Consortium with GDN searches for Stone Age remains in North Sea bed

Stone Age remains formed when our North Sea was dry

With six European scientific institutions, the Geological Survey of the Netherlands (GDN), part of TNO, will develop and test a method to find traces of Stone Age habitation in the upper North Sea bed. The Dutch part of the North Sea was dry during the last ice age and is currently the submerged foundation for more and more wind turbines.

For this research, the European Union provides a grant of €13.2 million. The funded project aims at an improved identification and targeted sample collection from undisturbed source areas of this material.

During the last ice age, sea level was around 100 metres lower than it is now. The Dutch area of today’s North Sea was part of one of the most attractive areas on the European continent to live in. Chance findings trawled up by fishermen provide abundant ecvidence. When sea level began to rise at the end of the ice age, this fertile land gradually flooded. Now it is far below the surface of the sea and buried under a layer of sand or mud in many places. It is difficult to link our fished-up archaeological heritage to the place where it was formed.

In anticipating of the construction of wind farms

The national target for offshore wind capacity is 21 gigawatts by 2030 and around 70 gigawatts by 2050. This means the density of wind farms in Dutch waters will be high. “Early identification of archaeologically significant sites on the seabed can potentially limit undesirable effects of the construction of wind farms and associated infrastructure. This is one of the reasons why our research is important,” says Sytze van Heteren, marine and coastal geologist at the GDN. “Wind-farm areas and cable routes are no longer accessible for this type of research after construction. So it is now or never. Thanks to national and international collaboration, we benefit from a detailed and applicable knowledge base that is essential to tackle the major challenges of the energy transition, but also contribute to this knowledge base ourselves.”

SUBNORDICA consortium

As a partner in the SUBNORDICA consortium, the GDN will work closely with the University of Bradford, Flanders Marine Institute and the University of York. In preparation of extensive measurement campaigns at sea, the GDN provides knowledge on the predictive value of geology for the presence of submerged archaeological heritage from more accessible land and shallow-water sites, such as the Flevoland polder in the central Netherlands. That knowledge is used to target seismic profiling, drilling and video exploration of the seabed as effectively as possible. Using machine learning, the GDN also develops algorithms to identify sediment and archaeological indicators in seismic profiles and sediment cores. This will make it possible to gradually zoom in on the most promising sites.

Project SUBNORDICA will start in early 2024. It will run for six years. The first results will be shared after around one year. In support, the EU has made an ERC Synergy Grant of €13.2 million available. Lead scientists from Moesgaard Museum, Aarhus University and the German research institute NIhK are also involved in the consortium. They will focus on neighbouring areas.