iblog

An 8,000 year old Stone Age village has been found submerged beneath the waters at Bouldnor Cliff, Isle of Wight. However, with the tides washing away 12 inches from the top of it every year, the race is on to discover what we can while it’s still there.

It has been known since 1980 that a prehistoric forest lay beneath the waters, but it was only when a lobster was noticed chucking pieces of worked flint from its hidey-hole that divers realised they’d stumbled on an ancient settlement.

The village is of particular interest as it dates from a period in British history of which little is known. The settlement was swamped after the northern European Ice Caps began to melt. It is for exactly this reason that so little is known about settlements from the period - they are now all mostly submerged. Garry Momber, director of the charity doing the excavations, describes the importance of the site by saying:

“This is the only site of its kind in Britain and is extremely important to our understanding of our Stone Age ancestors from the lesser-known Mesolithic period.”

More interestingly, as 8,000 years ago the whole area would have been dry:

“It reveals a time before the English Channel existed when Europe and Britain were linked. The people who lived on this site could have walked over to Calais without too much trouble.”

The excavators hope to garner more funding as they continue, otherwise the artefacts buried at the site will be washed away forever.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 6:30 pm and is filed under Environment, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.