Ancient city found underwater

Vast sunken city found off India: experts stunned

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The vast city located in the Gulf of Cambay could be over 9,000 years old, and, if so, predates the oldest known remains in the subcontinent by more than 5,000 years.

Debris recovered from the site - including construction material, pottery, sections of walls, beads, sculpture and human bones and teeth have been carbon dated and found to be nearly 9,500 years old.

However, Archaeologist Justin Morris from the British Museum cautioned that more work would need to be undertaken before the age of the site could be confirmed.  He noted that the C14 carbon dating process is not without its error margins.

The find is unprecedented, and may force historians and archaeologists to radically reconsider their view of ancient human history. It is believed that the area was submerged as ice caps melted at the end of the last ice age 9-10,000 years ago.

The site was discovered by chance last year by oceanographers from India's National Institute of Ocean Technology, while conducting a survey of pollution using sidescan sonar.

Author and film-maker Graham Hancock, an expert on the discovery of long-lost cities, reports that, "Cities on this scale are not known in the archaeological record until roughly 4,500 years ago when the first big cities begin to appear in Mesopotamia."

"Nothing else on the scale of the underwater cities of Cambay is known. The first cities of the historical period are as far away from these cities as we are today from the pyramids of Egypt," he added.

Dr. Morris agreed. "Culturally speaking, in that part of the world there were no civilizations prior to about 2,500 BC. What's happening before then mainly consisted of small, village settlements."

The Indian Minister for Human Resources and ocean development said a group had been formed to oversee further studies in the area. "We have to find out what happened then ... where and how this civilization vanished," he said.

Exploring the area has been extremely difficult because the remains lie in highly treacherous waters, with strong currents and rip tides.

Incredible find. Though, it did occur 3 years ago....