Emily Chan
Thousands of years ago, a now-submerged landscape once stood above sea level. The discovery of this prehistoric landscape was made after a team of scientists conducted a series of underwater scans in the Adriatic Sea, which is located off the coast of Croatia.
The project, called Life on the Edge, was led by the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom and the University of Split in Croatia.
Over the span of five years, researchers hope to map out parts of the Adriatic Sea, as well as the North Sea.
Their goal is to create a better picture of what these submerged landscapes looked like between 24,000 and 10,000 years ago during the Upper Paleolithic period. At that time, sea levels were hundreds of feet lower than today’s sea levels.
The researchers used three-dimensional seismic sensors to scan the sea floor. Then, they analyzed the results from the sensors to put together a model of the prehistoric landscape.
Their investigations revealed a network of rivers, streams, and other features that used to be above the water.
“The results provided way more detail than we were expecting,” Simon Fitch, the lead researcher at the University of Bradford, said. “It’s a more diverse landscape, and it’s better preserved than we expected…There are beautifully preserved rivers and estuaries buried beneath what is now the sea floor.”
Previous models indicated that there might have been a river on the seabed, but their advanced high-resolution sensors found much more than that.
It is believed that more people were living in the region during the Upper Paleolithic period than what was thought in the past. Ancient humans typically lived along lakes and rivers for natural resources.
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