Exploring submerged archaeological landscapes in Japan and across the world

Contrary to popular belief, archaeology isn’t always about digging holes. Indeed, archaeology at Bradford has always been a state-of-the-art science, often at the leading edge. Like Bradford, my research career has been a bit different in this respect, and I’ve always tried to be on the innovative side of archaeology. This has led me into the new field of submerged archaeological landscapes, and eventually on to my project, ‘Life on the Edge’ (LOTE for short), for which I was awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship Award, with just under £1 million initial funding, in 2022.

Why the project is important

Submerged landscapes are key to understanding human development, including critical aspects of human history such as migrations of the past. These lost areas occupy key parts of the continental shelf, encompassing locations such as the Red Sea, the Bering Straits, and the Sunda Shelf between New Guinea and Australia. The majority of these landscapes are poorly understood, and largely unmapped. Archaeology at Bradford has been working hard to resolve this issue for the Mesolithic (10,000 to 6,500 before present [BP]) in the North Sea, a landscape popularly known as Doggerland. However, for time periods earlier than 10,000 BP, known as the Palaeolithic, the fact that these landscapes are poorly understood is a serious problem, as these landscapes are also located on the shallow continental shelves that are key to the development of offshore renewable energy sources required to combat climate change.

To address this, our Life on the Edge project seeks to recover key archaeological information on the submerged landscapes of the late Palaeolithic (24,000 to 10,000 BP) by bringing together an international team to develop new methods and tools to record and locate this missing landscape. This has ranged from experiments in the use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) and Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs), to the use of novel sensors such as Parametric Echo Sounders, all of which can provide ground-breaking maps of Late Palaeolithic coastlines around the world. Whilst working with an international team offers many benefits, having collaborators spread across the globe from the USA, Europe and East Asia means that even simple things such as meetings bring challenges, such as time zone gaps, cultural differences and extensive travel which require careful thought. Leading such research often requires a range of diplomatic skills, and I’ve found that careful consideration is often needed to translate the needs and requirements of international research institutions and researchers to those of a UK university.

Despite these difficulties, spotting opportunities for international research and undertaking them is hugely rewarding. For example, a simple meeting at a conference has now led to the project moving beyond its core area to start pilot research in Japan. Supported by a Royal Society travel grant, several bilateral visits have resulted in a new partnership being formed between SOKENDAI University and Bradford to examine the submerged landscapes off the coast of Japan.

Our journey to the East

We carried out a small pilot survey in March of this year in Lake Ogawara to test these methodologies and to support the research of Robyn Pelling, the LOTE PhD student. Lake Ogawara was chosen due to its more sheltered nature, but despite this travel remained a significant challenge. Nearly 90kg of equipment, including over 40kg of parametric echo-sounder equipment needed to be packed into four suitcases (less than 23kg each!) and flown over 9,600km from the AHRC RICHeS facility based at the Bradford via two flights. This was difficult, but represents a significant advance over the situation, even only a couple of years ago, where sub-bottom sensors frequently weighed three or four times the 23kg bag weight limit of typical long-haul flights. It is only through the hard work by the manufacturer Innomar in collaboration with the University of Bradford that this uniquely tailored system was developed such that it could be transported in two bags under the 23kg per bag flight limit.

The benefits of industry and academia working together to provide solutions could not be clearer and have been revolutionary for us, allowing the use of high-resolution equipment anywhere in the world without costly transportation charges of cumbersome kit or hiring in expensive alternatives. These instruments are critical to our research and provide the vital information to answer critical archaeological research questions about past landscapes and their inhabitants.

Interest from the public

One thing that has been really heartening to me has been the deep public interest and curiosity into such landscapes, and this was exemplified by our time in Japan, where we had media enquiries and visits almost every other day. These featured major coverage in local and national newspapers and television, including the national broadcaster NHK’s primetime news. Even given our experience of press interest elsewhere, we were a little surprised by the sheer volume and weight of local, regional, and national interest. This has been useful in teaching us that public interest in these landscapes seems constrained primarily by a lack of general knowledge that such archaeological landscapes exist in any given local area. It therefore suggests there is a real need to undertake this research around the world, not only to help provide a baseline to assist responsible green energy development of these areas, but also to inform people of their shared heritage lying beneath the world’s oceans.

This is especially important for Japan as the area has been settled since the ice age and we already can see archaeological sites around the modern lake shore. These sites illustrate the potential to find archaeology under the lakebed, and the waterlogged conditions have the potential to preserve wood and organic materials which are much rarer on land. In addition to this, Japan has some of the earliest pottery in the world, dating back to the end of the Ice Age (which means some pieces are 12,000 years old - 7,000 years before Stonehenge!), making any discoveries here potentially even more significant and exciting. Already the early processing of the data suggests several archaeological features that could be explored, and we look forward to examining them in the future.

Future plans in Japan and beyond

With the success of the LOTE pilot, a clear next step is an expansion of our Submerged Landscape research into the offshore areas of Japan. The challenges of moving offshore are not just confined to planning to logistically manage Pacific Ocean storms, but also to recognising and recording effects of past earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis on the preserved submerged landscape in new datasets. Whilst this sounds daunting, achieving this goal will provide Bradford with a robust methodology to record and detect archaeology that can be applied to any submerged landscape that is either under threat or facing development, no matter where it is on the globe.

Image 1: The Project team - Robyn Pelling (Bradford PhD Candidate), Prof Yasuhisa Kondo RIHN (Research Institute of Humanities and Nature)/SOKENDAI University, Dr Simon Fitch (University of Bradford) visited by experts Mr Takashi (Tohoku Town Council - Education Department) and Dr Furuyashiki (Local Archaeologist) to see the survey and provide local archaeological advice.

Image 2: Sonar map of the lakebed over the location of an archaeological site.