Archaeologists surveying the world's oldest submerged town have
found ceramics dating back to the Final Neolithic. Their
discovery suggests that Pavlopetri, off the southern Laconia
coast of Greece, was occupied some 5,000 years ago — at least
1,200 years earlier than originally thought. These remarkable
findings have been made public by the Greek government after the
start of a five year collaborative project involving the
Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of
Culture and The University of Nottingham. As a Mycenaean town
the site offers potential new insights into the workings of
Mycenaean society. Pavlopetri has added importance as it was a
maritime settlement from which the inhabitants coordinated local
and long distance trade. The Pavlopetri Underwater Archaeology
Project aims to establish exactly when the site was occupied,
what it was used for and through a systematic study of the
geomorphology of the area, how the town became submerged. This
summer the team carried out a detail