<< News >> Archaeologists announce discovery of underwater man-made wall off Taiwan
Submitted by Andy B on Saturday, 30 November 2002 Page Views: 17544
Multi-periodCountry: Taiwan Type: Ancient Village or SettlementInternal Links:
Underwater archaeologists this week announced the discovery of a man-made wall submerged under the waters of the Pescadores Islands that could be at least six and seven thousand years old.
Steve Shieh, the head of the planning committee for the Taiwan Underwater Archaeology Institute, said the wall was discovered to the northwest of Tong-chi Island in the Pescadores towards the end of September.
The stone wall, with an average height of one meter and a width of 50 centimeters, covers a distance of over 100 meters, Hsieh said.
The wall ran along the ocean floor at depths of between 25 and 30 meters, he added.
Shieh said that divers found several places along the wall where holes were apparently filled up with pebbles, possibly in an attempt to block winds.
The wall was located by a team of divers working in cooperation with the National Museum of History and the Department of Environmental Sciences at the National Sun Yat-sen University.
In August, researchers scanning waters in the area with sonar discovered what appeared to be the remnants of four to five man-made walls running along the bottom of the sea.
Despite difficult diving conditions and equipment leasing rates, Shieh said that a team of more than ten specialists was able to ascertain the positions of at least three of the wall sections.
The proximity of the wall to a similar structure found in 1976 suggests that it may be further evidence of a pre-historical civilization.
A three meter high underwater wall was discovered by amateur divers in waters off the nearby Hu-ching (Tiger Well) Island.
British archaeologists examined the find and proclaimed that the wall was probably made between 7,000 and 12,000 years ago.
The current find stands a mere 100 meters from the site of that discovery.
Six years ago, evidence of a sunken city in the area was found when amateur divers found the remains of what appear to be city walls taking the shape of a cross on the ocean floor.
Further examination suggested the ruins were made between seven and ten thousand years ago as well, although Japanese researchers put the walls construction at between 10,000 and 80,000 years ago.
Taken together, the discoveries have helped to overturn the established notion that Taiwan's earliest aboriginal inhabitants made their way here from mainland China some 6,000 years ago.
The underwater finds are part of a growing body of evidence suggesting the existence of civilizations older than anything previously imagined.
On this theory, entire cities ended up underwater after sea levels rose towards the end of the last Ice Age, a date cited by Plato as being some 9,600 years ago.
One of the most dramatic examples of evidence of civilizations found on ocean beds has been megalithic structures off the coast of Yonaguni-jima in Japan that have been interpreted in some circles as being built for sacrificial rites. According to Shieh, a similar structure has been located off of the shores of Taiwan's Pingtung County.
Shieh said that he and his association have plans to explore that location as well as what appears to be a man-made path on the ocean floor off of Taitung County sometime next year.
Source: The China Post
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