A BRADFORD academic is about to embark on a “first of its kind” mission in Croatia.
Geo-archaeologist Dr Simon Fitch hopes to map sunken ice age landscapes lost to the oceans millennia ago when he travels to Split on March 30.
He will begin a five day-long survey of the Adriatic seabed, using state-of-the-art underwater 3D seismic sensors.
Dr Fitch will map parts of the Adriatic and North Sea as they were between 10,000 and 24,000 years ago, when sea levels were around 100m lower than they are today.
“This is the first time anyone is going more than 500m from the coastline in the Adriatic to map the seabed,” said Dr Fitch.
“We know humans once lived on the land there because trawlers regularly dredge up artefacts.
“Most human populations like to live on the coastline, so it’s likely there were settlements on what is now the seabed. Our aim is to find evidence of those settlements and then recover the archaeology.
“This is about finding out who we are as a species and where we come from.”
The University of Bradford's Faculty of Life Sciences now has the largest submerged landscapes research group in the world and is one of the few places specialising the emerging academic discipline.
Dr Fitch’s mission is part of the Life on the Edge project, which was awarded over £1m in funding from the UKRI last year, as well as £400,000 from VLIZ (Flanders Marine Institute), and a PhD studentship from the University.
The Life on the Edge project has already attracted attention from overseas, with Dr Jessica Cook Hale travelling from the University of Georgia to join the project.
A seasoned archaeologist of more than 20 years, she has already dived prehistoric underwater sites off both the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines.
She said: “Bradford is one of the few places doing this.
“I looked at this project from afar and wanted to be a part of it, so I’m thrilled to be joining the team.”
Dr Fitch added: “Life on the Edge is a very apt name. We are at the edge of technology, of archaeological research, and the edge of human existence, in terms of where people used to live.
“We’re doing things no one has done before and going places no one has been.
“Whatever we find will be a world first.”
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