Stone Age Road Is Uncovered After 7000 Years By Diver In Croatia

Excavating the roadway - Photo by University of Zadar

Stone Age Road Is Uncovered After 7000 Years By Diver In Croatia

The discovery of what they believe to be a 7,000-year-old road running off the island of Korcula under the Adriatic Sea has surprised underwater archaeologists in Croatia.

Excavating the stone age road - Photo by University of Zadar
Excavating the stone age road – Photo by University of Kadar at

The scuba divers found the road while looking at a neolithic village at Soline, which is underwater at a depth of around 4 meters near the island’s eastern end.

They claim that the 4 m wide causeway, which would have linked the village, which was located on a man-made island, with Korcula, had been constructed on meticulously placed stone slabs.

The village was previously dated by radiocarbon dating of timbers discovered preserved in the mud last year to around 4,900 BC. The Stone Age inhabitants there represented the Hvar civilization, which is recognized for its unusual pottery and ornamentation. Their name comes from the island of Hvar, which is located to the north of Korcula.

The Soline settlement site - Photo by University of Zadar
The Soline settlement site – Photo by the University of Zadar

In collaboration with numerous Croatian museums and the Lumbarda Blue diving center, a team from the University of Zadar lead by Prof. Mata Parica is conducting the study.

According to Prof. Parica, the sea level at the time the island and road were constructed was between 4.6 and 5m. “Two scenarios are possible for why the island was built: either safety reasons, or a conscious demonstration of construction technology, intervention in space and the like.”

The underwater archaeology team - Photo by University of Zadar
The underwater archaeology team – Photo by the University of Zadar

At the western extremity of the 47-kilometer-long Korcula Island, it is stated that another underwater archaeological discovery has been discovered. Following Igor Borzic’s discovery of a number of “strange structures” in the water near Vela Luka, the same university team surveyed the center of Gradina Bay.

They announced on May 7 that what they had found, again at a depth of 4-5 meters, were the ruins of a village that was almost comparable to the one at Soline. Their earliest discoveries included Neolithic artifacts including millstone pieces, stone axes, and flint blades.

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