From: Blunderov (squooker@mweb.co.za)
Date: Wed Jan 07 2004 - 06:59:58 MST
[Blunderov] Happy new year to a very quiet Virus list!
Some while back I posted some material about how it was thought that
side-scan sonar had revealed evidence of a possible sunken city off the
coast of, I think, Gudjerat in India. The (sadly missed) Hermit was a
little skeptical if I recall - but it seems that further evidence has
been turning up to support this idea and I cannot help but wonder what
he would think now? Possibly he would point out that the article (below)
itself cautions that these findings are not to be regarded as confirmed
yet.
Best Regards
<q>
Drowned Indian city could be world's oldest
16:03 18 January 02
Evidence of an ancient "lost river civilisation" has been uncovered off
the west coast of India, the country's minister for science and
technology has announced. Local archaeologists claim the find could push
back currently accepted dates of the emergence of the world's first
cities.
Underwater archaeologists at the National Institute of Ocean Technology
first detected signs of an ancient submerged settlement in the Gulf of
Cambay, off Gujarat, in May 2001. They have now conducted further
acoustic imaging surveys and have carbon dated one of the finds.
The acoustic imaging has identified a nine-kilometre-long stretch of
what was once a river but is now 40 metres beneath the sea. The site is
surrounded by evidence of extensive human settlement. Carved wood,
pottery, beads, broken pieces of sculpture and human teeth have been
retrieved from along the river banks, according to a report in the
Indian Express newspaper. Carbon dating of one of the wooden samples has
dated the site to around 7500 BC.
"The carbon dating of 7500 BC obtained for the wooden piece recovered
from the site changes the earlier held view that the first cities
appeared in the Sumer Valley [in Mesopotamia] around 3000 BC," said B
Sasisekaran of India's National Science Academy.
Tom Higham of Oxford University's Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit says
submerged wood is often well-preserved and should be relatively
straightforward to carbon date. "I don't see how you could get it
grossly wrong," he says. "In the past, it has been said that you
shouldn't pin all your interpretations on a date from one sample. But
that's not so true these days. And dating a sample that's between 5000
and 10,000 years old is pretty easy."
If confirmed, the find would also push back the date of India's earliest
known civilisation by 5000 years. The Harappan civilisation has been
dated to about 2500 BC. The newly identified site "looks like a
Harappan-type civilisation but dating way back to 7500 BC," said
minister Murli Manohar Joshi.
However, he cautioned that a "more critical examination" of the finds
must now be carried out.
Sharad Rajaguru, a former head of archaeology at the Deccan College in
Pune, said: "These collections represent an exciting breakthrough in
offshore archaeology. Further investigation of the area is important as
this might throw light on the development of human civilisation, besides
having a bearing on Indian history."
Joshi said the government is now forming a group of archaeological
experts from institutes around the country to investigate further.
Emma Young
</q>
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