwater tree stumps, preserved in mud and sediment, can be dated accurately, revealing the rising flooding coastal forests.
“We can say very precisely when these trees died on the coast,” said John Ogdal Jensen, dendrochronologist of the Moesgaard Museum, said he was looking at the Stone Age tree trunk department through the microscope.
“It tells us something about how the sea level has changed over time.”
As today’s world is confronted with the emerging sea level, which is caused by climate change, researchers hope to explain how the Stone Age society has adapted to the coastline for more than eight millennia.
“It’s hard to answer exactly what it meant to people,” Moe Astrup said. “But in the long run, it clearly had a huge impact because it completely changed the landscape.”
Sea levels increased by about 1.7 inches to 2023 over a decade.
Denmark has seen some significant archaeological discoveries in recent years, including metal detectors Stunning to find the beginning of a gold ring last year Redu with a red semi -fracture stone whose researchers expected to explain the country’s history in the early Middle Ages.
Officials of the Danish National Museum announced that the finding after a centuries -old ring, which is believed to have belonged to a member of the royal family about 1400 years ago, was moved from a different museum closer to the discovery site in the south, near the German border.
This discovery occurred just a few weeks after archaeologists found a small knife written in runes letters dating back to the first or second century AD or almost 2000 years ago. According to the Odense museum, it was the oldest traces of writing, ever found in Denmark.
Rune or Runic Letters is the oldest alphabet, of course used in Scandinavia, used for about 1000 years before they were mainly replaced by the Latin alphabet, when Christians began to disseminate their belief system in the 10th century.
Earlier this year, officials announced that the work Fossilized vomiting, dated when dinosaurs wandered the land, was found in Denmark.
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