Land beneath the waves: submerged landscapes and sea level change: a joint geoscience-humanities strategy for European Continental Shelf Prehistoric Research

During the last one million years the land area of Europe was at times 40% larger than at present, and was usually 10-20% larger because of the global volumes of water locked up in ice-caps several kilometres thick on land. Our human precursors lived 200km inland from the coast of the Black Sea more than 1.5 million years ago, in northern Spain more than 1 million years ago, and on the British coast of the North Sea at least 800,000 years ago. Early tribes migrated from Africa through the Middle East, and then along the Mediterranean shore, as well as through central Europe, occupying northern territories when the ice melted and retreating southward when the ice expanded. These migrations across continental shelves, including the abandonment and re-occupation of ancient coastal plains, took place many times. Continental Shelf Prehistoric Research is a new integrated discipline linking the analysis of climate change, sea-level change, environmental conditions, and the prehistoric archaeology of peoples who lived on and migrated across the continental shelf, land now submerged beneath the sea. It requires collaboration between experts in the humanities and earth sciences, as well as collaboration with offshore industries such as hydrocarbons, wind farm installations, fishing, dredging, and channel maintenance. Modern technology in seabed acoustic survey, data acquisition, diving technology, data storage and predictive modelling make it feasible to envisage a proactive strategy which would have been impossible 10-20 years ago. Costs can be kept to a minimum by combining the initial surveys needed for Continental Shelf Prehistoric Research with those already being conducted for environmental impact assessment and national and regional environmental monitoring requirements. Europe leads the world in this research and it is imperative to consolidate and expand this advantage...