A wealth of human history lies submerged at the bottoms of lakes, seas and oceans of the world. Will these details when completely uncovered, throw some light on ‘search of life’? It is believed that tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters might have sent them into the water.
We all come across discoveries of underwater cities, ruins, unidentified objects, etc. Underwater archaeology and maritime archaeology are branches that study the prehistoric objects that are submerged in water. Maritime archaeologists like Franck Goddio have helped our civilizations a great deal through their contribution in solving mysteries hidden under the water.
Since the last ice age sea level has risen as much as 120 meters. Therefore, definitely a great deal of the record of human activity throughout the Ice Age is now to be found under water. To uncover this information underwater access and archaeology are important. Accessing the information underwater is not easy without a number of scientific methods and techniques. Some of the popular methods are:
Dendrochronology – scientific method to determine the age of the tree using ‘tree rings’ / ‘growth rings’. This may also provide details on where the wooden artefact was built.
Palaeobotany (deals with study of plant remains) and Zoo archaeology (study of animal elements left) do play their role in underwater archaeology.
Spectrometry, X-ray techniques provide information on the artefacts.
Geology provides the insight about the site itself.
Exploring the underwater world can be mysterious. There have been stories about pyramids found in the water bed of Bermuda triangle. These pyramids are said to be of glass or similar material and are large than the pyramids of Egypt.
For sure search of life has to keep an eye on what lies beneath and further posts will bring some underwater discoveries in focus.
