Submerged Stone Age site found in Britain

A team of scuba-diving archaeologists have discovered an undersea settlement that could be 10,000 years old. The divers were honing their skills in preparation for a more detailed search further away from Tyneside. But they found what is believed to be the country's second submerged Stone Age development, while practising in the North Sea off Tynemouth.

Another slightly more recent site, still from the Mesolithic era, was also found on the seabed nearby. . .

Archaeologists always suspected that there were sites to be found under the British North Sea after a fishing trawler picked up a Mesolithic antler harpoon there early last century.

But the Newcastle University team has found the first evidence since then.

Dr Spikins said: "Archaeologists thought that the sites left by people who lived 5,000 to 10,000 years ago had simply been lost to the sea.

"But our finds could change our understanding of the earliest occupation of the British Isles."

Posted by David on September 11, 2003 11:46 AM