Wrecks wash up under farmers' ploughs By Christina Lamb in Lelystad Managing a farm in Europe these days is no easy task, what with problems like mad cow disease and severe flooding. To my surprise I realised I had found a complete ship. The finds have become more frequent as increased rainfall, which caused heavy flooding across Europe recently, has led to rising water levels. But if you think about it, it is not so strange, because where we are standing was the seabed until the 1960s.
Maritime history is literally underneath our feet.
Since the 1930s the Dutch have reclaimed large tracts of sea to create land. Whole new provinces have been created by building dikes to hold back the sea, then pumping out the water and planting reeds to draw out the moisture. Roads have then been built and new towns and farmland created. In some parts of the central Netherlands, this has resulted in ancient fishing villages being stranded amid cornfields, kilometres from the new coastline. The province of Flevoland, where more than 400 wrecks have been found, was part of the Zuider Zee, a large inland sea in the centre of the Netherlands.