Tsunami Uncovers 7th Century Archaeological Treasure

Fascinating story; link via Boing Boing.

Comments

[saw-whet]

Somehow I don't think the Budda is an ancient artifact. Being bronze it really dosn't even qualify as flotsum, does it?

[saw-whet]

Unless it's hollow.

[Ayatollah Usoe]

I have an interesting question that comes out of this. Each time we discover some artifact of antiquity, we preserve it. But by doing so, we miss the opportunity to see if anything older is below. I wonder if below the evidence of ancient civilization, exists an older site.

[Poustman]

Ayatollah,

Intriguing!

[Umbriel]

I believe the typical archeological practice is to probe and dig trenches across sites, noting what they find in each layer. Archeologists are very much interested in successive layers/generations of habitation and use at a site -- as evidenced by the findings at Jericho (http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0008978.html) and Troy (http://www.utexas.edu/courses/wilson/ant304/projects/projects97/bairdp/bairdp.html) for example.

What does seem to limit archeology is global sea levels. To the extent that sea levels have risen over the millennia following the last ice age, and there have always been numerous incentives for civilizations to occupy coastal regions, it follows that countless ancient sites have gone undetected and unstudied simply because they're hard to find under all that water and silt. (example -- http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/scripts/downloads.php?categoryID=37 )