Neanderthal treasure trove 'at bottom of sea'

Neanderthal treasure trove 'at bottom of sea'

By David Keys Archaeology Correspondent
Monday, 10 March 2008


Some of the world's best preserved prehistoric landscapes survive in
pristine condition at the bottom of the North Sea, archaeologists
claimed yesterday.


Academic interest in what are being described as drowned Stone Age
hunting grounds is likely to increase dramatically after the discovery
of 28 Neanderthal flint axes on the sea bed off the East Anglian
coast.


Dating from at least 50,000-60,000 years ago, they were found with
other flint artefacts, a large number of mammoth bones, teeth and tusk
fragments, and pieces of deer antler. The sea bed location was
probably a Neanderthal hunters' kill site or temporary camp site.


The axes - one of the largest groups ever found - were spotted by a
keen-eyed amateur archaeologist when a consignment of North Sea gravel
arrived at the Dutch port of Flushing.


The cache was found 8 miles off Great Yarmouth and is the most
northerly point in the North Sea that Neanderthal tools have been
discovered. It had been feared that the ice sheets that destroyed most
pre-ice age Brit-ish landscapes had done the same to the land surfaces
which existed where the North Sea is now.


But archaeologists now suspect that some Neanderthal landscapes have
survived under the North Sea. What's more, they are now certain that
hundreds or even thousands of square miles of post-ice age prehistoric
landscapes do survive there. On land they have largely been destroyed
or degraded by centuries of agriculture, later human settlement and
natural erosion.


The North Sea is of immense value to archaeologists and is the largest
area of drowned landscape in Europe. "It's vital that parts of it
should be considered as a potential World Heritage site," said
Professor Vince Gaffney of the University of Birmingham, a leading
authority on North Sea archaeology.


Professor Chris Stringer, Research Leader in Human Origins at the
Natural History Museum, said: "The quality and quantity of material
from the North Sea shows what a rich resource it is for helping to
reconstruct missing phases of our prehistory. The evidence should be
preserved and studied. World heritage status would help in that
process."


In the southern North Sea, Dutch prehistorians working alongside North
Sea fishermen over the past decade have identified about 100
Neanderthal flint axes, 200 later Stone Age bone, antler and flint
artefacts made by anatomically modern humans, and the remains of
thousands of mammoths, woolly rhinos and other ice-age mammals.


Detailed archaeological research at the bottom of the North Sea would
be likely to solve a host of Stone Age mysteries. It should help
establish when Britain was recolonised by humans after a 100,000-year
uninhabited period. It may also reveal for the first time the full
technological capabilities of Neanderthal Man, because preservation on
and in the sea bed is extremely good. Wooden, stone and bone
implements have almost certainly survived.


Later this week, British and Dutch archaeologists will meet in Holland
to formulate a joint program of North Sea research. German, Belgian,
Danish and Norwegian archaeologists and oceanographers are likely to
be included in a plan to map and investigate the North Sea's
prehistoric landscapes in detail.


The discovery of the 28 Neanderthal axes was initially reported to the
Dutch government archaeological agency, who passed the information via
English Heritage to the gravel extraction firm Hanson Aggregates.


"This is the single most important archaeological find from the North
Sea. We have stopped dredging that area and have created an exclusion
zone to protect the site," said a senior Hanson geologist Robert
Langman.

Source Article

Neanderthal treasure trove 'at bottom of sea'