Underwater Cave Excavation in Gibraltar

直布罗陀水下洞穴挖掘

• 批准号: AH/E009409/1
• 负责人: Geoff Bailey
• 金额: $ 12.07万
• 依托单位: University of York
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FE009409%2F1
• 关键词: Underwater; Cave; Excavation; Gibraltar

For most of human history on this planet over the past 2 million years, sea levels have been substantially lower than the present in response to the expansion of the continental ice sheets. At the maximum of the last glacial period about 20,000 years ago, sea level was 130 m below the present. For most of the period back to 125,000 years ago (the previous period of interglacial climates and high sea levels), sea level fluctuated between 40 and 60 m below the present. A similar pattern can be traced back over at least the past 1 million years. This large drop in sea level exposed extensive areas of the continental shelf for human settlement, offering potentially more attractive and diverse coastal resources and terrestrial environments than their adjacent hinterlands. Yet, archaeological evidence for the use of coastal areas and marine resources is largely confined to short-lived periods of high sea level, and most of it to the past 6000 years of modern high sea level. This has resulted in a severely distorted view of world prehistory and a belief that marine resources such as molluscs, fish and sea mammals were largely ignored until a very late stage of human development. Significant advances have been made in the exploration of this underwater realm over the past 20 years in shallow water and in reference to quite recent archaeological sites. But the prevailing archaeological opinion is that we would learn little from exploration of more deeply submerged coastlines that we could not discover more cheaply and with less risk of failure on dry land. A growing number of underwater archaeological finds, the development of new technologies of underwater investigation, and the realisation that a valuable archive of archaeological evidence is being destroyed by erosion and commercial exploitation of the seabed are slowly changing attitudes. Nevertheless the costs and logistical difficulties of underwater investigation continue to pose a significant deterrent to such research, and reinforce the belief that the outcome of such investigations is too uncertain and too speculative to be worth the risk.In this project we will undertake excavation of underwater caves offshore of Gibraltar and at a depth of 20-25 m, using a diving team trained in mixed gas diving, which allows safe and prolonged working time underwater. We will combine this with mapping of the wider area around the caves using remote sensing equipment to identify the character of the original terrestrial landscape and to place the caves into their wide landscape setting. Ongoing investigations of the famous Gibraltar cave sites on the present-day shoreline, with long sequences extending over the past 125,000 years and numerous remains of Neanderthals will provide additional context and points of reference to place the results of underwater exploration into a wider archaeological context. We believe that these underwater caves are the only currently known features at this depth anywhere in the world that offer a good prospect of preserving and discovery archaeological deposits, and that they might therefore offer a unique window into human activities on shorelines formed when sea levels were lower than the present.The results of this work will show whether archaeological deposits are preserved underwater in such conditions, and in what ways any archaeological data recovered from them provides new information about patterns of human occupation of coastlines and use of marine resources during periods of lowered sea level. The work will also provide experience in the development of techniques of underwater archaeological investigation and results that can be built on by other similar projects in other parts of the world. We expect the results to be of interest to a very wide academic, scientific and public constituency interested in sea-level change and its human impact, and in the reality or otherwise of 'lost underwater civilizations'.

在过去200万年的人类历史上，由于大陆冰盖的扩张，海平面一直比现在低得多。在大约20，000年前的最后一次冰期的最高峰，海平面比现在低130米。在125，000年前的大部分时间里（前一个间冰期气候和高海平面时期），海平面在现在以下40至60米之间波动。类似的模式可以追溯到至少过去100万年。海平面的大幅下降使大陆架的广大地区暴露出来，可供人类居住，可能提供比邻近的陆地更有吸引力和更多样化的沿海资源和陆地环境。然而，利用沿海地区和海洋资源的考古学证据主要局限于短暂的高海平面时期，其中大部分是过去6000年的现代高海平面。这导致了对世界史前史的严重扭曲的看法，并认为软体动物、鱼类和海洋哺乳动物等海洋资源在很大程度上被忽视，直到人类发展的很晚阶段。在过去20年中，在浅水和最近的考古遗址中，对这一水下领域的探索取得了重大进展。但普遍的考古学观点是，我们从更深的水下海岸线的探索中几乎没有学到什么，我们不能在陆地上发现更便宜，失败的风险更小。越来越多的水下考古发现，水下调查新技术的发展，以及认识到海底的侵蚀和商业开发正在破坏宝贵的考古证据档案，正在慢慢改变人们的态度。然而，水下调查的费用和后勤困难继续对这类研究构成重大阻碍，并使人们更加相信，这类调查的结果太不确定，太投机，不值得冒险，在这个项目中，我们将利用受过混合气体潜水训练的潜水队，在直布罗陀近海20-25米深的水下洞穴进行挖掘，其允许安全和延长的水下工作时间。我们将联合收割机与利用遥感设备绘制洞穴周围更广阔区域的地图相结合，以确定原始陆地景观的特征，并将洞穴置于其广阔的景观环境中。目前正在对现今海岸线上著名的直布罗陀洞穴遗址进行调查，这些洞穴遗址有过去125 000年的长期序列和许多尼安德特人的遗迹，将提供更多的背景和参考点，以便将水下勘探的结果纳入更广泛的考古背景。我们相信，这些水下洞穴是目前已知的世界上在这个深度的唯一特征，它们为保存和发现考古沉积物提供了良好的前景，因此它们可能为了解海平面低于现在时形成的海岸线上的人类活动提供了一个独特的窗口。这项工作的结果将表明，在这种条件下，考古沉积物是否被保存在水下，以及从这些遗址中发现的考古数据以何种方式提供了关于海平面下降期间人类占据海岸线和利用海洋资源的模式的新信息。这项工作还将为水下考古调查技术的发展提供经验，并为世界其他地区的其他类似项目提供成果。我们希望这些结果能引起广泛的学术界、科学界和公众的兴趣，他们对海平面变化及其对人类的影响感兴趣，对“失落的水下文明”的现实感兴趣。

项目成果

The recorded evidence of AD 1755 Atlantic tsunami on the Gibraltar coast

公元 1755 年直布罗陀海岸发生大西洋海啸的记录证据

• DOI: 10.5209/rev_jige.2011.v37.n2.7
• 发表时间: 2011
• 期刊: Journal of Iberian Geology
• 影响因子: 1.3
• 作者: Rodríguez-Vidal J