A team of German archaeologists has discovered a gigantic Stone Age structure submerged at a depth of 21 meters in the Western Baltic Sea. This structure was probably built by hunter-gatherers over 10,000 years ago and was eventually sunk about 8,500 years ago. Since then, it has remained hidden under the sea, leading to pristine preservation that has inspired research into lifestyles and territorial development in the wider region.
An artist's reconstruction of the Brinker Wall in Mecklenburg Bay, Germany. Image credit: Michał Grabowski.
The massive Stone Age structure was discovered in Mecklenburg Bay, about 10 kilometers northwest of the German coast of Relic.
The stone wall is made up of 1,673 individual stones, typically less than 1 meter in height, arranged side by side over a distance of 971 meters in a way that refutes their natural origin through glacial movement or ice-intrusion ridges.
This wall, known as the Brinker Wall, was built by hunter-gatherers who roamed the area after humans left. viserian ice sheet.
Running adjacent to the sunken shoreline of a paleo-lake (or swamp), whose youngest stage dates to 9,143 years ago, the structure was probably used for hunting. Eurasian reindeer (Langifer Tarandus).
“At that time, the population of all of Scandinavia was probably less than 5,000,” said Dr. Marcel Bradmeler, a researcher at the University of Rostock.
“One of their main food sources was herds of reindeer, which moved seasonally across sparsely vegetated post-glacial landscapes.”
“This wall was probably used to guide reindeer into the bottleneck between the adjacent shore and the wall, or into the lake, allowing Stone Age hunters to kill reindeer more easily with their weapons. Ta.”
Form of a southwest to northeast oriented ridge with a blinker wall and adjacent mounds.Image credit: Geersen et al. everyone, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2312008121.
The Brinker Wall is one of the oldest recorded man-made hunting structures on Earth and one of the largest known Stone Age structures in Europe.
Dr Jacob Geersen, also from the University of Rostock, said: “Our research shows that the natural origin of the submarine stone walls or modern constructions associated with, for example, the laying of submarine cables or stone extraction is unlikely. ” he said. .
“The orderly arrangement of many small stones connecting large, immovable rocks opposes this.”
The researchers used modern geophysical methods to create detailed 3D models of the Brinker Wall and reconstruct the ancient landscape.
A team of scientific divers from the University of Rostock and the West Pomeranian Mecklenburg State Department of Culture and Monuments also visited the site once and inspected it.
The main purpose of the dive was to assess the nature of the stone wall and investigate possible archaeological remains on the surrounding seabed.
They concentrated in two places: the western edge of the structure and the large stone in the center where the blinker wall turns.
No artifacts or dateable organic material were found in the immediate vicinity of the two dive sites, but a small wood sample was recovered from Holocene deposits approximately 10 m south of the structure.
3D model of the section of blinker wall adjacent to the large boulder at the west end of the wall. The photo was taken by Philip Huy of the University of Rostock. The scale bar at the top right corner of the image is 50 cm. Image credit: Geersen other., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2312008121.
“A number of well-preserved Stone Age sites are known along the coast of Wismar Bay and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, but these are located at much shallower depths, and most of them are Mesolithic and Neolithic. It dates from the Stone Age (7,000-2,500 BC),” said Dr. Jens Auer, a researcher at the Mecklenburg-West Pomeranian Department for the Preservation of Cultural Monuments.
“There is evidence that similar stone walls exist in other parts of Mecklenburg Bay. These will also be investigated systematically,” added Dr. Jens Schneider von Daimling, a researcher at the University of Kiel.
“Overall, this research could make a significant contribution to understanding the lives, organization, and hunting methods of early Stone Age hunter-gatherers.”
team's paper Published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Jacob Giesen other. 2024. Submerged Stone Age hunting architecture in the Western Baltic Sea. PNAS 121 (8): e2312008121; doi: 10.1073/pnas.2312008121
Source: www.sci.news
