ALBERT LIN (VOICEOVER): Maritime archaeologist
Garry Momber has been exploring these waters for 20 years.
Thank you.
ALBERT LIN (VOICEOVER): The English Channel
is a notoriously difficult place to dive.
Meticulous preparations are vital.
Visibility isn't great.
So be careful.
We'll buddy up together.
And I'll take you to the bottom of the shot line,
see the seabed, and then I'll take you to the site.
[whistle blows]
Let's go!
Go!
They're away.
ALBERT LIN (VOICEOVER): With powerful tides and cold water,
conditions are treacherous.
But at the bottom of this line, lies a treasure trove
from another age.
ALBERT LIN (VOICEOVER): 8,000 years ago,
sea levels were lower, and this seabed was dry land.
The wood has survived underwater for millennia.
ALBERT LIN (VOICEOVER): The trees
are all part of a preserved hunter-gatherer landscape.
It's a struggle against the current
to get to the main site.
ALBERT LIN (VOICEOVER): We take some samples
to get a better idea of what this is back on the boat.
ALBERT LIN: That was incredible.
Looks like there's a whole platform down there.
It's layered, one piece on top of the other, almost like--
almost like a dock.
Unbelievable.
Ha, ha.
Oh, it's cold down there and murky.
[inaudible] yeah?
Ah, but it's incredible.
You know, you descend down this line.
And out of the darkness comes the ancient past.
GARRY MOMBER: Look at that.
Now, you can see here.
How this piece of wood could be locked in time in the ocean,
how does that happen, where it doesn't decay?
Well, what's happened with this
is that as the sea level has risen above it.
It's covered it with this silt, and it's taken away
all the oxygen. And it just preserved it
in a sort of anaerobic, oxygen-free environment.
And it would have stayed there for many more thousand years.
But recently, the old landscape's eroding away,
which is how we found this.
And what is that-- that--
GARRY MOMBER: This little piece?
Yeah, what is that?
Well, that little piece-- that stretched back.
It was a little bit broken then.
There's a peck that comes back over the next piece.
It looks like it's just a little fix the thing in place.
It's composite structures like this that is
of international significance.
It's 8,000 years old.
You don't just get these every day.
ALBERT LIN: Can you describe to me the scene that this
would have existed within?
This was next to a stream.
And we know it was a bit of a wetland.
So it could have been a nice support.
It could have been a platform.
It could have been a pontoon.
We don't know yet.
We don't know because there's nothing
else like it in the country.
Wow.
And somewhere where we found what we believe
to be the oldest boat building site
in the world, where they would have
built a canoe, a long boat.
So that's what they would have sailed.
[music playing]