Structures in the Gulf of Cambay

The Structures in the Gulf of Cambay are a set of possible ruins, underwater, off the coast of India. Discovered in 2001, there have been on-going debates on the existence of such ruins. There has been evidence of political conflict, doubt on the authenticity of artifacts discovered, and circumstantial difficulties. If they are ruins, the age is unknown, however ages have been given from anywhere between 5,000 and 35,000 years old. No conclusive dating evidence has been produced. Their depth, at 40 meters, may not indicate an extreme age as local sea-bed subsidence could have resulted in their current position.

If the ruins are shown to be real human artifacts, and the 35,000 year age is confirmed, the existence of such ruins would change many of the modern theories about ancient civilizations. This has been the subject of discussion in numerous documentaries, however until more research is done, the identification and age of the structures will remain controversial.

Announcement

On May 19, 2001, India's science and technology minister Murli Manohar Joshi announced the finding of ruins in the Gulf of Khambhat (formerly known as the Gulf of Cambay and more commonly spelled Khambhat). The ruins, known as the Gulf of Khambhat Cultural Complex (GKCC), are located on the seabed of a nine-kilometer stretch off the coast of Gujarat province at a depth of about 40 m. The site was discovered by a team from the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) in December 2000 and investigated for six months with acoustic techniques. The team identified city-like structures at the location, said to resemble those of major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, with regular geometric patterns representing a granary, a great bath and a citadel.

However, many marine geologists are skeptical of the interpretations of the NIOT scientists. These Geologists argue that The Many of the geometric patterns seen on the sonar images which the NIOT team interpreted to be submerged structures, are instead the inaccuracy of the sonar imaging process itself. Where underlain by lithified sediments and bedrocks, the linear patterns interpreted to be the foundations and walls of man-made structures might instead be naturally-occurring orthogonal / rectilinear fracturing and jointing in the rock formations at the bottom of the Gulf of Khambhat. These Marine geologists argued that the sonar images are inconclusive and would remain open to various and contradictory interpretations, unless verified by actual underwater excavations. Without such physical investigations to clearly document the presence of artifacts in intact, stratified archaeological deposits and in situ man-made structures, whatever interpretations based on sonar imagery alone would remain unverifiable..

Follow-up

A follow up investigation was conducted by the same institute in November 2001, which included dredging to recover artifacts. News articles report that a block of wood was recovered that was dated to 9,500 years old, which is 5000 years older than the Indus Valley Civilization. As noted by Witzel (2006), there is a lack of stratigraphic evidence to show that this piece of wood is associated with the geometric patterns seen in sonar images and the various objects recovered from the floor of the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay). In many major river or estuary systems, it is quite common to find pieces of wood, which are thousands of years old, which have been eroded from older sediments and incorporated into modern sediments 1.

A round of further underwater explorations was made in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) site by the NIOT team from 2003 to 2004, and the samples obtained of what was presumed to be pottery were sent to laboratories in Oxford, UK and Hanover, Germany, as well as several institutions within India, to be dated by Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) and thermoluminescence dating techniques. These pieces returned dates ranging from 13000 ± 1950 BP up to the oldest at 31270 ± 2050 BP, leading to NIOT's chief geologist Badrinaryan Badrinaryan stating that they had uncovered the earliest-known pottery remains in the world, from about 31000 BP 2. In his web publication of his findings, Badrinaryan (2006) stated:

However, the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of the items identified as pottery, which had the older OSL dates, produced dates that are almost identical to OSL dates obtained from associated sediments. That the pottery yielded OSL dates identical to associated sediments suggests that the pottery, which produced the older and oldest OSL dates, may never have been fired and actually consist of pieces of naturally cemented sediments. This raises the possibility that the extremely old samples, as argued for many other artifacts recovered from the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay), are not man-made artifacts or potsherds, but rather geofacts and related objects of natural origin.

The XRD analysis does not prove that these artifacts are man-made as natural concretions can also form in local alluvial sediments. The XRD data only indicates that the extremely old samples consists of sediments, which came from the alluvial deposits underlying the currently submerged and typically buried floodplain somewhere along the length of the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay). The calcite found in the extremely old pottery can be also interpreted to be the material cementing local alluvium together to form concretions, which have been misidentified as pottery. Such concretions are noted to be quite common in naturally-occurring alluvial deposits.

Controversy

It has been argued that the ruins are either natural rock formations and result of faulty remote sensing equipment and the "artifacts" recovered, including pottery sherds, in the area of the ruins are either (Geofacts) or artifacts reworked from shipwrecks and eroded from coastal sites by the very strong tidal currents that characterize the Gulf of Cambay. The side scan sonar equipment used to image the bottom of the Gulf of Cambay was said to be faulty, and that a lot of the supporting evidence is purely circumstantial. Interpretations as to whether the objects and seismic data gathered from the Gulf of Cambay and published over the years supports the existence of submerged Neolithic cities differs sharply between conventional archaeologists and alternative researchers. The consensus among conventional archaeologists is that there is a complete lack of any valid evidence for submerged ruins and any in situ artifacts associated with them. In sharp contrast, alternative researchers, including Graham Hancock, supporters of Vedic science, and Hindu nationalists, argue that the evidence clearly indicates the presence of submerged Neolithic cities at the bottom of the Bay of Cambay (Witzel 2006).

Over 2000 "artifacts" have been retrieved from the bottom of the gulf. "Artifacts" resembling tools, human remains, pottery, jewels, even literature have all been recovered. Large blocks were discovered that could have been possible foundations for the twin-metropolis' that are said to exist in the Gulf. Such a city would not be impossible, but it would mean the discovery of the oldest civilization in the world, disproving the original theory that modern civilization originated in Mesopotamia (Modern Day Iraq). This could be the origin of not only the Indus Valley civilization. Atlantis, the story of an entire city sinking into the ocean, and Dwaraka, quite possibly the Mahabharata's version of the story which vividly tells of the city being completely transgressed by the sea. This could have been caused by the large amounts of melting ice at the end of the last ice age.

Great ice caps over northern Europe and America melted down, causing sea-levels to raise by over 100 metres, and covering about 25 Million Square Kilometres of habitable land with water. Since then, 500 submerged sites have been found, but only 100 of them are older than 3000 years old (1000 BCE). Tales of global floods could find new merit with the authentication of the ruins, showing that there were modern human civilizations during the end of the last ice age.

It's something that needs to be uncovered with time. Since it is located underwater, excavation is significantly slower than if it were located on land. Indian authorities have been very reluctant to include the "Western Countries" on this discovery, seeing it as a monumental part of their history that was previously written by "Western Historians". This will likely be a long controversy, one where everyone is undoubtedly going to have an opinion, but until more work is done there won't be a definite answer.

References

See also

See also

Dwaraka Kingdom

Atlantis

Pseudoarchaeology

Indus Valley Civilization

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