Marine archeologists working with ‘shipwreck hunter’ Tiago Fraga have discovered Portugal’s first prehistoric underwater site while looking for something entirely different. The finds, in the Bôco channel of Aveiro river, suggest there is a whole community two metres down just waiting to be discovered. But Fraga says he is keen to keep looking for the 14 wrecks thought to be in the area “one of them the oldest in Portugal”.
A kind of Indiana Jones of marine archeology, Fraga has done a lot of research on wrecks off the coast of the Algarve. He is a key element of the Faro-based firm Archeofactory, which provides archeological support for the construction industry.
He has communicated his latest find near Ílhavo to the general directorate of cultural heritage, and it now depends on what this decides as to what happens next.
Fraga told reporters that it’s clear to his team that the finds were not ‘random discoveries’ but clear indication that a site is at hand – it could be a “large settlement of village-related occupation”, but it definitely dates back to between 3000 and 4000 BC.
Divers have already located a structure underwater, and Fraga believes “other pieces” will start appearing now, which is exhilarating when one considers that the average sea level line was 60 kms from this spot all those years ago.
The Bôco channel as it is now was an area of plains in those days, said Fraga.
