Doggerland

Until the middle Pleistocene, Great Britain was a peninsula of Europe, connected by the massive chalk Weald–Artois Anticline across the Strait of Dover. During the Anglian stage, about 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, the Scheldt and the Thames. The catastrophic overflow of this lake carved a channel through the anticline, leading to the formation of the Channel River, which carried the combined waters of the Rhine, the Scheldt, and the Thames to the Atlantic. This probably created the potential for Great 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. Kim Cohen and Marc Hijma date the final destruction of the Weald–Artois Anticline to the severe Saalian Glaciation, which reached its peak around 160,000 years ago, and ended with a second meltwater lake around 130,000 years ago. During the most recent glaciation of the Last Glacial Maximum, the North Sea and much of the British Isles were covered with glacial ice, and the sea level was about lower. The climate later became warmer, and around 12,000 BCE, Great Britain, as well as much of the North Sea and the English Channel, was an expanse of low-lying tundra. Evidence, including the contours of the present seabed, indicates that after the first main Ice Age the watershed between the North Sea and the English Channel extended east from East Anglia, then southeast to the Hook of Holland, rather than across the Strait of Dover. The Seine, the Thames, the Meuse, the Scheldt, and the Rhine joined and flowed west along the English Channel as a broad, slow river before eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean. One extensive river system found by a 3D seismic survey undertaken by the Birmingham "North Sea Palaeolandscapes Project" drained the southeastern part of the Dogger Bank hill area into the east end of the Outer Silver Pit lake. It has been named the Shotton River after the Birmingham geologist Frederick William Shotton. ==Disappearance==

, which is most likely a moraine formed in the Pleistocene As the 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 BCE. The Dogger Bank, an upland area of Doggerland, remained an island until at least 5000 BCE. A recent hypothesis suggests that around 6200 BCE much of the remaining coastal land was flooded by a tsunami 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 Mesolithic there goes its own way." A study published in 2014 suggested that the only remaining parts of Doggerland at the time of the Storegga Slide were low-lying islands, but supported the view that the area had been abandoned at about the same time as the tsunamis. 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 rose over about two years to flood much of Doggerland and make Great Britain an island. The difference in the distribution of broken shells between lower-lying and high-lying parts of the area also suggests the survival of land after the Storegga tsunami. ==Discovery and investigation by archaeologists==

skull discovered by fishermen in the North Sea, at the Celtic and Prehistoric Museum, Ireland The existence of what is now known as Doggerland was established in the late 19th century. The remains of plants brought to the surface from Dogger Bank were studied in 1913 by Clement Reid, and the remains of animals and worked flints from the Neolithic period had also been found. In his book The Antiquity of Man of 1915, anatomist Sir Arthur Keith discussed the archaeological potential of the area. Although she recognised that the current relief of the southern North Sea seabed is not a sound guide to the topography of Doggerland. The results of this study were published as a technical monograph and a popular book on the history and archaeology of Doggerland. 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". landscape features off the coast of the UK, mapped by the North Sea Palaeolandscapes Project A skull fragment of a Neanderthal, dated at over 40,000 years old, was recovered from material dredged from the Middeldiep, some off the coast of Zeeland, and exhibited in Leiden in 2009. 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. In 2019, a flint flake partially covered in birch bark tar dredged up off the coast of the Netherlands provided valuable insight into Neanderthal technology and cognitive evolution. In 2012, the results of a 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. Richard Bates of St Andrews University said: 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 and conventional environmental data. These will be used in a major computational modelling programme replicating colonisation of the submerged landscape. In 2019, a team of scientists from the University of Bradford and Ghent University found a hammerstone flint on the seabed off the coast of Cromer, Norfolk, from a depth of , which could point to the existence of prehistoric settlements. Evidence of wetlands, lakes, and rivers has been found, which would have attracted wildlife like waterfowl and other game; while dense woodlands also covered the varying terrain of hills and valleys. During Doggerland's existence, the area was inhabited by a wide range of cultures but two groups primarily occupied the area during the Mesolithic and landmass's later stages. These cultures preceded each other with the northern Maglemosian culture first appearing between 9,000 and 6,000 BCE. These artifacts have been found in the North Sea, with one notable find of a red deer antler barbed point discovered in peat from the bottom of the sea. This piece, among others, matched the technique and style of Maglemosian groups and solidified evidence of human occupancy in the area while giving insight into the culture and environment of Doggerland. An internationally significant early Middle Palaeolithic assemblage from the southern North Sea was also discovered through aggregate dredging off the coast of Norfolk. The cultural material was found to be associated with a floodplain deposit of the now submerged Palaeo-Yare river system. Ancient artefacts have been found by beachcombers in material dredged from the sea bottom offshore and spread on a Dutch beach in 2012, as a coastal protection measure. Doggerland was the subject of a 2007 episode of the Channel 4 Time Team documentary series called "Britain's Drowned World". ==See also==