A submerged Mesolithic settlement was uncovered in Denmark's Bay of Aarhus, revealing animal bones, stone tools, arrowheads, a seal tooth and a small worked piece of wood. Excavations covered roughly 430 square feet and involved divers working about 26 feet below the surface using specialized underwater vacuums to protect delicate finds. The settlement dates to the period after the last ice age when rapid sea-level rise drowned coastal sites, preserving materials in oxygen-free seabed conditions. The find is part of a $15.5 million international seabed-mapping project aimed at locating sunken Northern European landscapes and Mesolithic settlements as offshore development expands.
Archaeologists have discovered an underwater city in Denmark's Bay of Aarhus, which is being hailed as the Stone Age Atlantis. The team uncovered animal bones, stone tools, arrowheads, a seal tooth and a small piece of worked wood, likely a simple tool, which they believe indicates a human presence with structured activities. The researchers have excavated an area of about 430 square feet at the small settlement.
Sea levels rose rapidly, sometimes by several meters per century, flooding Stone Age settlements and forcing hunter-gatherer communities further inland. Rising global sea levels dramatically reshaped coastlines, according to underwater archaeologist Peter Moe Astrup, who is leading the excavations. 'It is like a time capsule. When the sea level rose, everything was preserved in an oxygen-free environment ... time just stops,' he said. 'We actually have an old coastline. We have a settlement that was positioned directly at the coastline.'
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