Underwater ‘lost city’ thought to be 6,000 years old could change everything we know about history

Over 20 years ago, a team of explorers announced they'd found something which could point to the existence of an ancient city now submerged underwater.

Canadian researchers working in that distant, far-off time of 2001 announced that while searching the seas just off Cuba's western coast their sonar equipment appeared to have found stone structures beneath the sea.

Back then, the BBC reported that the team had found 'symmetrically organized stone structures' underwater, which made them think of city streets and urban development.

They decided to investigate further and sent a robot down to take a closer look, with the gizmo finding 'huge, smooth blocks with the appearance of cut granite' poking out of the seabed.

The researchers suggested that these structures might be as old as 6,000 years, meaning they'd be a good 1,500 years older than the famous pyramids of Ancient Egypt and change some of our assumptions about history and human civilisation.

Sonar images picked up images of underwater structures that may have been man-made (Advanced Digital Communications)

Simply put, if humans were capable of constructing sophisticated pyramids about 1,500 years before famous pyramid-building civilisation Ancient Egypt managed it, then we'd have to re-examine some of the ideas we have about a much older time in our history.

If people were capable of constructing these sorts of buildings, then it also speaks to the development of their society that they were able to do such a thing.

Of course, the researchers from Advanced Digital Communications warned at the time that while it 'could have been a large urban centre', they would be 'totally irresponsible to say what it was before we have evidence'.

Unfortunately for attempts to shore up the truth about this possible lost underwater city, future expeditions to the site struggled to gain more information and the area has not been properly researched since 2005.

Manuel Iturralde of the Natural History Museum in Cuba had told National Geographic that the researchers found 'extremely peculiar structures' and he would struggle to 'explain this geologically'.

A computer generated image of what the researchers found, the actual site may look very different (YouTube/Ancient Architects)

However, he pointed out that 'nature is able to create some really unimaginable structures', so even if you look at something and think it must have been man-made then Mother Nature stands every chance of proving you wrong.

Iturralde also said that given the depth the structures were found at, they'd have to be around 50,000 years old to sink to the point where they were found.

Sea levels have risen over the past few thousand years in the Caribbean, but they haven't risen quite that much to hide something that was about 650 metres down.

While there are many marvellous discoveries to be made under the sea you've always got to be careful about being sure of what you've found.

A man who reckons he's found the lost city of Atlantis thinks he's located the spot where the submerged ruins of some ancient city once stood, but getting everyone to accept your proof is easier said than done.