Researchers Find the Oldest Known Hunting Mega 'Blinkerwall' Structure Amidst the Waves of Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea hosts a variety of lifeforms and holds many secrets. One of which a team of researchers unfolded in 2024. The revelation stunned researchers as it dates back to the Stone Age. Findings regarding the structure were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The structure in focus was a wall, which researchers believe is the oldest known megastructure constructed by humans in Europe. The finding was later named Blinkerwall by researchers. The team closely examined the structure and concluded that it contained around 1,400 small stones. These stones were then used to tie together 300 larger boulders, resulting in a massive complex. Researchers further noted that the angle of the wall altered at the spot where large boulders were present. This implied that the smaller stones were deliberately placed to create a particular impact. The almost one-kilometer wall was discovered accidentally by a team of scientists in the Bay of Mecklenburg, through the use of a multibeam sonar system.
The wall is enveloped by 21 meters of water, according to the study. Experts claim that the architecture was put in place by hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago. They further believe that when the megastructure was constructed the site was a landform, possibly with a lake or marsh beside it. Researchers are still not sure about the objective behind the wall, but they speculate that it could have been created to act as a driving lane for hunters. “When you chase the animals, they follow these structures, they don’t attempt to jump over them,” said Jacob Geersen from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research in Warnemünde, a German port town on the Baltic coast, The Guardian stated. “The idea would be to create an artificial bottleneck with a second wall or with the lake shore,” he added.
Another possible objective could be that the wall was used to guide animals toward the nearby lake, researchers claimed. In the process, the animals were perhaps slowed down, making it easy for humans hiding nearby to target them. Considering the massive size of the wall, experts don't think that it was created out of natural processes. Moreover, the overall construction indicated that the wall was made following a plan. “Our investigations indicate that a natural origin of the underwater stonewall as well as construction in modern times, for instance in connection with submarine cable laying or stone harvesting is not very likely. The methodical arrangement of the many small stones that connect the large, non-moveable boulders, speaks against this,” said Geerson, CNN stated.
Researchers examined the wall by creating a 3D reconstruction of the wall, using the collected sediments from the site. Experts believe that all the stones in the structure have an accumulated weight of 142 tonnes. Researchers also suspect that there is a second wall running alongside the Blinkerwall which is possibly nestled underneath the seafloor sediments. The study estimates that the wall was submerged as a result of rising sea levels 8,500 years ago. “This puts the Blinkerwall into the range of the oldest known examples of hunting architecture in the world and potentially makes it the oldest man-made megastructure in Europe,” the researchers wrote.