The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research.
Archaeologists have identified what may be Europe’s oldest human-made megastructure, submerged 21 meters below the Baltic Sea in the Bay of Mecklenburg, Germany. This structure – which has been named the Blinkerwall – is a continuous low wall made from over 1,500 granite stones that runs for almost a kilometer. The evidence suggests it was constructed by Palaeolithic people between 11,700 and 9,900 years ago, probably as an aid for hunting reindeer.
The archaeologists investigating the Bay of Mecklenburg used a range of submarine equipment, sampling methods and modelling techniques to reconstruct the ancient lake bed and its surrounding landscape. This revealed that the Blinkerwall stands on a ridge running east to west, with a 5km-wide lake basin a few meters below the ridge to the south.
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The human, rather than natural, origin for the Blinkerwall was confirmed by an archaeological diving team who photographed sections of the wall. These show that it is made up of 288 very large boulders, which were probably dropped in that location by the retreating glacier, connected by 1,673 smaller stones.
These smaller stones appear to have been collected from the immediate vicinity, as the area just to the north of the wall has many fewer stones than the areas even further north. The resulting structure stands a little under a meter in height and up to two meters wide, with remarkable regularity over its 971-meter length.
A different landscape
At the time of its construction, the landscapes and seascapes of northwest Europe were very different from today. The climate was beginning…
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