Featured Image Credit: University of Zadar
It's not quite the Lost City of Atlantis but scientists have made an astonishing discovery off the coast of Croatia.
It all started last year when Igor Borzić, an archeologist at the University of Zadar, spotted 'strange structures' nearly 16 feet (5 meters) underwater in the Bay of Gradina.
This structure turned out to be a 7,000-year-old stone road that had previously connected the ancient city of Soline - which is now submerged off the coast of present-day Croatia - to the mainland.
Neolithic artefacts including a stone axe, cream blades and sacrificial fragments, were also found at the site.
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"In underwater archaeological research of the submerged neolithic site of Soline on the island of Korčula, archaeologists found remains that surprised them," the University of Zadar said in a Facebook statement.
"Namely, beneath the layers of sea mud, they discovered a road that connected the sunken prehistoric settlement of the Hvar culture with the coast of the island of Korčula."
Further study has since been conducted into the area, with a team of international researchers using cutting-edge underwater 3D seismic sensors to map this ancient world.
While such technology has been used before, this is the first time is has been directly applied to geological archeology.
"It's a more diverse landscape and it's better preserved than we expected," says geo-archaeologist Dr Simon Fitch, the project's lead investigator. "The results provided way more detail than we were expecting.
"There are beautifully preserved rivers and estuaries buried beneath what is now the seafloor," he continued.
"The unique environment of the area around Split, which is quite sheltered, has preserved a lot of it."
Initial findings suggest the area was bustling with people.
"When we went in with our high resolution sensors, we found more rivers, more water in the landscape and more environments," Dr Fitch continued.
"That’s amazing because it suggests it is more likely that people lived there."
There's hopes that the ongoing research into the area should help us forge a better understanding of the landscape of ancient Hvar, as well as the lives of the people who lived there.
"Our ultimate goal is to find human artefacts," Dr Fitch noted. "Having this new understanding of the landscape makes that more likely.
"Croatia is the gateway to Europe so if you think about the advance of farming into Europe, it is and always has been a very important landscape.
"By understanding the landscape, we can begin to understand the whole archaeological picture so much more clearly."
