Doggerland is a name given by archaeologists and geologists to the former landmass in the southern
North SeaThe North Sea is a marginal, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. The Dover Strait and the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north connect it to the Atlantic Ocean. It is more than long and wide, with an area of around...
that connected the island of
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
to mainland
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus Mountains , and the Black Sea to the southeast...
during and after the last Ice Age. Geological surveys have suggested that Doggerland was a large area of dry land that stretched from Britain's east coast across to the present coast of the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
and the western coasts of
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
and
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
. The land was likely a rich habitat with human habitation in the
MesolithicThe Mesolithic or "Middle Stone Age" was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The term was introduced by John Lubbock in his work Pre-historic Times, published in 1865. The term was, however, not much used...
period.
The archaeological potential of the area was first discovered in 1931, when a commercial trawler operating near the sandbank and shipping hazard known as the
Dogger BankDogger Bank is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England. It extends over approximately , with its maximum dimensions being about from north to south and from east to west...
(from
dogge, an old Dutch word for fishing boat) dragged up an antler used as a harpoon. Later vessels have dragged up
mammothA mammoth is any species of the extinct genus Mammuthus. These proboscideans are members of Elephantidae, the family of elephants and mammoths, and close relatives of modern elephants. They were often equipped with long curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from...
and
lionThe Lion is one of four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
remains, among other remains of land animals, as well as small numbers of prehistoric tools and weapons which were used by the region's inhabitants.
Formation
Before the first
glacial periodA glacial period is an interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate within an ice age...
of the current
PleistoceneThe Pleistocene is the epoch from 2.588 million to 12 000 years BP covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
-
HoloceneThe Holocene is a geological epoch which began approximately 11 700 years ago . According to traditional geological thinking, the Holocene continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Neogene and Quaternary periods. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely...
Ice AgeThe general term "ice age" or, more precisely, "glacial age" denotes a geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in an expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Within a long-term ice age, individual...
the
RhineThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
river flowed northwards through the North Sea bed at a time when the North Sea was dry. It is thought that a
CenozoicThe Cenozoic Era The Cenozoic (also Cænozoic or Cainozoic) Era The Cenozoic (also Cænozoic or Cainozoic) Era (meaning "new life" (Greek (kainos), "new", and (zoe), "life"), is the most recent of the three classic geological eras and covers the period from 65.5 million years ago to the...
siltSilt is soil or rock derived granular material of a grain size between sand and clay. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...
deposit in
East AngliaEast Anglia is a traditional name for a region of eastern England, named after an ancient Anglo-Saxon kingdom, the Kingdom of the East Angles. The Angles took their name from their homeland Angeln, in northern Germany. East Anglia initially consisted of Norfolk and Suffolk, but upon the marriage of...
is the bed of an old course of the Rhine. The
WealdThe Weald is the name given to a physiographic area in South East England situated between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs...
was twice as long as it is now and stretched across the present
Strait of DoverThe Strait of Dover or Dover Strait is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel. The shortest distance across the strait is from the South Foreland, some 4 miles north east of Dover in the county of Kent, England, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French of...
; the modern
BoulonnaisThe Boulonnais is a coastal area of France, around Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer. It has a curved belt of chalk downs which run into the sea at both ends, and geologically is the east end of the Weald-Artois Anticline....
is a remnant of its east end.
With glaciation, when Scandinavian and Scottish ice first met and formed a giant
ice damAn ice dam occurs when water builds up behind a blockage of ice. Ice dams can occur in various ways.-Caused by a glacier:Sometimes a glacier flows down a valley to a confluence where the other branch carries an unfrozen river...
, a large
proglacial lakeIn geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine or ice dam during the retreat of a melting glacier, or one formed by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around the ice...
then formed behind it, which received the river drainage and ice melt from much of northern Europe and Baltic drainage through the Baltic River System. The impounded water eventually overflowed over the Weald into the English Channel and cut a deep gap which sea erosion later widened gradually into the Strait of Dover.
During the
Devensian glaciationThe last glacial period was the most recent glacial period within the current ice age, occurring in the Pleistocene epoch. It began about 110,000 years ago and ended about 9,600 - 9,700 BC. During this period there were several changes between glacier advance and retreat. The maximum extent of...
—the most recent glaciation—around 10,000 years ago, when the North Sea and almost all of the British Isles were covered with glacial ice, the sea level was about lower than it is today. Much of the North Sea and English Channel was an expanse of low-lying
tundraIn physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tūndâr, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra...
, extending around 12,000BC as far as the modern northern point of Scotland.
Evidence including the contours of the present seabed shows that after the first main Ice Age the
watershedA drainage divide, water divide, divide or watershed is the line separating neighbouring drainage basins...
between North Sea drainage and
English ChannelThe English Channel is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest, to only in the Strait of Dover...
drainage extended east from East Anglia then southeast to the Hook of Holland, not across the Strait of Dover, and that the Thames, Meuse,
ScheldtThe Scheldt is a 350 km long river in northern France, western Belgium and the southwestern part of the Netherlands...
and
RhineThe Rhine is one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe, at , with an average discharge of more than ....
rivers joined and flowed along the English Channel dry bed as a wide slow river which at times flowed far before reaching the
Atlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106.4 million square kilometres , it covers approximately one-fifth of the Earth's surface and about one-quarter of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to the Atlas of Greek...
. At about 8,000BC, the north-facing coastal area, now called Doggerland, had a coastline of lagoons, marshes, mudflats, and beaches. It may have been the richest hunting, fowling and fishing ground in Europe available to the
MesolithicThe Mesolithic or "Middle Stone Age" was a period in the development of human technology in between the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithic or New Stone Age. The term was introduced by John Lubbock in his work Pre-historic Times, published in 1865. The term was, however, not much used...
culture of the time.
Disappearance
It is generally thought that as sea levels gradually rose after the end of the last glacial period of the current ice age, Doggerland became submerged beneath the North Sea, cutting off what was previously the British peninsula from the European mainland by around 6500BC. The Dogger Bank, which had been an upland area of Doggerland, is believed to have remained as an island until at least 5000BC.
An alternative recent hypothesis is that much of the land was inundated by a
tsunamiA is a series of water waves that is caused by the displacement of a large volume of a body of water, such as an ocean. The original Japanese term literally translates as "harbor wave." Tsunamis are a frequent occurrence in Japan; approximately 195 events have been recorded...
around 8200BP (6200BC), caused by a submarine landslide off the coast of
NorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a country in Northern Europe occupying the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, as well as Jan Mayen and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard under the Spitsbergen Treaty...
known as the
Storegga SlideThe three Storegga Slides are considered to be amongst the largest known landslides. They occurred under water, at the edge of Norway's continental shelf , in the Norwegian Sea, 100 km north-west of the Møre coast. An area the size of Iceland slumped, causing a very large tsunami in the North...
. This theory suggests "that the Storegga Slide tsunami would have had a catastrophic
impact on the contemporary coastal Mesolithic population... Following the Storegga Slide tsunami, it appears, Britain finally became separated from the continent and, in cultural terms, the Mesolithic there goes its own way."
Discovery and investigation by archaeologists
The archaeological potential of the area was first discovered in 1931, when a
trawlerA fishing trawler is a commercial fishing vessel designed to operate fishing trawls. Trawling is a method of fishing that involves actively pulling a trawl through the water behind one or more trawlers. Trawls are fishing nets that are dragged along the bottom of the sea or in midwater at a...
, the
Colinda captained by Pilgrim Lockwood, hauled up a lump of peat when fishing near the Ower Bank, east of
NorfolkNorfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast, including The Wash. The county town is Norwich...
. The peat was found to contain a barbed antler point, long, later identified to date from between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago, when the area was
tundraIn physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes from Kildin Sami tūndâr, which means "uplands, treeless mountain tract." There are two types of tundra: Arctic tundra and alpine tundra...
.
Interest in the area was reinvigorated in the 1990s by the work of Prof. Bryony Coles, who named the area "Doggerland" and produced a series of speculative maps of the area. Although she recognised that the current relief of the southern North Sea
seabedThe seabed is the bottom of the ocean. At the bottom of the continental slope is the continental rise, which is caused by sediment cascading down the continental slope. The seabed has been explored by submersibles such as Alvin and, to some extent, scuba divers with special apparatuses...
is not a sound guide to the topography of Doggerland, the topography of the area has more recently begun to be reconstructed more authoritatively using
seismic surveyReflection seismology is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seismic source of energy, such as dynamite/Tovex, a specialized air gun or...
data obtained through petrochemical exploration surveys.
A skull fragment of a
NeanderthalThe Neanderthal , or ), also spelled Neandertal, is an extinct member of the Homo genus that is known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia. Neanderthals are either classified as a subspecies of humans or as a separate species...
, dated at over 40,000 years old, was recovered from material dredged from the Middeldiep, a region of the North Sea located some off the coast of
ZeelandZeeland , also called Zealand in English and Zeelandic, is a province of the Netherlands. The province, located in the south-west of the country, consists of a number of islands and a strip bordering Belgium. Its capital is Middelburg...
, and was exhibited in
LeidenLeiden is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands and has 118,000 inhabitants. It forms a single urban area with Oegstgeest, Leiderdorp, Voorschoten, Valkenburg, Rijnsburg and Katwijk, with 254,000 inhabitants. It is located on the Old Rhine, close to the cities...
in 2009.
In popular culture
- The "Mammoth Journey" episode of the BBC television programme Walking with Beasts
Walking with Beasts is a 2001 six-part television documentary produced by the BBC in the United Kingdom, narrated by Kenneth Branagh. In North America it has been retitled Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, and the original Discovery Channel broadcast was narrated by Stockard Channing...
is partly set on the dry bed of the southern North Sea.
- The area also featured in the "Britain's Drowned World" episode of the Channel 4 Time Team
Time Team is a British television series shown on Channel 4 since 1994. Presented by actor Tony Robinson, a team of specialists carry out an archaeological dig in three days, with Robinson explaining the process in layman’s terms....
documentary.
- The first chapter of Edward Rutherfurd
Edward Rutherfurd is primarily known as a writer of epic historical novels. His debut novel Sarum set the pattern for his work with a ten-thousand year storyline....
's novel Sarum describes the flooding of Doggerland.
- The legend "The Cormorants of Utrøst" describes a sunken land in the Norwegian Sea (not in the North Sea).
See also
- Deluge (prehistoric)
In the relatively recent geological past, several great floods are widely suspected to have occurred, with varying amounts of supporting evidence, usually as a result of the last Ice Age ending.-Great flood:...
- Deluge (prehistoric): English Channel (Strait of Dover) – Doggerland and the channel flood
Further reading
- The Rediscovery of Doggerland, by Vincent Gaffney, Simon Fitch & David Smith, Council for British Archaeology, 2009, ISBN 190277177X
- Doggerland: a Speculative Survey, by B.J.Coles, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society
The Prehistoric Society is an international learned society devoted to the study of the human past from the earliest times until the emergence of written history....
, 64 1998 pp 45-81.
- Mapping Doggerland: The Mesolithic Landscapes of the Southern North Sea, V. Gaffney, K. Thomson and S. Fitch (editors), 2007, Archaeopress.
- Discussed in depth in chapters 2-4 in Before Scotland: The Story of Scotland Before History, Alistair Moffat, 2005, Thames & Hudson Inc. ISBN 978-0-500-05133-7
External links