A submerged Stone Age hunting architecture from the Western Baltic Sea

Abstract

The Baltic Sea basins, some of which only submerged in the mid-Holocene, preserve Stone Age structures that did not survive on land. Yet, the discovery of these features is challenging and requires cross-disciplinary approaches between archeology and marine geosciences. Here, we combine shipborne and autonomousunderwater vehicle hydroacoustic data with up to a centimeter range resolution, sedimentological samples, and optical images to explore a Stone Age megastructure located in 21 m water depth in the Bay of Mecklenburg, Germany. The structure is made of 1,673 individual stones which are usually less than 1 m in height, placed side by side over a distance of 971 m in a way that argues against a natural origin by glacial transport or ice push ridges. Running adjacent to the sunken shoreline of a paleolake (or bog), whose youngest phase was dated to 9,143 ±36 ka B.P., the stonewall was likely used for hunting the Eurasian reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) during the Younger Dryas or early Pre-Boreal. It was built by hunter–gatherer groups that roamed the region after the retreat of the Weichselian Ice Sheet. Comparable Stone Age megastructures have become known worldwide in recent times but are almost unknown in Europe. The site represents one of the oldest documented man-made hunting structures on Earth, and ranges among the largest known Stone Age structure in Europe. It will become important for understanding subsistence strategies, mobility patterns, and inspire discussions concerning the territorial development in the Western Baltic Sea region.

Winds of Change: Urgent Challenges and Emerging Opportunities in Submerged Prehistory, a Perspective from the North Sea

“…Traces of prehistoric occupation, for example, may often be ephemeral in nature, difficult to detect, only fleetingly accessible, and poorly suited for identification. Recent mapping of uniquely preserved hunter-gatherer landscapes within the Great Lakes, and most recently in the Baltic Sea [69], demonstrates that significant cultural structures may appear as little more than an alignment of stones or wood [70]. A hearth may appear in the marine record as a smear of burnt sediment.…”