A Submerged Monolith Near Sicily: Evidence for Mesolithic Human Activity | Hacker News Reader

A Submerged Monolith Near Sicily: Evidence for Mesolithic Human Activity

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On a similar note, see also Doggerland (the large, submerged peninsula off the north-west coast of Europe, of which the British Isles are the only surviving above-surface relics today):

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/maps/doggerland/

A lot of previously-inhabited territory -- presumably fertile lowlands! -- was inundated as sea levels rose after the last ice age ended, around 9500-8500 years ago.

There are a lot of geolocations in that area where you can still walk out onto sandbars during low tide. In this map, much of the green zone around Denmark is seasonally 'land'.

Ye auld name for that peninsula, "Jutland", implicates inasmuch.

That's the first time I've ever seen the Netherlands described as "higher ground"!

The most important Mesolithic site is Göbekli Tepe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe

It is truly revolutionizing our understanding of mesolithic culture.

It could be that the flood myths (Atlantis, the floods in the bible and a lot of others) come from this time.

That would suggest that oral knowledge survive thousands of years (a little more than DVDs). It's pretty remarkable.

I agree, and many more have been making this argument over the years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth#Claims_of_historici...

Also, if you find this fascinating I suggest go watch The Exodus Decoded, www.imdb.com/title/tt0847162

Not just thousands, try tens of thousands.

For example, Australian Aborigines still have stories about the huge, man-eating lizards. It was considered just a standard myth until we discovered fossils of Megalania, a huge lizard matching the description, that went extinct soon after humans came to Australia.

Closer to the actual sea level rise topic, tribes of coastal northern Australia still have names and relatively precise description of land features (mountains etc) that are now underwater, but were land until 9k years ago.

All these worlds are yours, except Sicily. Attempt no contact there.

I've done some diving in the Black Sea and have stumbled upon a number of structures that looked like human-made artifacts. They are near the shore lines as they were before the end of the last glacial period. I'm personally 99% sure there was a somewhat advanced civilization at that time.

One theory for the urheimat (homeland) of the Indo-Europeans and the technology of chariots involves the Black Sea littoral:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurgan_hypothesis

  Look up Black Sea deluge theory. Black sea was supposedly flooded (a bit later than the actual sea level rise from the ice melting after the ice age), around 7500 years ago, with levels rising up to 70m and turning it from a freshwater lake into Black Sea, and increasing its size 1.5x-2x.
  That event is one of possible explanations for the spread of what became Indo-European language/culture/people group, which a good deal of us belong to.
  Until the evidence for the Black Sea deluge was found, the Indo-Europeans were theoreticized to have come from area north of Black Sea (it is still so), but I think the initial push came from the now flooded areas.

While true that it's a hypothesis - there's very little evidence for it and a bunch against.

Easier to read:

Look up Black Sea deluge theory. Black sea was supposedly flooded (a bit later than the actual sea level rise from the ice melting after the ice age), around 7500 years ago, with levels rising up to 70m and turning it from a freshwater lake into Black Sea, and increasing its size 1.5x-2x.

That event is one of possible explanations for the spread of what became Indo-European language/culture/people group, which a good deal of us belong to.

Until the evidence for the Black Sea deluge was found, the Indo-Europeans were theoreticized to have come from area north of Black Sea (it is still so), but I think the initial push came from the now flooded areas.

The Black Sea is aquatically contiguous with the Mediterranean, so it is safe to say that there was a spanning civilization in that climate zone, after humanity migrated north of the Sahara.

Some of the metals and ceramics found in these sites are more detailed than modern day equivalents, because there was an abundance of exquisite raw materials. There is not any blatant evidence to show advanced means of manufacture, or technology hence.

How sure were you that the things you saw were man-made? If I thought I'd discovered a 10,000 year old object, it would be worth notifying an archeologist.

I didn't see any discussion of this in the article, but could it have just fallen off a ship, maybe from the Romans or something? It looks like the only dating they've done so far is of the area it was found in, not the monolith itself.

It seems to have been made from stone from a nearby structure. It would have been underwater by the time anybody with ships came by.

OK, read the paper.

Don't get too excited. From the sound of it, it could be an artefact, those could be harbour walls, but they could also be looking at some nice old karst that happens to have weathered into rectilinear shapes.

...except for the regular drilled holes in the monolith?

They're not regular, from the paper, they're holes. You get holes in rocks for all sorts of reasons, from biogenic processes through to inclusions of softer or soluble rock.

Just saying that at this stage it's all quite light on evidence.

I wonder if it's black.

This is old enough to have been Neanderthal?

9350 ± 200 year B.P.

B.P. == Before Present https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_Present

Should have started with a service-oriented architecture, then their civilization would have never collapsed.

http://xkcd.com/1190/ ?

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