Subnordica researchers led by Dr Peter Moe Astrup are exploring the Denmark’s Bay of Aarhus, searching for ancient coastal settlements swallowed by rising sea levels more than 8,500 years ago.

This summer, divers were working near Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city, collecting evidence of a Stone Age settlement from the seabed.

This forms part of the six-year, €13.2 million (£11.3 million) international project, funded by the European Union. It includes researchers from Aarhus, the UK’s University of Bradford, and Germany’s Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research.

Peter Moe Astrup remarked that most evidence of such settlements so far has been found at locations inland from the Stone Age coast, but that this location is on the coast and provides an insight into coastal life as sea levels rose after the last ice age. For more see – https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stone-age-bay-aarhus-denmark-b2814249.html

Image credits
Video – The Independant
Image – A diver excavates an 8,500-year-old Stone Age coastal settlement, submerged by sea level rise in the Bay of Aarhus (Soren Christian Bech)
Image – Submerged tree stumps preserved in mud and sediment can be dated precisely, revealing when rising tides drowned coastal forests (Associated Press/James Brooks)
Image – Excavations in the relatively calm and shallow Bay of Aarhus and dives off the coast of Germany will be followed by later work at two locations in the more inhospitable North Sea (Associated Press/James Brooks)