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A GROUP OF researchers has set out on an undersea expedition to look for evidence of the first Irish settlers.
The team, which includes researchers from IT Sligo, University College Cork (UCC), the University of Bradford and the Irish Marine Institute, will explore the landscapes between Ireland and Britain which were submerged following the last Ice Age.
Globally, the sea level rose around 120 metres and an area more than twice that of the modern United States was lost to the sea.
Beneath the waves of the Irish Sea is a prehistoric ‘palaeolandscape’ of plains, hills, marshlands and river valleys in which researchers expect evidence of human activity to be preserved.
This landscape, according to researchers, is similar to Doggerland, an area of the southern North Sea and currently the best-known example of a palaeolandscape in Europe. Doggerland has been extensively researched by Professor Vince Gaffney, principal investigator of this project, which is called Europe’s Lost Frontiers.
Gaffney said research by the project team has provided accurate maps and this submerged land is suspected to hold crucial information regarding the first settlers of Ireland and the adjacent lands along the Atlantic corridor.
To provide this evidence, sediment is currently being taken by the Irish research vessel RV Celtic Voyager in Liverpool and Cardigcan bays.
The research started on 21 February and will continue until tomorrow.
“It is very exciting as we’re using cutting-edge technology to retrieve the first evidence for life within landscapes that were inundated by rising sea levels thousands of years ago. This is the first time that this range of techniques has been employed on submerged landscapes under the Irish Sea,” commented chief scientist for this phase of the research, Dr James Bonsall.
“Today we perceive the Irish Sea as a large body of water, a sea that separates us from Britain and mainland Europe, a sea that gives us an identity as a proud island nation. But 18,000 years ago, Ireland, Britain and Europe were part of a single landmass that gradually flooded over thousands of years, forming the islands that we know today.
“We’re going to find out where, when, why and how people lived on a landscape that today is located beneath the waves”.
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Prehistoric Brexit 18000 thousand years ago
According to the latest scientific reports it is believed that sea levels rose close to 400 feet in a day around 12,000 years ago and considering most people would have lived close to coastal areas then it is conceivable that not many would have survived. The catalyst was a 100km comet that exploded in the atmosphere raining down fragments into the 2km high northern hemisphere ice shelf.
@Derek Durkin: little known scientific research
@Dave keeley: it’s little known in the mainstream media, but there is a abundance of information in the scientific journals with a major study being published only a month ago.
@Derek Durkin: That would have been pretty rough for them. So you’re telling me that you had some people in essentially the Midlands of that time who became the new coastal dwellers after this event waking up to find the sea on their doorstep. That is pretty major.
@Sean: pretty much, if they had of survived the 1, 000 foot high tsunami that swept down from the north and the worldwide fire that engulfed the planet. Basically land mass bigger than Europe disappeared over night around the world and that is where most of the population lived. Ties in with the fact that every ancient culture around the world had a major catastrophic flood event myth.
@Sean: https://youtu.be/0H5LCLljJho these lads who have studied this for more than twenty years explain it in great detail.
@Sean: and here’s another one. It is quite possible that the event happened in around October 31st considering we pass through a particular asteroid belt at that time every year which would give rise to Haloween truly being the day of the dead.
@Derek Durkin: Current research suggests that it was the end of the ice age and sea level rise that flooded these areas. This would have been a gradual process rather than a giant wave of water.
@Derek Durkin: interesting
Mer-man dad, Mer-man!
@BlueSkyThinking: Merperson pleaze
@Dave keeley: The “son” in person is potentially problematic. I use per’they’ just to be safe.
It is fascinating how little we know of our history. What irritates me greatly is how historians and experts declare with such certainty their wild theories and guesses only to retract and rewrite the new theories and guesses when a new discovery occurs.
The use of conditional phrases such as “we think that…” or “this site could have used for….” would improve accuracy and credibility no end.
@Ranty McCrank: yeah like the one about Neanderthals having died out before modern humans that was blown out of the water when DNA evidence showed that there was plenty of interbreeding happening between us and them.
Doggerland? Was there an internet poll or something to help pick the name?
@White Rabbit: the carpark next to me has the same name but for a different reaso. Go there at 3am, flash the headlights and you’ll see why
So basically Ireland and the UK were a single landmass all along, except a flood happened about 10,000 years ago.
We need to drain the Irish Sea and restore the single Great Isle to its historically whole self, as it was for millions of years.
@alphanautica: Or France could reclaim Britain. Except for the massive sea in the way. And several thousand years. Also, they didn’t even have the language called English back then. It evolved during the timespan you want to record over. But hey, I’m fine with learning some version of Old French instead if you are.
Here’s the remains of a drowned Scots Pine forest I visited just south of Bray Harbour a few years ago…
It’s best seen at the lowest spring tides.
West Brits mightn’t be that far west after all.
@aoife✨: from the person who said were all descended from Africans lastnight
@Billy Connelly: “Who said were’ – you speekey ze Enlish?
Was the man from Atlantis Irish ??
@Slim Browne: an fear uisce
@Slim Browne: of course, PatrickDuffy was his name doh
So it wasn’t a slow global warming that caused the ice to melt and the seas to rise. So much for the belief that Ireland was once a tropical paradise and the earth took a different tilt.
Visit infomar.ie to see all the Irish marine data! You can view hundreds of shipwrecks all around the coast.
Did they all drown. Poor heading.
@Paul Coughlan: There seems to be evidence of a cataclysmic event that caused sea levels to rise by several 10s of meters almost overnight. Think a world wide Pompeii but with water rather than lava The death toll must have been staggering
@Francis Devenney: what evidence is this? I think it was a gradual process, rather a giant wave.
It’d be better served analysing how people are living now.
@Paul Culligan: I’d say they have to study this now, not later on. And then we can ask the EU to dredge all the deep sea sediment out on land so that whatever happens, we can rise above it. Also, deepen the seas and there’s room for the extra water to drain away from us. Sure why not?
@Paul Culligan: The Central Statistics Office analyses how people are living now regularly. Go look up their findings.
This is a scientific marine archeological research project, the findings of which will probably be of no significance to us living today and therefore a waste of money and resources.
I find this subject incredibly interesting, to think people often set up civilizations at the mouths of rivers. At the time of New Grange’s construction, the mouth of the Boyne River would have been far out into what is now the Irish Sea. We have no idea if there is a city lost down there, anything could be found.
Dey tuk arrrrr jaaaaaabs!
The spinners don’t see it that way
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