During the last ice age peak, sea levels sat about 120 meters lower than today. Doggerland was a vast landmass connecting Britain to continental Europe, full of rivers, forests, and wildlife, possibly the most productive landscape in northwestern Europe during the Mesolithic. People lived there for thousands of years before rising seas drowned it. Now it lies beneath the North Sea, occasionally revealing mammoth bones and tools in fishing nets.
Doggerland: Mesolithic landscape connecting Britain to Europe now submerged under North Sea
United KingdomGeneral
Site mentioned
Key facts
- At the last ice age peak, sea levels were roughly 120 meters lower than today
- Doggerland was a landmass connecting Britain to continental Europe
- It was rich in rivers, forests, and wildlife
- It was described as the most productive landscape in northwestern Europe during the Mesolithic
- People lived there for thousands of years before rising sea levels drowned it
- It now sits beneath the North Sea
- Its existence is known because fishing trawlers occasionally pull up mammoth bones and Mesolithic tools from the seafloor
- Submerged prehistoric coastlines have barely been surveyed at any serious scale
Sources
Doggerland - The Europe That Was - National Geographic Educationeducation.nationalgeographic.org
Instead of the North Sea, the area was a series of gently sloping hills, marshland, heavily wooded valleys, and swampy lagoons: Doggerland .
The Mesolithic Landscapes of the Southern North Sea on JSTORjstor.org
12000 years ago the area that now forms the southern North Sea was dry land: a vast plain populated by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.
A partial map of Doggerland, the lost Mesolithic landscape ...researchgate.net
A partial map of Doggerland, the lost Mesolithic landscape associated with the southern North Sea. Mapping has revealed estuary and salt marsh formation.
Doggerland - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
Doggerland was a large area of land in Northern Europe, now submerged beneath the southern North Sea. This region was repeatedly exposed at various times ...
Discovering Doggerland | Wessex Archaeologywessexarch.co.uk
As ice sheets melted and the climate warmed, Doggerland was a temperate grassland and home to large mammals such as mammoth, aurochs and red ...
Was this story useful?
Keep exploring
Every site on this page sits on the globe, and the people who research them are on the Discord.
3D Globe · Sites by country · Story Archive · Research Library · Weekly Journal · Search
AI-generated text · images from the original sources · always verify with the sources.