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An subaqueous stone paries discovered in the Baltic Sea near Germany was build about 11,000 years ago for hound Greenland caribou when the locating was dry land , a new study indicate .
The researchers suggest the local prehistorical people built the bulwark ; its stay parts were crafted from 1,670 Harlan Fisk Stone and stretch about two - thirds of a mile ( 975 meters ) long , stand 3 feet ( 1 yard ) tall and are 6.5 feet ( 2 m ) wide-cut . The team observe the wall via sonar and dives to the position , which is at a profundity of about 70 feet ( 21 m ) and approximately 6 Roman mile ( 10 kilometers ) east of Rerik , Germany , in the Bay of Mecklenburg .
The wall’s individual stones are seen in this 3D model based on precisely-located photographs (photogrammetry) of part of the underwater structure. The cross-shaped scale at the bottom measures 20 inches (50 centimeters) across.
The wall may be the largest of its kind from the former Holocene ( 11,700 years ago to demonstrate ) in Europe , the researcher said in the study . free-base on similar prehistoric walls — admit the ancient " desert kites " found in the Middle East — the authors suggest that it was built on dry land by hunter - gatherers to drive wild animal ruck into corrals where they could be drink down . They also suggest that the wall in the Bay of Mecklenburg was used to hunt down reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus ) , which was a mutual specie in that part of Europe at the sentence .
But changing sea levels make by melting ice bed sheet after the last ice rink eld flooded the field about 8,500 years ago , along with other parts of the New Baltic and the"Doggerland " neighborhood that joined Britain and the European continent .
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A 3D model of the wall and trapped reindeer on the shore of a now-submerged lake, based on sonar data and the photogrammetric model of the underwater structure.
Hunting wall
Scientists detected the wall almost by stroke in 2021 , during a gravy holder trip into the Bay of Mecklenburg to learn nautical geophysical techniques to student .
" It was a bit out of the blue,“Jacob Geersen , a marine geophysicist at Kiel University in Germany , narrate Live Science . " We did not face for the structure because we did not have a go at it it was there . But we settle it on the seafloor from our multibeam echosounder data . "
researcher have now map the wall using sonar equipment on boats and on anautonomous underwater vehicle , and researchers have made dive to dissimilar sites along its duration . Those investigations and sediment sample distribution from the seafloor around the structure betoken that it was built on purpose on dry land , rather than being a rude feature of speech of the now - submerged landscape .
Sonar data from an autonomous underwater vehicle shows the wall stretching from roughly from southwest to northeast along the seafloor of Germany’s Bay of Mecklenburg. The stone shown here in red is too large to have been moved; the wall was built to include it.
Geersen andMarcel Bradtmöller , a prehistorian at the University of Rostock in Germany , are the co - lead authors of the study about the discovery , published Monday ( Feb. 12 ) in the journalPNAS .
Bradtmöller explained that the paries seems to have been make beside the shore of an ancient bog or lake that would have prevented the herd animals from escaping in that direction .
The date the rampart was built is n’t on the dot known , he said , but it ’s think that caribou went nonextant in the field about 9,000 years ago , a few hundred years before it was flooded by the ocean .
One of the research team on an early dive to the submerged structure. The study also looked at sonar images of the wall and sediment samples from the seafloor beside it, which could help establish when it was built.
As well as mapping the bulwark , the investigator go for to receive buried artifact along its length that could reveal more about the rampart ’s origins and use . They intimate that parts of the rampart could have been " screen " where people tax with killing the fauna could have hidden so as not to frighten away away a terrified herd .
Submerged lands
In part due to the low - atomic number 8 environment of pee , submerge structures are often well preserved . But they can be gainsay to examine , the authors notice . The Bay of Mecklenburg rampart , however , lie in relatively protect water along the Baltic coast , unlike construction in the Doggerland neighborhood of the North Sea , where storm and high waves are vernacular , Geersen said .
As well as advantageously preserving the structure , the milder waters make it easier to investigate the bulwark , he said ; the research worker expect to return to the situation in a few month .
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Vincent Gaffney , an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the U.K. who was n’t involved in the study but is akey investigator of Doggerland , told Live Science that the wall — if it ’s confirmed to be a human - made complex body part — " distinctly demonstrates that our coastal shelves , much of which were inhabitable prior to ocean - level raise following the last glaciation , are potential to have keep evidence for prehistoric lifestyles rarely carry on on state . "
Many now - submerged sites are being develop for coastal or seaward structures , so the discovery shows " the need to explore these areas , which are currentlyTerra Incognita[Latin for unidentified demesne ] , " he said in an e-mail .
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