North Sea survey yields a 'lost country,' Doggerland
Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea.
This lost landscape, where hunter-gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age.
University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe"...
The Birmingham researchers have been using oil exploration technology to build a map of the once-inhabited area that now lies below the North Sea -- stretching from the east coast of Britain up to the Shetland Islands and across to Scandinavia...
"In 10,000 BC, hunter-gatherers were living on the land in the middle of the North Sea. By 6,000 BC, Britain was an island. The area we have mapped was wiped out in the space of 4,000 years," explains Professor [Vince] Gaffney...
So far, the team has examined a 23,000-sq-km area of the sea bed -- mapping out coastlines, rivers, hills, sandbanks and salt marshes as they would have appeared about 12,000 years ago.
And once the physical features have been established, Professor Gaffney says it will be possible to narrow the search for sites that could yield more evidence of how these prehistoric people lived.
[Story includes two maps.]
Read entire article at BBC News
This lost landscape, where hunter-gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age.
University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe"...
The Birmingham researchers have been using oil exploration technology to build a map of the once-inhabited area that now lies below the North Sea -- stretching from the east coast of Britain up to the Shetland Islands and across to Scandinavia...
"In 10,000 BC, hunter-gatherers were living on the land in the middle of the North Sea. By 6,000 BC, Britain was an island. The area we have mapped was wiped out in the space of 4,000 years," explains Professor [Vince] Gaffney...
So far, the team has examined a 23,000-sq-km area of the sea bed -- mapping out coastlines, rivers, hills, sandbanks and salt marshes as they would have appeared about 12,000 years ago.
And once the physical features have been established, Professor Gaffney says it will be possible to narrow the search for sites that could yield more evidence of how these prehistoric people lived.
[Story includes two maps.]