The Claim
There’s a sunken city in the gulf of Cambay, India
In December of 2000 a team from the National institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) were conducting a research operation in the gulf of Cambay, now named the Gulf of Khambhat. During the operation to map the effects of pollution in the sea using sonar, they detected a series of anomalies that appeared to be unnatural, so decided to conduct a small dredging experiment to see what was down there.
When the dredge was pulled up they found several pieces of pottery and what appeared to be a piece of wood used in construction. The wood was carbon dated and apparently comes from 7500 BC, though a common argument is that the wood didn’t come from the same place as the pottery did since dredging was used to recover it. For those of you who are unfamiliar, dredging is the process of scooping parts of the ocean floor up to the surface, normally done with a large grabber type tool on the end of a chain.
On 19 May 2001, India’s union minister for human resources of the science and technology division publicly released some of the findings of the pottery and scans taken of the ocean floor. He claimed the scans revealed a settlement complete with numerous dwellings, a granary, a drainage system and a number of other strange looking structures.
Another excavation by NIOT in 2001 using the method of dredging again found more pottery, some fossilised bones, stone hand tools and a tooth along with more wood. This time the wood was carbon dated to be from around 9500 BC.
Niot returned again in October of 2002 and stayed for 4 months in the area conducting scans. They detected what appears to be 2 old river beds which ran through the settlement, along with more pottery and wood, the outlines of stone foundations, hearth stones, stone tools and wattle and daub remains, which was a commonly made clay like substance used to coat the outside of dwellings.
The strangest thing about this location is that its 20 kilometres from the present day coast at a depth of between 20 and 40 meters. Which means it would have to be much older than the 9500 BC piece of wood found to have been above water when it was built.
One of the most popular arguments against the carbon dating is that the materials were recovered though the method of dredging, and since there’s evidence of whole forests being swallowed up by the sea when the levels started to rise, the wood could have come from anywhere.
As for the pottery and other man made artifacts, they appear to be similar to a civilisation called the Harappan who lived about 4000 years ago, but if its due to these people that doesn’t explain how the area was still underwater 4000 years ago, and it also doesn’t explain why so much wood from 10,000 plus years ago keeps turning up.
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