EW DELHI: A 'lost river' civilisation dating back to 7500 BC has been discovered off India's western coast, a senior cabinet minister said Wednesday. "The findings buried 40 metres (yards) below the sea reveal some sort of human civilisation, a courtyard, staircase, a bathroom or a temple or something," said Murli Manohar Joshi, minister for human resources and also ocean development. "It looks like a Harrapan-type civilisation but dating way back to 7500 BC," he said. The earliest discovered human civilisations in the subcontinent are the sites of the Harrapan and Indus Valley communities, which date back to 2500 BC. The 'marine archaeological findings' have been made by a joint exercise conducted by the Indian ocean development and archaeology institutes in the Gulf of Cambay region, off the coast of Gujarat state in the Arabian Sea. Objects such as pieces of construction material, artefacts with rectangular holes, fused objects, pottery, beads, broken pieces of sculpture, a fossilised jaw bone and human teeth and a cut wooden log have all been retrieved out from the site. Carbon-dating and other methods have dated the finds to around 7500 BC. Acoustic imagery has also revealed a river stretch of nine kilometres (5.6 miles) along which all the objects have been found. The imagery also shows built-up structures protruding from the seabed. "We have formed a group to undertake further studies," Joshi said. "We have to find out what happened then ... where and how did this civilisation vanish ... what kind of seismological activity is taking place here." The minister said the discovery could have implications worldwide. "The idea is to tell the world that here is an area which needs further examination due to the discovery of objects which have been dated back to 7500 BC."