Ice Age wall discovered in the Baltic Sea – 02/13/2024 – Science

Researchers announced the discovery of a stone wall in the Baltic Sea that is more than 10,000 years old and 971 meters long in the far north of Germany, located between the coastal cities of Rostock and Rerik, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

According to the group, it is the oldest trace of human construction in the region, and an incomparable find at a European level. The wall is made up of 1,673 stones, most weighing less than a hundred kilos and whose size varies between a tennis ball and a football, stacked neatly between some rocks.

According to a statement signed by the Leibniz Institute for Marine Research in Warnemünde, the University of Rostock and the Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, institutions responsible for the discovery, the work is just under one meter high and up to two meters deep. Furthermore, it is 21 meters above sea level.

The age of the wall could not be determined precisely, but scientists say in a study published this Tuesday (12) that there were forests in the region approximately 9,800 years ago.

Probably a hunting device

It is believed that the construction was made by humans who lived from hunting and gathering. The region had not yet been flooded by the Baltic Sea at that time, as the researchers explain.

Named the Blinker wall, the work may have been used to trap and slaughter reindeer near a lake. Similar hunting techniques are known elsewhere, such as the United States. There, archaeologists found a stone wall in a lake in Michigan, built for hunting caribou, a species of deer.

The stone structure was discovered by chance in September 2021 during cartographic surveys. According to scientists, it would have disappeared with the rise in sea levels after the last ice age, 8,500 years ago.