OSU scientist seeking underwater archaeology sites

[L. Coyote]

OSU scientist seeking underwater archaeology sites
CORVALLIS, Ore. th An Oregon State University scientist will begin probing undersea sediments off Isla Espíritu Santo in the Sea of Cortez this spring, searching for evidence of ancient peoples who may have lived in the region thousands of years ago before melting ice-age glaciers raised ocean levels.

http://media-newswire.com/release_1116973.html

[xchrom]

1. Very cool. It will be interesting to the results. Nt

[14thColony]

2. This is the way forward for archaeology

Compared to the land area at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum, the earth has lost a nice-sized continent's worth of land to rising see levels, mostly about 10,000-12,000 years ago, and much of it in areas which were the cradles of civilization as we understand history now, such as East Asia and the Middle East.

Considering most early civilizations that we are aware of were either along coastlines or in fluvial river valleys close to seas, it makes you wonder just how much of human history is drowned down there? And what will we find? I wonder if it might turn out for instance that Sumerian civilization wasn't so much new as newly-relocated from its former home in what had become the Persian Gulf, which was probably a large dry valley before the end of the LGM.

[Enthusiast]

3. This is a fascinating new

area of study. Let's face it, for early humans, and early contemporary humans, marine mammals were easy and convenient. And these drowned coastlines were the source of such abundance.

And trawlers often dredge up mammoth teeth in the north Sea where they lived on dry land during the ice ages-where they coexisted with human hunters.