When you buy through contact on our internet site , we may earn an affiliate direction . Here ’s how it works .
An underwater stone paries detect in the Baltic Sea near Germany was build up about 11,000 old age ago for hunting reindeer when the fix was dry acres , a raw work indicates .
The investigator suggest the local prehistorical the great unwashed built the wall ; its remaining parts were craft from 1,670 stones and stretch about two - thirds of a mile ( 975 meters ) long , brook 3 feet ( 1 m ) tall and are 6.5 feet ( 2 m ) blanket . The team observe the wall via echo sounder and dives to the location , which is at a profoundness of about 70 feet ( 21 m ) and roughly 6 Admiralty mile ( 10 kilometre ) 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 early Holocene ( 11,700 years ago to present ) in Europe , the researchers said in the bailiwick . Based on similar prehistorical walls — include the ancient " desert kites " detect in the Middle East — the authors propose that it was built on juiceless land by hunter - gatherers to drive wild animal herds into corrals where they could be killed . They also suggest that the wall in the Bay of Mecklenburg was used to hunt Rangifer tarandus ( Rangifer tarandus ) , which was a common species in that part of Europe at the clock time .
But deepen sea levels do by melting ice sheets after the last ice age flooded the area about 8,500 years ago , along with other parts of the New Baltic and the"Doggerland " area that joined Britain and the European continent .
Related:7,000 - yr - old cult site in Saudi Arabia was filled with human remains and animal bones
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 detect the wall almost by accident in 2021 , during a boat trip into the Bay of Mecklenburg to teach nautical geophysical technique to students .
" It was a bit out of the blue,“Jacob Geersen , a marine geophysicist at Kiel University in Germany , told Live Science . " We did not search for the social organisation because we did not know it was there . But we adjudicate it on the seafloor from our multibeam echosounder data . "
Researchers have now mapped the wall using sonar equipment on boats and on anautonomous underwater vehicle , and researcher have made dives to different sites along its length . Those investigations and sediment sample from the seafloor around the structure designate that it was built on purpose on ironic land , rather than being a natural feature of the now - inundate 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 , issue Monday ( Feb. 12 ) in the journalPNAS .
Bradtmöller explicate that the wall seems to have been built beside the shoring of an ancient bog or lake that would have keep the herd animals from take to the woods in that direction .
The appointment the paries was built is n’t precisely make out , he said , but it ’s thought that reindeer become extinct in the area about 9,000 long time ago , a few hundred years before it was flood 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 map the wall , the researchers go for to find buried artifact along its distance that could uncover more about the wall ’s origins and use . They suggested that parts of the paries could have been " blinds " where people task with killing the animals could have hidden so as not to dash away a panicked ruck .
Submerged lands
In part due to the low - oxygen environment of water , submerge structures are often well preserved . But they can be challenging to analyze , the generator noted . The Bay of Mecklenburg wall , however , lies in relatively protected waters along the Baltic coast , unlike structures in the Doggerland region of the North Sea , where storm and high undulation are coarse , Geersen articulate .
As well as better maintain the structure , the milder water supply make it easier to investigate the wall , he said ; the researcher expect to return to the site in a few months .
— recede island beneath the North Sea come through a mega - tsunami 8,000 class ago
— Weapons chip at from human bone come up from drowned land bridge between UK and Europe
— 8,000 - yr - former tilt carvings in Arabia may be Earth ’s Old megastructure design
Vincent Gaffney , an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the U.K. who was n’t involved in the subject but is akey investigator of Doggerland , tell Live Science that the wall — if it ’s confirm to be a human - made social organisation — " clear demonstrates that our coastal shelf , much of which were habitable prior to sea - stratum rise following the last glaciation , are likely to have conserve evidence for prehistoric lifestyle rarely keep on solid ground . "
Many now - submerged situation are being developed for coastal or offshore structures , so the find show " the need to search these area , which are currentlyTerra Incognita[Latin for unknown land ] , " he said in an email .
