This is the final volume of the SPLASHCOS research network and marks the completion of an international and collaborative survey to compile and evaluate the known records of underwater material around Europe’s coastlines, deposited during periods of low sea level and subsequently drowned by sea-level rise at the end of the Last Glacial Period. Some of these underwater finds, especially those exposed in the intertidal zone, have been known about since the last century but have languished in obscure publications, museum archives, or national sites and monument records. Systematic underwater investigation and excavation did not begin until the 1970s and only then in a few research centres, notably in Denmark, Bulgaria, and Israel. Only since the turn of the new millennium has this field of underwater research come into focus as a significant missing part of the archaeological record, and many new investigations have begun or gained new momentum during the past decade, not least because of improved technologies of marine exploration and remote sensing, intensified industrial exploitation of the seabed, and collaboration between offshore industries, government agencies, and commercial archaeologists. The material reviewed here covers 20 countries bordering all the major marine basins from the Atlantic coasts of Ireland and Norway to the Black Sea and from the western Baltic to the eastern Mediterranean. Nearly 3000 underwater find spots are known, ranging from isolated artefacts to in situ settlements and spanning a period from c. 1 million years ago to the establishment of modern sea level between 7000 and 2000 years ago. In this introductory chapter, we outline the history of investigations, highlight the importance of this underwater record for a better understanding of European (and world) prehistory, explain the rationale for the research and the way we have structured the volume, and summarise some key issues. The chapters are organised in four parts, and each part is prefaced by its own G. Bailey (*) Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, UK College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia e-mail: geoff.bailey@york.ac.uk N. Galanidou Department of History and Archaeology, University of Crete, Rethymno, Greece e-mail: galanidou@uoc.gr H. Peeters Groningen Institute of Archaeology, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands e-mail: j.h.m.peeters@rug.nl H. Jöns · M. Mennenga Lower Saxony Institute for Historical Coastal Research, Wilhelmshaven, Germany e-mail: joens@nihk.de; mennenga@nihk.de 1

The Archaeology of Europe's Drowned Landscapes

Hunter-gatherers across the great Adriatic-Po region during the Last Glacial Maximum: Environmental and cultural dynamics

The submerged landscapes around Great Britain are extensive and would have offered productive territory for hunting, gathering, exploitation of aquatic and marine resources, and—in the final stages of postglacial sea-level rise—opportunities for agriculture. They would also have provided land connections to continental Europe and opportunities for communication by sea travel along now-submerged palaeocoastlines and river estuaries. Most of the archaeological material has been discovered in intertidal or shallow water conditions, but there are also discoveries in deeper water, with dates ranging from earliest human presence nearly one million years ago up to the establishment of modern sea level. Some later material is present where coastlines have continued to sink in more recent millennia. Intertidal sites are especially well represented because of relatively large tidal ranges and shallow offshore gradients on many coastlines. These are often associated with remains of submerged forests, which are periodically exposed at low tide and then covered up again by movements of sand. Some of the most distinctive intertidal finds are the human and animal footprints preserved in intertidal sediments in many locations, especially at Goldcliff East. The earliest, at Happisburgh, are dated between 0.78 and 1 Ma. Fully submerged sites include the Mesolithic site of Bouldnor Cliff with its worked timbers, and the Middle Stone Age artefacts from offshore aggregate Area 240 along with well-preserved ice age fauna and environmental indicators. Pioneering work using oil industry seismic records has produced detailed reconstructions of the submerged landscape, and this is being followed up by new work involving targeted acoustic survey and coring of sediments.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2F978-3-030-37367-2_10.pdf

Great Britain: The Intertidal and Underwater Archaeology of Britain’s Submerged Landscapes

The significance of sea-level change and ancient submerged landscapes in human dispersal and development: A geoarchaeological perspective

Coastal Prehistory and Submerged Landscapes : Molluscan Resources, Shell-Middens and Underwater Investigations

This chapter provides an overview of the work that has been undertaken in the region of the English Channel and Celtic Sea area. It contains background information about the environment, geology and paleogeography of the region alongside a summary of current research, data sets and knowledge of submerged prehistoric sites. Understanding of local geological features is necessary for assessment of potential archaeological preservation. The potential for the discovery of archaeological material within the Channel/Celtic Sea area is considered in light of the oceanographic, climatic and geomorphological parameters. Oppenheimer (2006) shows that much of the later Upper Paleolithic re-occupation of Britain may have taken place on the western margins of Europe. It has been demonstrated that the Celtic Sea and western Channel would have formed either a refugium or an exit route whenever the climate in the British Isles deteriorated and the ice advanced during earlier glaciations.

Paleolandscapes of the Celtic Sea and the Channel/La Manche

New evidence from Bouldnor Cliff for technological innovation in the Mesolithic, population dispersal and use of drowned landscapes

Improving management responses to coastal change:: utilising sources from archaeology, maps, charts, photographs and art

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Paleolandscapes of the Celtic Sea and the Channel/La Manche

New evidence from Bouldnor Cliff for technological innovation in the Mesolithic, population dispersal and use of drowned landscapes

Improving management responses to coastal change:: utilising sources from archaeology, maps, charts, photographs and art