# I just read an article about a road which was from the Hvar people and built 7,000 years ago. It is under 13 feet of water in the mediterranean sea. Was the mediterranean sea thirteen feet lower 7,000 years ago – or how is it possible that there are 7k old roads under 13 feet of water?
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Article link: https://www.iflscience.com/7000-year-old-submerged-road-discovered-under-the-mediterranean-sea-68830
At the peak of the last ice age so much water had been frozen into Earth’s ice caps that the sea level had dropped *hundreds* of feet.
By 7000 years ago at the very tail end of the ice age much of the glaciated areas had receded and brought the sea levels back up, but not yet to modern levels.
The planet’s coast lines are very dynamic over geologic time scales, the oceans have been considerably higher and considerably lower than they are now depending on the extent of the glacial ice buildup on land.
There’s still an enormous volume of glacier ice over the south pole even today, and a smaller stockpile over Greenland. The oceans have also been much higher than they are today during warm periods.
The ocean was not much higher, the land was lower. The ground is made up of giant tectonic plates which float on a ball of magma. And for various reasons these tectonic plates does rock a bit back and forth due to changes in their mass and how they get pushed around by the other plates. 13 feet in 7 thousand years is actually a relatively small change.
I have not studied this at all but a quick guess would be that the ice that melted off Northern Europe after the last ice age reduced the mass in that part of the tectonic plate so land rose up in Northern Europe. This pushed down the tectonic plate in Southern Europe and Northern Africa. Although I am not sure if the tilting motion would have such an effect on those long distances. It might be something else causing the land to sink.
Oceans levels vary by hundreds of feet depending on glacial ice levels. The colder the climate and the greater the amount of ice, the lower the sea level; higher temperatures and lower ice levels result in higher sea levels.
And, the Mediterranean has lots plate boundaries where sections of land can jump up or down by dozens of feet with earthquakes.
Once the Mediterranean was reconnected to the Atlantic Ocean, about 5.5 million years ago, its level has been locked to the ocean’s level. So more recent ice age level changes affected the Med as well. Some of the variation has to do with this but it generally predates 7000 years ago.
However, most of the “submerged cities” like this around the Med, like Alexandria’s ancient harbor, are the result of more local drops in the crust due to tectonic shifts and the resultant earthquakes.
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