Lake Van and the Lost Ice Age Shoreline

Image Generated with Open AI

Matthew LaCroix may be onto something about the underwater ruins of Lake Van, but the most interesting possibility may not be exactly the one he has proposed. His expedition has brought attention to a remarkable archaeological problem in eastern Türkiye: substantial stone structures are now sitting roughly 75 feet beneath the modern surface of Lake Van, including what his team describes as carefully laid masonry, a large circular structure, and a substantial stone-built roadway or causeway. The chronology and original function of the complex remain unresolved, but the underwater architecture raises an obvious question. How did structures that appear to have been constructed on dry land end up more than twenty meters underwater?

The simplest answer is that the landscape changed after the structures were built. That idea is not controversial in itself. What is extraordinary is how dramatically the landscape around Lake Van has changed during the period in which humans were living through the end of the last Ice Age. Geological research shows that Lake Van has experienced enormous fluctuations in water level, meaning that today’s shoreline is a very poor guide to what the landscape looked like thousands of years ago. (ScienceDirect⁠)