Archeologists' groundbreaking discovery as 'lost Atlantis' finally found after 8,500 years
THE legend of Atlantis has left a city-sized hole in our understanding of history, with archaeologists scouring the seas for a sign of this drowned civilization. A major school of thought is that Atlantis was never real. However, as we now know, the idea of a coastal city being swallowed by the sea is not impossible.
Then, archaeologists in Europe believed they found the missing puzzle piece. You might not think Denmark would be the nautical home to an exotic lost city of ancient times, but this is where archeologists found the most convincing evidence of Atlantis. "Europe's Atlantis", dating back to the Stone Age was found under the waters of Denmark's Bay of Aarhus.
Researchers uncovered several artefacts that draw a picture of a civilized community that lived there almost 8,500 years ago. These included stone tools, arrowheads, animal bones, and even pieces of wood that resembled simple tools.
The scientists dived 26 feet below the surface of Denmark's second-largest city, using specialised suction equipment, to extract the remnants of Europe's Atlantis.
The site dates back to the end of the last Ice Age, when rising seas engulfed entire coastal settlements, pushing Stone Age hunter-gatherers inland. It comes as Professor Stephen Hawking predicted the exact date of the apocalypse - and NASA issued a warning.
As the artefacts in Denmark have been trapped underwater for thousands of years, they are far better preserved than they would be inland.
"What we actually tried to find out here is how life was at a coastal settlement 8,500 years ago," archaeologist Peter Moe told Global News.
He added: "Here, we actually have an old coastline. We have a settlement that was positioned directly at the coastline. What we actually try to find out here is how life was at a coastal settlement.
"It's like a time capsule. When the sea level rose, everything was preserved in an oxygen-free environment … time just stops. We find completely well-preserved wood. We find hazelnut. … Everything is well preserved. "
"We can say very precisely when these trees died at the coastlines," Moesgaard Museum dendrochronologist Jonas Ogdal Jensen, according to Fortune.
The expert explained how this discovery has revealed a lot about how sea levels have changed through time.
He said: "It's hard to answer exactly what it meant to people," Moe Astrup said. "But it clearly had a huge impact in the long run because it completely changed the landscape."
Researchers hope to continue studying an additional site off the coast of Germany. There are also plans to explore sites in the notoriously treacherous North Sea in the future.
But this isn't the first time archaeologists have linked a site to Atlantis. Doggerland was a landmass that once stretched between Britain, Denmark, and the Netherlands, connecting the corners of Europe.
In 1931, evidence of this lost land started to be found by a Dutch fishing boat that retrieved artefacts from the sea floor.
A picture of a thousand-year-old hunter-gatherer community emerged. However, 8,200 years ago, rising seas and a devastating tsunami once again buried these people.
A mammoth undersea landslide triggered a series of unstoppable natural disasters that submerged the land under the sea. Today, what's left of it lies beneath the North Sea.
