Submerged Prehistoric Archaeology

Discovery and excavation of submerged prehistoric sites has the potential to shed light on multiple questions concerning human responses to changing climates and coast- lines. However, it is hampered by multiple challenges, not the least of which is where, precisely, we should seek for them across marine landscapes that are difficult to access and study. Landscape reconstruction using geographic information systems (GIS) analysis, in particular, spatial statistical analyses that take human choices into account are one way forward in addressing this problem. We present preliminary results from a test run using spatial statistical analyses using coastal plain site distribution patterns within the state of Georgia from the Paleoindian period (>11,500 cal BP). Our results suggest that the highest probability for Paleoindian sites lies offshore along two watersheds: The Ogeechee and possibly the Savannah Rivers.

This paper discusses territorial markers in the Late Mesolithic based on ethnoarchaeological data as well as findings from modern social psychology. On the basis of the archaeological evidence from Southern Scandinavia, it is suggested that Late Mesolithic graves, which often appear to have had visual markers above ground and probably, in some instances, were ‘air graves’ located in trees or on platforms, were used as the primary territorial markers, whereas coeval shell middens played a role as site markers at archaeological sites where molluscs were collected.

On the basis of the evidence from the mouth of the River Muge in Portugal, it is suggested that the shell middens here may have constituted the primary territorial markers.

In general, the picture that emerges is of aggressive, territorial and non-egalitarian Late Mesolithic societies, in good accordance with the skeletal record .

Seventeen flakes and 1 unifacial scraper have been recovered from submerged archaeological sites on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge, a landform across the Lake Huron basin that was dry land 7500–9500 years ago. These lithic artifacts—recovered during systematic sampling and excavation by SCUBA divers— were in close association with stone constructed caribou hunting features. They most likely indicate tool maintenance and scraping activities during hunting, butchering, and hide processing behaviors. The majority of lithic artifacts (13 flakes and the scraper) come from an elaborate caribou hunting site with drive lanes and hunting blinds: Drop 45. The remaining 4 flakes come from two localities with additional hunting structures. This chapter describes all the lithic artifacts recovered to date, including metrics, raw material types, and context, and discusses what these artifacts demonstrate about hunters and hunting on the Alpena-Amberley Ridge.

Well preserved food remains from a submerged settlement on the Argus Bank bear witness to the human consumption of fish, game, nuts and fruit. d15N data derived from the bones of the inhabitants show that aquatic food was the dominant source of their dietary protein. The d13C measurements demonstrate that much of this protein derived from marine animals, probably high trophic level fish. The isotopic data also imply that the two children represented in the analyses were predominantly breast-fed up to the age of 2-3 years. In addition these data indicate that an adult female consumed more marine protein than two males, while a dog consumed food of a lower trophic level than the humans.

Dit publieksboek vertelt het verhaal van één van de belangrijkste,
maar minst bekende archeologische vindplaatsen van Europa:
Doggerland. Slechts weinigen weten dat onze stranden aan
de rand liggen van een enorm verdwenen landschap. Een
prehistorische wereld die bijna een miljoen jaar menselijke
bewoning documenteert en die gedurende het grootste deel van
die tijd droog lag.
Het is de plek waar meer dan 900.000 jaar geleden de eerste
voetstappen van vroege mensachtigen in Noord-Europa werden
achtergelaten. Daarna was het honderdduizenden jaren lang
het toneel van ijstijden: de wereld van wolharige mammoeten
en neushoorns, paarden en rendieren en de succesvolle
Neanderthalers, waaronder Krijn – de eerste van Nederland, die
erop jaagden. De eerste moderne mensen aan het eind van de
laatste ijstijd lieten hier eveneens hun sporen achter, waaronder
een schedelfragment van de oudste mens van Nederland en de
vroegste kunst uit onze streken.
Doggerland was vooral ook het gebied dat met het aanbreken van
het Holoceen, ons huidige tijdperk, in toenemende mate werd
geconfronteerd met klimaatverandering en zeespiegelstijging,
net als nu. De mesolithische jager-verzamelaars leefden er in een
rijke, maar constant veranderende wereld, waarbij een enorme
tsunami rond 6150 voor Christus een eerste genadeklap vormde.
Enkele eeuwen later verdwenen de laatste eilanden onder water
en daarmee ook Doggerland. Dit boek haalt deze verdwenen
wereld weer boven water.

INHOUD
DOGGERLAND
Een verdwenen wereld herontdekt
Luc Amkreutz
IJs, rivieren, zee en spektakel. Geologische afwisseling
in een verdronken landschap
Kim Cohen en Marc Hijma
Verdrinkend land in kaart
Luc Amkreutz, Kim Cohen, Marc Hijma en Olav Odé
DOGGERLAND VROEGE BEWONERS
Strandlopers. Happisburgh en de eerste mensen in
Noord-Europa
Nick Ashton
Krijn: oog in oog met onze eerste Neanderthaler
Luc Amkreutz en Luc Anthonis
Neanderthalers in de koude ‘Noordzee-Serengeti’
Marcel Niekus en Dimitri de Loecker
Topvondsten van Neanderthalers
Marcel Niekus, Dimitri de Loecker en Luc Amkreutz
Moderne mensen in het staartje van de ijstijd
Luc Amkreutz en Marcel Niekus
De oudste kunst. Expressionisme uit de ijstijd
Luc Amkreutz, Marcel Niekus en Jan Glimmerveen
Dieren van de mammoetsteppe
Dick Mol en Bram Langeveld
VERDRINKEND DOGGERLAND
Jager-verzamelaars in een rijk wetland
Luc Amkreutz en Marcel Niekus
Duizend keer op jacht. Getande spitsen uit Doggerland
Merel Spithoven
Bouldnor cliff. Een verdronken mesolithische
vindplaats duikt op
Garry Momber
Rotterdam-Yangtzehaven. Graven op 20 meter diepte
Dimitri Schiltmans
De Noordzee als snelweg. Neolithische argonauten en
prehistorische handel
Luc Amkreutz en Jan Glimmerveen
DOGGERLAND ONDERZOCHT
De mens op het spoor. Geheimen van botten en
tanden ontrafelt
Eveline Altena, Lisette Kootker, Bjørn Smit en Paul Storm
Spitsen van dierlijk en menselijk bot. Sorteren met
collageen
Joannes Dekker, Virginie Sinet-Mathiot, Alexander Verpoorte,
Marie Soressi en Frido Welker
Europe’s Lost Frontiers. Het landschap in kaart
Vince Gaffney en Simon Fitch
Op weg naar de Bruine Bank. Onderzoek op de
Noordzee
Tine Missiaen en Ruth Plets
DOGGERLAND NU
Doggerland verzameld
Speuren langs de kust, vondsten doen en dan?
Luc Amkreutz en Bjørn Smit
De Noordzee. De drukste zee van de wereld
Luc Amkreutz en Stichting de Noordzee
Toekomst voor Doggerland? Verzamelen,
onderzoeken en beschermen
Hans Peeters en Bjørn Smit
Denkend aan Doggerland. Een verdwenen landschap
herinnerd
Luc Amkreutz en Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof

From 1972 to 2001, extensive archaeological research was performed at the shipwreck of the Henrietta Marie, a London-based slave ship sunk in 1700 at remote New Ground Reef in the western Florida Keys. Between 2001 and 2003, to build upon the earlier investigations, the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum and the RPM Nautical Foundation conducted magnetometer surveys across New Ground with the hope of locating historic shipwrecks, but with a particular focus on finding missing portions of the Henrietta Marie. Multiple magnetic anomalies were detected in these surveys, and many appeared to relate to the wrecked slaver. When a sampling of buried anomalies was tested by excavation, all that was revealed was evidence of fire within a submerged paleo-landscape. This paper details the research and works toward understanding the unusual discoveries.

The emerging picture of prehistoric Arabia suggests that early modern humans were able to survive periodic hyperarid oscillations by contracting into environmental refugia around the coastal margins of the peninsula. This paper reviews new paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and genetic evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran to explore the possibility of a demographic refugium dubbed the “Gulf Oasis,” which is posited to have been a vitally significant zone for populations residing in southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. These data are used to assess the role of this large oasis, which, before being submerged beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, was well watered by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin rivers as well as subterranean aquifers flowing beneath the Arabian subcontinent. Inverse to the amount of annual precipitation falling across the interior, reduced sea levels periodically exposed large portions of the Arabo-Persian Gulf, equal at times to the size of Great Britain. Therefore, when the hinterlands were desiccated, populations could have contracted into the Gulf Oasis to exploit its freshwater springs and rivers. This dynamic relationship between environmental amelioration/desiccation and marine transgression/ regression is thought to have driven demographic exchange into and out of this zone over the course of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, as well as having played an important role in shaping the cultural evolution of local human populations during that interval.

This dissertation addresses how Paleoindians used the karst drainage of the Aucilla River in northwestern Florida during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (approximately 15-10,000 14C yr B.P.). I take a geoarchaeological approach to discuss Paleoindian land use by first defining the Late Pleistocene and Holocene geological record, and then by creating a model of site formation processes in the Aucilla River. Both underwater and terrestrial fieldwork were performed. Underwater fieldwork consisted of hand-driven cores and surface survey,  vibrocoring, underwater 1 x 1 m unit excavation, and controlled surface collection. Terrestrial fieldwork consisted of shovel and auger test pits. Seventeen cores were collected from five different submerged sinkhole sites, which were used to select two sites for further study: Sloth Hole
(8JE121), which had been previously excavated, and Wayne's Sink (8JE1508/TA280), which was recorded but not formally investigated. Five vibrocores and two 1 x 1m units were used, with previous research, to define the geological and  geoarchaeological context of Sloth Hole. Fifteen vibrocores, six 1 x 1 m excavation units, and ten 1 x 1 m surface collection units were used to define the geological, geoarchaeological, and archaeological context of Wayne's Sink. A combination of 130 shovel and auger test pits was used to define the geological, geoarchaeological, and archaeological potential of the terrestrial landscape. Five new Holocene-aged terrestrial sites were recorded. All of these data were evaluated with archival data from previously-excavated sites to create models of site formation and Paleoindian land use in the lower Aucilla
Basin. This research shows that there have been four major periods of sinkhole infill in the lower Aucilla basin. The first occurred prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, with each
sinkhole containing peat deposits that date in excess of 21,000 calendar years ago (cal B.P.). These peats are overlain by sandy colluvium that dates to approximately 14,500 cal B.P. The colluvium is overlain by clays that contain evidence for soil formation. These soils vary in age, with radiocarbon dates of approximately 14,500-10,000 cal B.P. These clays are directly overlain by peats dating to 5,000-3,500 cal B.P., which are
overlain by peats and clays that date to 2,500-0 cal B.P. Intact Paleoindian and Early Archaic deposits are possible in the late Pleistocene soils.

The underwater site of Pavlopetri has most recently been investigated by the joint project of the Ephoreia for Underwater Archaeology and the British School at Athens which conducted field seasons in 2009, 2010 and 2011. In addition to a survey of the visible building remains using state of the art surveying methods, surface artefacts were collected from across the site and two small trials were also excavated. The unstratified pottery, often severely abraded and worn, has nevertheless revealed evidence for links both with nearby sites, such as Epidavros Limera, those on Kythera and Ayios Stephanos, and with areas further afield such as Crete and central Greece. This paper reports on a selection of finds dating from early Middle Helladic to Late Helladic II and discusses their contribution to our understanding of the period.

Η μελέτη αυτή επικεντρώνεται στην αρχαιολογική μαρτυρία της Κρήτης κατά την Παλαιολιθική εποχή, εξετάζοντας τα ευρήματα από την Νότια Κρήτη και την Γαύδο. Ασχολείται με την υπόθεση για μετακινήσεις μέσω θαλάσσης κατά το Πλειστόκαινο στο Αιγαίο ή την Μεσόγειο με κριτική ματιά επιχειρώντας την αξιοποίηση των αρχαιολογικών, παλαιοανθρωπολογικών και παλαιογεωγραφικών δεδομένων. Συγκεκριμένα, γίνεται σύγκριση των παλαιολιθικών ευρημάτων από την Κρήτη με θέσεις της Μέσης Εποχής του Λίθου από τη Βόρεια Αφρική, και της Κατώτερης και Μέσης Παλαιολιθικής από την Δυτική Ασία και το Αιγαίο. Η προσέγγιση του θέματος γίνεται μέσω αφενός της ενδελεχούς βιβλιογραφικής επισκόπησης της ‘σύγχρονης συμπεριφοράς’ και αφετέρου της αναλυτικής παρουσίασης της τυπολογίας αλλά και της πρώτης ύλης των λίθινων ευρημάτων. Συγκεκριμένα, καταγράφονται οι διαφορετικές τάσεις της σύγχρονης έρευνας για τον ορισμό της ‘σύγχρονης συμπεριφοράς’, όπως ορίζεται το σύνολο των δεξιοτήτων τις οποίες έχει αποκτήσει το είδος μας. Η εκτενής παρουσίαση των λιθοτεχνιών από τις σχετικές δημοσιεύσεις δεν περιορίζεται στην καταγραφή των ευρημάτων αλλά προχωρά σε μία σύγκριση και αντιπαραβολή της τυπολογίας τους με αντίστοιχα από παλαιολιθικές θέσεις της Μεσογείου καθώς και μια καταγραφή των θεωρητικών τάσεων για την Αχελαία τεχνοπολιτισμική παράδοση. Επίσης, εξετάζει τις ιδιαιτερότητες της πρώτης ύλης των λίθινων ευρημάτων, αξιοποιώντας την σχετική βιβλιογραφία της πειραματικής αρχαιολογίας για τις ιδιότητες λάξευσης του χαλαζία. Με αυτόν τον τρόπο στέκεται κριτικά απέναντι στην πρόταση σχετικής χρονολόγησης των ευρημάτων μέσω της τυπολογίας, την χρήση όρων όπως ‘ατυπική’ και ‘οπορτουνιστική’ για την γενική περιγραφή της λιθοτεχνίας της Παλαιολιθικής Κρήτης και προχωράει σε μια νέα διατύπωση για την ταυτότητά της. Τέλος, αξιοποιώντας όλα τα παραπάνω, επαναδιαπραγματεύεται την υπόθεση για πιθανή μετακίνηση μέσω θαλάσσης προς την Κρήτη κατά το Πλειστόκαινο ειδικά σε ό,τι αφορά την ικανότητα ειδών Homo αρχαιότερων του sapiens να πραγματοποιήσουν τέτοιου είδους μετακινήσεις. This study focuses on the archaeological record of Crete during the Palaeolithic era, examining the finds from South Crete and Gavdos. It is an overview of the archaeological, paleoanthropological and paleogeographical bibliography on the possible Pleistocene marine dispersals in the Aegean and the Mediterranean. In particular, the Palaeolithic finds from Crete are compared with the Middle Stone Age sites from North Africa, and the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic from Western Asia and the Aegean. The bibliographic review of 'modern behaviour and the typology and raw material of stone finds are utilized to address the question of the identity of the initial human presence on the islands of Crete and Gavdos. In particular, the different trends of modern research on the definition of ‘modern behaviour’ are presented, as defined by the set of behavioural and cognitive skills acquired by our species. The lithic assemblages from the relevant publications are compared in terms of typology with similar finds from Palaeolithic sites of the Mediterranean. It also examines the specifics of the raw material of the lithic finds from southern Crete, utilizing the relevant literature of experimental archaeology for quartz knapping properties. In this way, typology is used to suggest an alternative chronology for the finds, while addressing the problematic use of terms such as 'atypical' and 'opportunistic' for the general description of the assemblage of Palaeolithic Crete. Finally, taking under consideration all of the above, the case for possible Pleistocene seaward dispersals to Crete and Gavdos is re-iterated especially in terms of the ability of hominin species other than Homo sapiens to successfully carry out such movements.

"For most of prehistory, global sea level was lower than today. Important events in human development, such as hominin dispersals during the Pleistocene Ice Age, the recolonization of formerly glaciated terrain, and the spread of agriculture took place on landscapes that are now, at least partially, underwater.

Submerged sites can offer preservation conditions rarely encountered on land. With advances in underwater exploration technology, many submerged landscapes have become accessible to archaeologists, and there is growing awareness of the potential for underwater archaeology to transform our knowledge of the human past.

This volume highlights the widespread occurrence of submerged prehistoric sites and demonstrates the exceptional diversity of well-preserved material to be found underwater around the world. The 25 peer-reviewed contributions from leading authors cover the results of recent research on three continents and the approaches and techniques applied to site discovery, investigation, and interpretation."

In this paper the morphology of the Great Shigir Idol’s head and face carving is analyzed in comparison with the row of carved anthropomorphic sculptures made of wood and other raw materials, found at the territory of Europe and Trans-Urals and dated from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age, inclusive. Moreover, some suggestions are given for the reasons of such ancient AMS-dates obtained by the wooden samples of the Big Shigir Idol. As a result, the conclusion is made about the contradiction between the results of the sculpture’s stylistic analysis and the bunch of its radiocarbon dating results, and that the date of a wooden log cannot correlate with the carving date, if we presume that the sub-fossil larch log was used. Nevertheless, further investigations should be performed in future to confirm or to deny the given hypothesis.

The karst systems of the Yucatan Peninsula, most of them
submerged, have long held the potential for Pleistocene
aged fossil deposits. Since the late 1980s, cave diving
explorers have been mapping these systems and, in the
course of their work, discovering the remains of animals
and humans. Although most of the human remains
have been from the Maya occupation of the region, a
few discoveries of pre-Maya humans are thought, but
not confirmed, to date to the Late Pleistocene or early
Holocene (González González et al. 2006; 2013), but
archaeological assemblages dating to this early period
have not yet been reported for the peninsula. The region’s
potential has remained largely untapped.

A major step toward realizing the paleoanthropological
and paleontological potential of the Yucatan’s submerged
caves came in 2007 with the discovery of Hoyo Negro.
Under study by an international team of archaeologists,
paleontologists, paleoecologists, and cave geochemists
from Mexico, the United States and Canada and led
by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia
(INAH), Hoyo Negro contains a remarkable time capsule
of the terminal Pleistocene climate and plant, animal, and
human life of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Offshore submerged sites can retain valuable data concerning many questions of interest to archaeology, including what form coastal occupations may have taken during periods before the establishment of modern coastlines and late Holocene climate and ecological conditions. However, submerged offshore sites experience post-depositional forces entirely unlike those in terrestrial contexts, including erosion/deflation of sediments, and degradation of artifacts and/or features caused by the marine environment. Methodological and theoretical approaches to assessing submerged marine sites, versus terrestrial ones, must be adjusted accordingly to extract valuable data and interpretations from them. This study demonstrates the application of these different approaches at the Econfina Channel site (8TA139) in Apalachee Bay, Florida, USA. The site appears to contain significant evidence for coastally adapted occupation during the final part of the Middle Archaic period (∼8600–5000 cal BP), but we needed to address marine site formation processes before we could assess human activities at the site. Sedimentological and archaeological traces of human activities can be teased out using geoarchaeological methods, which differentiate between nonhuman postdepositional processes and the cultural material remains left behind by those who used the site before it was abandoned and subsequently submerged.

Doggerland was a landmass occupying an area currently covered by the North Sea until marine inundation took place during the mid-Holocene, ultimately separating the British landmass from the rest of Europe. The Storegga Event, which triggered a tsunami reflected in sediment deposits in the northern North Sea, northeast coastlines of the British Isles and across the North Atlantic, was a major event during this transgressive phase. The spatial extent of the Storegga tsunami however remains unconfirmed as, to date, no direct evidence for the event has been recovered from the southern North Sea. We present evidence of a tsunami deposit in the southern North Sea at the head of a palaeo-river system that has been identified using seismic survey. The evidence, based on lithostratigraphy, geochemical signatures, macro and microfossils and sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA), supported by optical stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon dating, suggests that these deposits were a result ...

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This paper focuses initially on the 2005 discovery of a small Early Palaeo-Indian site along the Otonabee River in the northeast part of the city of Peterborough and broadens to discuss the regional context of occupation in the south Kawartha Lakes/Otonabee River and Rice Lake watersheds based on 40 years of intermittent survey and excavations. The Waverly Heights site (BcGn-13) was found during a shovel test survey with a single positive shovel test leading to a full Stage 4 excavation. The site is on the gentle north slope of a small glacial drumlin between two branches of the Otonabee River. Assigned to time period on the basis of distinctive channel flakes from the manufacture of fluted points, the site had a small hearth with bifacial debitage, a projectile point basal ear and calcined mammal bone. The calcined bone from the site indicates not just the hunting of large cervids but also consumption of fish. Proximity to a possible caribou water crossing of the glacial Otonabee River is raised. Channel flake width measurements suggest a Parkhill or later phase Palaeo-Indian occupation, perhaps Holcombe at the end of the Early Palaeo-Indian fluting tradition.
Waverly Heights provides new information on small resource extraction sites and indicates there may be much larger regional networks of small Early Palaeo-Indian site types, originally predicted from comprehensive survey work in the Rice Lake region 20 km to the south (Jackson1990). More than a dozen Early Palaeo-Indian sites in the western Rice Lake area include logistical game processing, hunting ambush, and multi-purpose residential camps. Significantly, reconstruction of palaeogeographic landscapes indicates that the entire western lake bed of Rice Lake would have been a mosaic of small wetlands and dry land in the late glacial period circa 12,000 to 10,000 years B.P. Multiple discoveries of fossil caribou remains from later Holocene contexts at Rice Lake, circa 6,000 to 3,000 years B.P. strongly indicate that caribou was a persistent resource for human occupants of the area. It is highly likely that many early Palaeo-Indian sites are currently inaccessible below the now flooded western Rice Lake basin because of the Holocene effects of isostatic rebound.

The purpose with this composition was to interpret prehistoric remains, located under water in the Huskvarna Bay. This was done by studying existing dokuments and by interviewing people who has done research in this area. As a complement, a marine archaeological investigation and survey has been executed. Most of the remains has been interpreted and dated to the Iron Age, and the rest to the Bronze Age or Middle Age. The remains in the Huskvarna Bay has been studied in relation to the remains located in the adjacent regions, with the purpose to investigate any connections between these areas. This investigation has made it possible to present the possibility that the Huskvarna Bay may have been a central region during different periods in prehistory. It is though still important to investigate this area more thorough, in order to claim this with reliability.

We present here the earliest evidence for large-scale table olive production from the mid-7th millennium BP inundated site of Hishuley Carmel on the northern Mediterranean coast of Israel. Olive pit size and fragmentation patterns, pollen as well as the architecture of installations associated with pits from this site, were compared to finds from the nearby and slightly earlier submerged Kfar Samir site. Results indicate that at Kfar Samir olive oil was extracted, while at Hishuley Carmel the data showed that large quantities of table olives, the oldest reported to date, were prepared. This process was most probably facilitated by the site’s proximity to the Mediterranean Sea, which served as a source of both sea water and salt required for debittering/pickling/salting the fruit, as experimentally demonstrated in this study. Comparison of pit morphometry from modern cultivars, wild-growing trees and the archaeological sites, intimates that in pit morphology the ancient pits resemble...

Ubaid pottery was famously recorded by H. R. Hall during the excavation of a tell mound at Al cUbaid, and for nearly half a century became associated with the origins of urbanisation and developments in social hierarchy in southern Mesopotamia. The discovery in 1968 of cUbaid pottery around the western Gulf littoral, some 1,000km to the south of Mesopotamia, raised questions regarding the nature of interaction between these two societies. This paper considers the origins of this interaction and the effects of geomorphology, hydrology and the palaeoenvironment on regional migration. The extent to which topography and marine transgression were a catalyst for migration is also discussed, and how, or if such factors influenced post-transgression settlement dynamics.

"Pavlopetri, off the coast of Laconia, Greece, is a submerged prehistoric town, which consists of intact building foundations, courtyards, streets, graves, and rock-cut tombs. New underwater
research in 2009 consisted of detailed underwater survey of the structural remains (using a robotic total station and sector-scan sonar technology) alongside sampling of the artefactual material across the site. In addition to the digital recording of the 30,000 m2 of previously known buildings, over 9000 m2 of new buildings were discovered in 2009 including a large rectangular hall and a street lined with buildings.  The ceramics recovered confirm the Mycenaean occupation of the site but also reveal occupation as early as 3500 BC making Pavlopetri, at over 5000 years old, the oldest known submerged town in world."

Scientific underwater archaeology started in the early 20th century with the development of scuba. Prehistoric artefacts
were discovered incidentally by fisherman, divers or in the course of marine projects. The current challenge of underwater
prehistoric archaeology is to establish a methodology that will enable exploration, excavation, survey and documentation,
and guarantee that submerged prehistory makes a significant, enduring contribution to world prehistory. With reference
to the inundated Neolithic villages discovered off the Israeli Mediterranean coast, this paper demonstrates the potential of
submerged prehistoric research for the understanding of past coastal cultures. Five decades of underwater archaeological
research in Israel has revealed 17 submerged prehistoric sites in the Mediterranean, and few in the freshwater, inland, Sea of
Galilee, all containing substantial and well-preserved finds. The Mediterranean sites, the focus of this article, belong mainly
to two main cultural phases: The Pre-Pottery Neolithic C represented at the site of Atlit-Yam, dated to 9250–8000 cal. BP,
several Pottery Neolithic sites dated to between 8000 and 6500 cal. BP and others. This article presents the fundamentals of
a multi-disciplinary model outlining how submerged landscapes and settlements were located, surveyed, excavated, analyzed
and managed. Aspects covered by the model are: (A) Site location and survival, (B) Search methods and site detection, (C)
Procurement of archaeological data, (D) Typology of the submerged sites, (E) Reconstructing sea leve

There are significant challenges to answering questions of Native American precontact history with data from sites in marine submerged continental shelf settings. We find seven published examples of projects in the Americas that encountered archaeological sites through systematic and phased geoarchaeological research. These seven projects share similar characteristics: recognition of archaeological potential, mapping and learning paleolandscape configurations, modeling where past human behaviors should be expected and, importantly, testing those places underwater. We summarize the approaches and outcomes of each project, discuss similar characteristics, and recommend additional strategies for future discoveries.

Ehud Galili Israel Antiquities Authority udi@israntique.org.il
Baruch Rosen Israel Antiquities AuthorityIntroduction

Fresh water is essential to human societies. Some
drinking water can be transported over distances but
can not fully support settled communities. The shortage
of permanent fresh water sources left certain areas
unsettled. The PPN novel invention of mining underground
aquifers using wells created a man-made source
of fresh water which enabled the settling of previously
unusable territories, i.e., coastal areas. Recently early
Neolithic wells were discovered in Cyprus (Peltenburg
et al. 2001), submerged Atlit-Yam, and Sha’ar Hagolan
(Garfinkel et al. 2005; Garfinkel 2006). The Holocene
sea level rise inundated the Pre-Pottery Neolithic
(PPNC), Pottery Neolithic, and Wadi Rabah (Fig. 1)
settlements on the Carmel coast. These were later uncovered
by coastal erosion.

This is the first technical report in a series which will emerge from underwater archaeological investigations of submerged prehistoric sites in the Silver River of Central Florida.
I am a principal investigator on this project alongside Dr. Michael Waters (Texas A&M University, Center for the Study of the First Americans) and Dr. Jessi Halligan (Florida State University), both of whom serve on my PhD committee.
Covered in this report is Phase 1 research. This includes a synthesis of available literature and excavation materials from the original, 1973 excavations. Also included are the results of geoarchaeological survey of the area for intact portions of the Guest Mammoth bone bed suitable to answer specific research questions about prehistoric climate change, the settlement of the Southeast United States, and the peopling of the Americas.

Paleoenvironmental studies of late Pleistocene climate change and postglacial sea-level rise have coincided with and inspired archaeological fieldwork in submarine environments. Underwater archaeological contributions have significantly enhanced the Mesolithic-Neolithic record in and around Europe; however, despite recent advancements, a clear approach to broadly investigate submerged prehistoric landscapes remains undefined. While a specific survey strategy has been tested in southern Scandinavia, these practices lack some considerations if they are to be productively applied on an international scale. Through a systematic identification of physical and cultural variables and a practical, common-sense approach, this paper re-evaluates the 'Danish model' for submerged prehistoric landscape archaeology and presents a framework for the identification of locations for underwater archaeological survey and site discovery. In addition to the methodological evaluation, specific research priorities are introduced.

Excavation of submerged prehistoric sites by diving archacologists shows that it is possible to obtain degrees of high resolution stratigraphic information comparable to excavation on dry land.
Many sites have been eroded so that the remaining deposit has been disturbed and concentrated, but a few sites are completely intact. Examples are given of different sites, and the use of acoustics
foll owed by diving excavation .

Until recently, the general view of archaeologists was that southern Scandinavia was uninhabited during the last ice age, the Weichselian glaciation. On the basis of recent climate reconstructions and glaciological data, combined with recent faunal finds from the adjacent North Sea sectors, this paper argues that large parts of the Scandinavian North Sea sector were actually inhabitable during most of this glacial period, with the presence of extensive ice free coastal zones even during the Last Glacial Maximum. Furthermore, ethnoarchaeological evidence, together with findings from excavations of mammoth-hunter sites, is used to argue that the large quantities of megafaunal remains fished up from the North Sea in recent years should be seriously considered as representing settlement material associated with mammoth-hunter camps dating from the second half of the Weichselian glaciation. The question is whether these faunal remains from the North Sea represent sites similar to the mammoth-hunter camps known from other parts of Europe and from Siberia?

Drowned archaeological sites are particularly common throughout the Chesapeake Bay region and the Delmarva Peninsula. The South Jones Cove site (44NH462) represents a drowned Archaic period site, which was discovered in 2001 as a result of an Atlantic coastal archaeological survey funded by Virginia Department of Historic Resources Threatened Sites Program. Research conducted at the site over the past several months offers insights into the regional geology, site formation processes, and Archaic-era adaptations associated with the developing Chesapeake Bay. The investigations outlined in this report offer a better understanding of late Holocene sea level rise, as well as an appreciation of the natural processes impacting archaeological sites during the transition from a terrestrial environment to a sub-aqueous offshore setting.

Final report on the submerged landsacpes project. Including the link to the short animation illustrating what the landscape might have looked like around 10000 years ago, pollen chart and radiocarbon date for a core collected in 1971, and initial conclusions