Prospecting for submerged Mesolithic sites in the Solent

For many years, interpretations of the Mesolithic have relied predominantly on the terrestrial record, despite the growing evidence from submerged landscapes. This reluctance to engage with these now-inundated areas has left significant gaps in our knowledge; our record is biased against the lower-lying and coastal aspects of this period.

The past few decades, however, have seen a resurgence of submerged landscape research in north-west Europe. This has predominantly focused on the Mesolithic of the North Sea; swathes of habitable land that once connected Britain to the rest of the continent. Research in this area focuses on using patterning in the onshore archaeological record to better inform, and target, offshore investigations, with high potential river valley locations at the top of the list. Crucially, this work has highlighted the need to integrate the terrestrial and submerged records in order to re-evaluate and expand our understanding of the Mesolithic in Northwest Europe.

The North Sea, however, is huge, with complex geological settings, reflected by difficulties successfully targeting and investigating archaeological remains. By contrast, the Solent, on the south coast of Britain, has a demonstrated presence of not only Mesolithic peats, but large numbers of trawler-recovered Mesolithic artefacts and the only submerged in situ Mesolithic site in the country. As a high-potential drowned river valley, this location provides the best possible chance of engaging with the submerged Mesolithic record, yet has largely been overshadowed by investigations elsewhere.

This PhD will draw upon this opportunity, using multidisciplinary approaches to address questions of Mesolithic occupation in a period of great environmental change. Sea levels were rising, sometimes on generational timescales, having a significant effect on the presence and nature of available resources; significant questions remain about how human populations responded to these changes. These are questions that cannot be answered without the integration of data from submerged landscapes, as it is in these landscapes that we can begin to understand these people's responses to their changing land/seascapes. It is also underwater that we are more likely to find well-preserved organic material and organic artefacts; archaeological material of a type that has rarely survived on sites in present-day terrestrial locations. But this evidence is fragmentary and finite and is constantly under threat from hydrodynamic and industry processes. Coastal realignment strategies and the fast-flowing tidal conditions in the Solent will result in the eventual degradation, erosion and loss of significant submerged sites. Monitoring of Bouldnor Cliff by the Maritime Archaeology Trust since 1999, for example, has revealed that the site is eroding at a considerably rapid rate each year. Further, south-east facing cliffs of the Isle of Wight form the largest coastal landslip complex in Europe (Farr et al. 2017) and the increasingly complex sediment dynamics in the Eastern Solent (SCOPAC).

Therefore, there is an urgent need to begin engaging with the Mesolithic record in its entirety: developing methods to target and investigate submerged archaeology and to integrate this with its onshore and intertidal counterparts.