WATERY MATTERS (2)

[Stanley]

WATERY MATTERS (2)

Not long ago I was being taken to task for suggesting that water levels had altered around the British Isles between 10,000 and 5,000 BC and that the mainland was still recovering from the weight of ice in the north and tilting slowly to the south. I was reminded of this today when I heard a fascinating news item about a discovery that has been made in the sea off Greece. It’s a very good illustration of what I am always saying to you, the research is never complete, there is always something new to learn.
The Greek government were doing a survey of the sea bottom off the coast in about 100ft of water using the latest side-scan sonar techniques when they started to get signals back which indicated large symmetrical structures covering the sea bottom. When the data was analysed they saw that what they had found was the remains of a large city, how could this be? What had caused something as large as a city to sink 100 feet below the surface of the sea?
It is of course possible for land to sink slowly over time due to movements in the earth’s crust but in this case there is a much simpler explanation. When the ice caps at the poles melted at the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000 BC scientists estimate that sea levels world wide rose by over 300 feet! If, as has been supposed, this city is over 9,000 years old, it could have been well established on a coastal plain which was over 100 feet above sea level. Between 10,000 and 5,000 BC the water level rose enough to cover it with 100 feet of water.
Think about the number of belief systems that have a ‘Flood Myth’ embedded in them, the Judaic/Christian version is that of Noah and the Ark. Could these all stem from this last catastrophic rise in sea levels? The historians have been discounting these myths for years but suddenly they are having to make a re-assessment.
The scientists went further and calculated how much land would be uncovered if present day sea levels were dropped by the same amount. The answer is that an area of land as big as North and South America put together was inundated by the polar melt. Add to this the fact that coastal sites were very popular for ancient cities because of access to water transport and we begin to realise that it strains credulity too far to believe that this is the only city that was lost. What does this do for the ‘legend’ of Atlantis?
Closer to home, I got out my atlas and looked at sea depths around the British Isles. I took the 100 feet depth contour and sure enough the land bridge is there between Malin in Northern Ireland and the Scottish mainland. The Isle of Man and Anglesey are connected to England and Wales and there is a massive land bridge between the South of England and the continent. How many villages and settlements were there on this land? It seems to me that underwater archaeology might be a very fertile field from now on especially when we factor in improvements in sonar technology. (Ten years later this has happened and major discoveries are being made on the bed of the southern part of the North Sea.)
All this is a long way from Barlick but even here we have some watery matters to consider. Those of you who read the last two chapters of the Early History will have realised that the precise position of St Mary’s Well is crucial to making some better assessments of where the first church in Barlick was sited. I mentioned this to one or two people and I have been told that when the cattle grid was put in on Calf Hall Lane the road was widened and the well covered over with a large stone flag. If any of you have any further information about this I’d love to hear from you.