Doggerland

Doggerland was an area of land, now submerged beneath the southern

North Sea, that connected Britain to continental Europe. It was flooded by
rising sea levels around 6,500–6,200 BC. Geological surveys have
suggested that it stretched from Britain's east coast to the Netherlands and
the western coasts of Germany and the peninsula of Jutland.[1] It was
probably a rich habitat with human habitation in the Mesolithic period,[2]
although rising sea levels gradually reduced it to low-lying islands before
its final submergence, possibly following a tsunami caused by the Storegga
Slide.[3]

The archaeological potential of the area was first identified in the early
20th century, and interest intensified in 1931 when a fishing trawler
operating east of the Wash dragged up a barbed antler point that was
subsequently dated to a time when the area was tundra. Vessels have
dragged up remains of mammoths, lions and other animals, as well as a Map showing hypothetical extent of
few prehistoric tools and weapons.[4] Doggerland (c. 10,000 BC), which
provided a land bridge between Britain
Doggerland was named in the 1990s, after the Dogger Bank, which in turn and continental Europe
was named after the 17th century Dutch fishing boats called doggers.

Contents
Formation
Disappearance
Discovery and investigation by archaeologists
See also
References
Further reading
External links

Formation
Until the middle Pleistocene, Britain was a peninsula of Europe, connected by the massive chalk Weald–Artois Anticline across
the Straits of Dover. During the Anglian glaciation, approximately 450,000 years ago, an ice sheet filled much of the North Sea,
with a large proglacial lake in the southern part fed by the Rhine, Scheldt and Thames river systems. The catastrophic overflow of
this lake carved a channel through the anticline, leading to the formation of the Channel River, which carried the combined
Scheldt and Thames to the Atlantic. This probably created the potential for Britain to become isolated from the continent during
periods of high sea level, although some scientists argue that the final break did not occur until a second ice-dammed lake
overflowed during the MIS8 or MIS6 glaciations, around 340,000 or 240,000 years ago.[5]
 During the most recent glaciation of the Last Glacial Maximum,
which ended around 18,000 years ago, the North Sea and much
of the British Isles were covered with glacial ice and the sea level
was about 120 m (390 ft) lower. The climate later became
warmer and during the Late Glacial Maximum around 12,000 BC
Britain, as well as much of the North Sea and English Channel,
was an expanse of low-lying tundra.[6]

Evidence, including the contours of the present seabed, indicates

Map showing hypothetical extent of Doggerland that after the first main Ice Age, the watershed between the North
from Weichselian glaciation until the current Sea and English Channel extended east from East Anglia then
situation south-east to the Hook of Holland, rather than across the Strait of
Dover. The Seine, Thames, Meuse, Scheldt and Rhine rivers
joined and flowed west along the English Channel as a wide slow
river before eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean.[2][6] At about 10,000 BC the north-facing coastal area of Doggerland had a
coastline of lagoons, saltmarshes, mudflats and beaches as well as inland streams, rivers, marshes and lakes. It may have been the
richest hunting, fowling and fishing ground in Europe in the Mesolithic period.[2][7]

One big river system found by 3D seismic survey, undertaken by the Birmingham "North Sea Palaeolandscapes Project," was the
"Shotton River", which drained the south-east part of the Dogger Bank hill area into the east end of the Outer Silver Pit lake. It is
named after Birmingham geologist Frederick William Shotton.

Disappearance
As ice melted at the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age, sea
levels rose and the land began to tilt in an isostatic adjustment as the huge
weight of ice lessened. Doggerland eventually became submerged, cutting
off what was previously the British peninsula from the European mainland
by around 6500 BC.[6][9] The Dogger Bank, an upland area of Doggerland,
remained an island until at least 5000 BC.[6][9] Key stages are now
believed to have included the gradual evolution of a large tidal bay
between eastern England and Dogger Bank by 9000 BC and a rapid sea-
level rise thereafter, leading to Dogger Bank becoming an island and
Britain becoming physically disconnected from the continent.[10]

A recent hypothesis postulates that much of the remaining coastal land was
flooded by a megatsunami around 6200 BC, caused by a submarine
landslide off the coast of Norway known as the Storegga Slide. This
suggests: "that the Storegga Slide tsunami would have had a catastrophic
impact on the contemporary coastal Mesolithic population.... Britain
finally became separated from the continent and in cultural terms, the
The red line marks Dogger Bank, which is
Mesolithic there goes its own way."[10] A study published in 2014
most likely a moraine formed in the
suggested that the only remaining parts of Doggerland at the time of the
Pleistocene.[8]
Storegga Slide were low-lying islands, but supported the view that the area
had been abandoned at about the same time as the tsunamis.[3]

Another view speculates that the Storegga tsunami devastated Doggerland but then ebbed back into the sea, and that later Lake
Agassiz (in North America) burst releasing so much fresh water that sea levels over about two years rose to flood much of
Doggerland and make Britain an island.[11]
Discovery and investigation by archaeologists
Woolly mammoth skull discovered by
fishermen in the North Sea, at Celtic
and Prehistoric Museum, Ireland
The prehistoric existence of what is now known as Doggerland was established
in the late 19th century. H. G. Wells referred to the concept in his short story A
Story of the Stone Age of 1897, set in "a time when one might have walked
dryshod from France (as we call it now) to England, and when a broad and
sluggish Thames flowed through its marshes to meet its father Rhine, flowing
through a wide and level country that is under water in these latter days, and
which we know by the name of the North Sea...Fifty thousand years ago it was,
fifty thousand years if the reckoning of geologists is correct", though most of the
action seems to occur in what is now Surrey and Kent, but stretching out to
Doggerland.[12]

The remains of plants brought to the surface from Dogger Bank were studied in
1913 by paleobiologist Clement Reid, and the remains of animals and worked flints from the Neolithic period had also been
found.[13] In his book The Antiquity of Man of 1915, anatomist Sir Arthur Keith discussed the archaeological potential of the
area.[13] In 1931, the trawler Colinda hauled up a lump of peat whilst fishing near the Ower Bank, 40 kilometres (25 mi) east of
Norfolk. The peat was found to contain a barbed antler point, possibly used as a harpoon or fish spear, 220 millimetres (8.5 in)
long, which dated from between 4,000 and 10,000 BC when the area was tundra.[2][7]

Interest was reinvigorated in the 1990s by Bryony Coles, who named the area "Doggerland" ("after the great banks in the
southern North Sea")[7] and produced speculative maps of the area.[7][14] Although she recognised that the current relief of the
southern North Sea seabed is not a sound guide to the topography of Doggerland,[14] this topography has more recently begun to
be reconstructed more authoritatively using seismic survey data obtained from oil exploration. Between 2003 and 2007 a team at
the University of Birmingham led by Vince Gaffney and Ken Thomson mapped around 23,000 square kilometres (8,900 square
miles) of the Early Holocene landscape, using seismic data provided for research by Petroleum Geo-Services, as part of the work
of the University of Birmingham North Sea Palaeolandscapes Project.[15] The results of this study were published as a technical
monograph and a popular book on the history and archaeology of Doggerland.[16][17][18] Names have been given to some of its
features: "The Spines" to a system of dunes above the broad "Shotton River", the upland area of the "Dogger Bank", a basin
between two huge sandbanks called "The Outer Silver Pit"[19].

A skull fragment of a Neanderthal, dated at over 40,000 years old, was recovered from material dredged from the Middeldiep,
some 16 kilometres (10 mi) off the coast of Zeeland, and exhibited in Leiden in 2009.[20] In March 2010 it was reported that
recognition of the potential archaeological importance of the area could affect the future development of offshore wind farms.[21]

In July 2012, the results of study of Doggerland by the universities of Birmingham, St Andrews, Dundee, and Aberdeen,
including surveys of artefacts, were displayed at the Royal Society summer exhibition in London.[22] Richard Bates of St
Andrews University said:[22]

We have speculated for years on the lost land's existence from bones dredged by fishermen all over the North Sea,
but it's only since working with oil companies in the last few years that we have been able to re-create what this
lost land looked like.... We have now been able to model its flora and fauna, build up a picture of the ancient
people that lived there and begin to understand some of the dramatic events that subsequently changed the land,
including the sea rising and a devastating tsunami.

Since 2015, the University of Bradford's Europe's Lost Frontiers[23] project has continued mapping the prehistoric landscapes of
Doggerland and has used this data to direct a programme of extensive coring of marine palaeochannels. Sediment from the cores
has provided sedimentary DNA as well as conventional environmental data and these will be used in a major computational
modelling programme replicating colonisation of the submerged
landscape.[24][25]

In June 2019, a team of scientists from the University of Bradford and Ghent
University found a hammerstone flint on the seabed 25 miles (40 km) off the
coast of Cromer, Norfolk, from a depth of 32 metres (105 ft), which could point
to the existence of prehistoric settlements.[26]

See also
Maglemosian culture
Outburst flood
Viking Bergen Island
Weald–Artois Anticline

References Early Holocene landscape features

mapped by the North Sea
1. "The Doggerland Project", University of Exeter Department of Palaeolandscapes Project
Archaeology (http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/archaeology/research/pr
ojects/title,89282,en.html)
2. Patterson, W, "Coastal Catastrophe" (paleoclimate research
document), University of Saskatchewan (http://geochemistry.usask.c
a/bill/courses/Climate/Coastal%20catastrophe%20prt.pdf) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20080409025923/http://geochemistry.u
sask.ca/bill/courses/Climate/Coastal%20catastrophe%20prt.pdf) 9
April 2008 at the Wayback Machine
3. Rincon, Paul (1 May 2014). "Prehistoric North Sea 'Atlantis' hit by 5m
tsunami" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-2722424
3). BBC News.
4. Mihai, Andrei (5 February 2015). "Doggerland – the land that
connected Europe and the UK 8000 years ago" (http://www.zmescie
nce.com/science/geology/doggerland-europe-land/). ZME Science.
Retrieved 18 February 2015.
5. Pettitt, Paul; White, Mark (2012). The British Palaeolithic: Human
Societies at the Edge of the Pleistocene World. Abingdon, UK:
Routledge. pp. 98–102, 277. ISBN 978-0-415-67455-3.
6. University of Sussex, School of Life Sciences (http://www.lifesci.suss
ex.ac.uk/teaching/C1119/mhe08%20lecture%206.pdf) Archived (http
s://web.archive.org/web/20110609214154/http://www.lifesci.sussex.a
c.uk/teaching/C1119/mhe08%20lecture%206.pdf) 9 June 2011 at
the Wayback Machine, C1119 Modern human evolution, Lecture 6,
slide 23
7. Vincent Gaffney, "Global Warming and Lost Lands: Understanding
the Effects of Sea Level Rise" (http://livebettermagazine.com/article/
global-warming-and-lost-lands-understanding-the-effects-of-sea-leve
l-rise/)
8. Stride, A.H (January 1959). "On the origin of the Dogger Bank, in the
North Sea" (http://geolmag.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/
96/1/33). Geological Magazine. 96 (1): 33–34.
doi:10.1017/S0016756800059197 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS001
6756800059197). Retrieved 12 January 2010.
 9. Scarre, Chris (2005). The Human Past: World Prehistory & the
Development of Human Societies. London: Thames & Hudson.
p. 180. ISBN 978-0-500-28531-2.
10. Bernhard Weninger et al., The catastrophic final flooding of
Doggerland by the Storegga Slide tsunami, Documenta
Praehistorica XXXV, 2008 (http://www.personal.soton.ac.uk/ejr/Rohli
ng-papers/2008-Weninger%20et%20al%20Documenta%20Praehist
orica.pdf)
11. Britain's Stone Age Tsunami, Channel 4, 8 to 9 pm, Thursday 30
May 2013
12. Online text (http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/10821/)
13. Keith, Arthur (15 August 2004). "3". The Antiquity of Man (https://boo
ks.google.com/books?id=nCxEDWs8kwgC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq
=submerged+forest+france#v=onepage&q=submerged%20forest%2
0france&f=false). Anmol Publications Pvt Ltd. p. 41. ISBN 81-7041-
977-8. Retrieved 12 January 2010.
14. B.J. Coles. "Doggerland : a speculative survey (Doggerland : une
prospection spéculative)", Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (htt
p://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2023101), ISSN 0079-
497X (https://www.worldcat.org/search?fq=x0:jrnl&q=n2:0079-497X),
1998, vol. 64, pp. 45–81 (3 p.1/4)
15. North Sea Palaeolandscapes Project (http://www.iaalocal.bham.ac.u
k/North_Sea_Palaeolandscapes/index.htm)
16. Laura Spinney, "The lost world: Doggerland" (http://sci.tech-archive.n
et/Archive/sci.archaeology/2008-07/msg00136.html)
17. Vincent L. Gaffney; Kenneth Thomson; Simon Fitch, eds. (2007).
Mapping Doggerland: The Mesolithic Landscapes of the Southern
North Sea (https://books.google.com/books?id=SrsrE8oZx44C&pg=
PR11). Archaeopress. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-905739-14-1.
18. Vincent Gaffney, Simon Fitch, David Smith, Europe's Lost World:
The rediscovery of Doggerland, University of Birmingham, 2009 (htt
p://www.britarch.ac.uk/books/Gaffney2009)
19. Robert Macfarlane (2012). The Old Ways. Penguin. p. 70-71.
ISBN 978-0-141-03058-6.
20. Palarch: Spectacular discovery of first-ever Dutch Neanderthal Fossil
skull fragment unveiled by Minister Plasterk in National Museum of
Antiquities (http://www.palarch.nl/2009/06/news-first-fossil-of-neande
rthal-from-northsea-the-netherlands/), 15 June 2009
21. "Stone Age could complicate N. Sea wind farm plans", Reuters, 23
March 2010 (https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE62M12020100
323)
22. BBC News, "Hidden Doggerland underworld uncovered in North
Sea", 3 July 2012 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburg
h-east-fife-18687504). Accessed 4 July 2012
23. https://lostfrontiers.teamapp.com/
24. App, Team. "Lost Frontiers (Lost Frontiers) Home page - Lost
Frontiers An Erc Research Project team/club based in University of
Bradford, United Kingdom. | Team App" (https://lostfrontiers.teamap
p.com/). Lost Frontiers. Retrieved 8 May 2017.
25. Sarah Knapton (1 September 2015). "British Atlantis: archaeologists
begin exploring lost world of Doggerland" (https://www.telegraph.co.u
k/news/earth/environment/archaeology/11836627/British-Atlantis-arc
haeologists-begin-exploring-lost-world-of-Doggerland.html). Daily
Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
26. "Evidence of human life found under North Sea off Cromer" (https://
www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-48594701). BBC News. 12
June 2019.

Further reading
Coles, B. J. (1998). "Doggerland: a Speculative Survey" (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of
-the-prehistoric-society/article/doggerland-a-speculative-survey/EB385EB842EADD38C07250C400040CC0).
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society. 64: 45–81. doi:10.1017/S0079497X00002176 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2
FS0079497X00002176).
Gaffney, V.; Thomson, K.; Fitch, S., eds. (2007). Mapping Doggerland: The Mesolithic Landscapes of the
Southern North Sea.
https://www.academia.edu/2480682/Mapping_Doggerland_the_Mesolithic_Landscapes_of_the_Southern_North_
Sea: Archaeopress.
Gaffney, Vincent; Fitch, Simon; Smith, David (2009). Europe's Lost World: The Rediscovery of Doggerland.
Council for British Archaeology. ISBN 1-902771-77-X.
Moffat, Alistair (2005). Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 978-0-
500-05133-7. Discussed in depth in chapters 2–4.
Morelle, Rebecca (4 April 2017). "Evidence of ancient 'geological Brexit' revealed" (https://www.bbc.com/news/sci
ence-environment-39494740). BBC News. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
Spinney, Laura (December 2012). Robert Clark (photog.); Alexander Maleev (illus.). "The Lost World of
Doggerland" (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/12/doggerland/spinney-text). National Geographic. 222
(6): 132–143. Retrieved 30 November 2012.

External links
"Hunting for DNA in Doggerland, an Ancient Land Beneath the North Sea" (https://www.wired.com/2015/11/hunti
ng-for-dna-in-doggerland-an-ancient-land-beneath-the-north-sea), Elizabeth Preston, Wired, 27 November 2015
"The moment Britain became an island" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12244964), Megan Lane, BBC
News, 15 February 2011
"North Sea Paleolandscapes" (http://www.iaalocal.bham.ac.uk/North_Sea_Palaeolandscapes/index.htm),
Institute for Archaeology and Antiquity, University of Birmingham
Britain's 'Atlantis’ found (https://www.thevintagenews.com/2015/12/25/39894/?src=fba&type=wca&page=tvn)
"North Sea Prehistory Research and Management Framework (NSPRMF) 2009" (http://www.english-heritage.or
g.uk/publications/ns-prehistory-research-manage-framework/10278_North_Sea_Prehistory_web.pdf), English
Heritage, 2009
"The Doggerland project" (http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/archaeology/research/projects/title,89282,en.html),
Professor Bryony Coles, University of Exeter. Includes hypothesised map of Doggerland in the early Holocene.
CGI images (2 stills and a movie) (https://web.archive.org/web/20120425163414/http://opennature.org/sc-shotto
n.html) of a Mesolithic camp beside the Shotton River
"Das rekonstruierte Doggerland" ("Doggerland reconstructed") (http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-343
37.html), computer generated images of a Doggerland landscape, 19 August 2008, Der Spiegel ‹See Tfd›(in
German)
"Hidden Doggerland underworld uncovered in North Sea" (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-ea
st-fife-18687504), BBC News, 3 July 2012
Europe's Lost Frontiers (https://lostfrontiers.teamapp.com/)
2013 European Heritage Prize awarded to M. Daniel Thérond and Professor Vincent Gaffney (https://www.e-a-a.
org/EAA/Prizes___Awards/Heritage_Prize/2013/EAA/Navigation_Prizes_and_Awards/Heritage_Prize_2013.asp
x)#
Mapping Doggerland: the Mesolithic Landscapes of the southern North Sea (https://www.academia.edu/2480682/
Mapping_Doggerland_the_Mesolithic_Landscapes_of_the_Southern_North_Sea)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Doggerland&oldid=904374945"

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