Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Doggerland, The Lost World Of Europe Destroyed By Disasters.
Once upon a time not too long ago, Europe looked vastly different than what it looks like today.
The British, Scottish and Irish Isles were
connected to not only mainland Europe but Scandinavia as well.
The landmass connecting them is known as Doggerland,
this lush forest land was home to a variety of different animal species.
A place humans called home for hundreds of thousands of years
until disaster struck, wiping away what once was.
My name is Kayleigh, in this video we are going to look into Doggerland and the later Dogger Bank,
which is dubbed by many scholars as the Lost European Atlantis, so dive right in with me.
To make sense of this landmass we need to go back into the past way
further than we usually do on this channel.
As you may or may not know during a Glacial period the temperatures are very cold,
sea levels drop and glaciers grow, during an Interglacial period the temperature rises,
ice sheets and glaciers melt and thus the sea levels rise.
The Cromerian Stage started nearly 1 million years ago,
this stage in the Pleistocene glacial history of north-western Europe consisted of multiple
glacial and interglacial periods in which the landmass we now know as Doggerland
would get submerged under water and rise above the water multiple times
until the Elster Glaciation occurred, which is better known as the Elster Ice Age.-
The oldest remnants of occupation in North-western Europe are found in
Happisburgh (pronounce as Haze-bruh!) on the north-east coast of Norfolk.
Fossilized human footprints of nearly 1 million years old have
been discovered in the clay of an ancient estuary along the coast.
These footprints are the oldest human footprints discovered outside of Africa,
they most likely belong to the pioneer man thats better known under the name Homo Antecessor.
The brain from the Pioneer Man was smaller than the size of a Homo Sapien,
bones found in Atapuerca in Spain and the footprints discovered at
Happisburgh have led researchers to suggest that the average male height
was around 1.73 meters and the average female height was around 1,68 meters.
Bones, flint tools and other plant and animal remains have been discovered in
the area during excavations as well, among these was a molar from a Southern Mammoth,
a species of mammoth that went extinct around 800.000 years ago.
During the Elster Ice Age, some 500.000 years ago, the different ice sheets covering
Scandinavia, the British isles and northern Europe started to connect.
There is no more evidence for Homo Antecessor living in the area in this time period,
but in its place came Homo Heidelbergensis and the early Neanderthals.
Its unclear if they are descendants from Homo Antecessor, but it is clear that the
brain size of Homo Heidelbergensis was almost as big as Homo Sapiens.
The most grown part of the brain was the Neocortex,
the largest part of the brains cerebral cortex where higher cognitive functions originate from,
for instance its thought to be responsible for sensory perception,
emotion, episodic memory and thoughts to name a few examples.
Neanderthals and Homo Heidelbergensis were at the top of the food chain in this time period,
this is evident from from discovered bones with cut marks from flint tools
with hyena chew marks on top of the cut marks in Boxgrove South-England.
A fact you might have never known is that up until at least 500.000 years ago the
Chalk cliffs of Dover in South-East England were connected to the chalk cliffs of Calais in France
which served the ancient people and animals as a land bridge.
As the interglacial period started the meltwater from this massive ice sheet
created a river between the ice and the land bridge, eventually the water in the lake got
so high it would overflow creating a waterfall over the land bridge and
as time went by the gap where the waterfall would flow became bigger as it eroded more.
Many artefacts from this interglacial period are found,
for instance in the Netherlands they found flint tools near Woerden,
at Clacton in East England they discovered the tapered end of a spear dating from 400.000
years ago and in Germany at Schningen they discovered numerous bone and wooden tools,
including 2 meter long spears made from spruce wood dating from approximately 300.000 years ago.
The first traces of the use of fire can be found dating as far back as 400.000 years ago,
these traces can be found at fireplaces in Beeches Pit in East Anglia and Menez Dregan in Bretagne.
Fire brought with it a new way of life, not only did it bring warmth, protection and a
new array of edible food with the possibility of cooking, it brought light after the sun
went down and it must have strengthened social bonds, stimulated communication and language.
After the Elster Glaciation ended around 300.000 years ago, the Saalian Glaciation started,
again an ice sheet covered the North Sea reaching even further south this time and
when this started to melt it formed another lake, which
would again erode and cut through the remnants of the land bridge between Dover and Calais.
Around 250.000 years ago Neanderthals arrived
near Maastricht in the valley of the Maas river in the South-East of the Netherlands,
artefacts found here are made from flint and its discovered they lived here in small encampments.
Eventually approximately 130.000 years ago the Saalian ice sheet had completely melted
and we entered the interglacial period of the Eemian period which lasted some 15.000 years,
during this time the sea levels were between 6 and 9 meters higher than present day.
Of course as you may guess, this warm period was again followed by another glacial period,
the Weichselian Glaciation which lasted from 115.000 until 11.700 years ago.
In this time period the area became a unique landscape
not found on the planet since, called the Mammoth steppe. a variety of animals roamed the area,
among these were Woolly Mammoths, Cave Hyenas, Reindeer, Bison, Horses, European Cave Lions,
Wolves, Brown bears, Woolly rhinoceros and Saber-Toothed Cats.
Alder, Birch and Pine trees were found
all over this landscape stretching from western Europe all the way to Canada.
The oldest fossil of a Neanderthal in the Netherlands was discovered in Zeeland in 2001,
a shell sucker off the coast had picked it up and eventually it was discovered by amateur
palaeontologists who look for artefacts in the heaps of collected materials on land.
It was discovered to be a skull fragment from a Neanderthal man
living between 100.000 and 40.000 years ago. The man got the nickname Krijn, in the fragment
there is a hollow mark near the eyebrow arch which was created by a subcutaneous tumour.
In this time period Neanderthals were on the top of the food chain in Europe,
they werent the brutes as they were portrayed for so long but in reality
they were intelligent and had the know how to create a glue from birch bark. Here you can see
an example of a spear with the birch pitch glueing the spearhead to the wooden shaft.
An incredible find of a flint tool with a piece of birch pitch glued to it was
discovered at the Zandmotor beach in the Netherlands in 2016 by Willy van Wingerden.
This tool dates from approximately 50.000 years ago and is a perfect example of the
ingenuity of Neanderthals and one of the most incredible finds ever made in
the Netherlands as there are only 5 similar finds discovered in the entirety of Europe.
These Neanderthals are referred to in the Netherlands and Germany
as the Leaf Tip Group, these were the last Neanderthals in North-Western Europe,
characterized by their leaf tipped tools that were constructed partially bifacial.
Its thought this group of Neanderthals started creating their tools in this fashion due to the
influence of modern humans that started to settle in the area some 45.000 years ago.
During the Last Glacial Maximum in the Weichselian some 33.000 years ago
an ice sheet once again started to cover the North-Sea, around 26.500 years ago this ice sheet
covered most of the British Isles, Scandinavia and parts of Northern Europe as you can see here.
The climate in north-western Europe most likely became uninhabitable for humans during this
time and there are no traces of humans living here found between 27.000 and 14.500 years ago.
Around 20.000 years ago the climate started to become warmer for a while,
during this period of approximately 2000 years of climate warming up,
the sea level that was approximately 125 meters lower than present day started to rise.
The water from the ice sheet needed to go somewhere of course,
this is still evident in the contours of the current sea bed in the North Sea,
the water drainage flowed from East Anglia in England south east towards the Hoek van Holland
in South-Holland the Netherlands, the water did not go across the strait of Dover as was assumed.
The area that was once covered under the ice sheet became a low lying tundra with
the sea level approximately 60 meters lower than modern times.
The Older Dryas climatic cooling event started around 18.000 years ago and lasted
until approximately 14.690 years ago when we entered the BllingAllerd interstadial.
After 12.000 years without a trace of human occupation in north-western Europe,
it was the start of the BllingAllerd warming
that shows the first signs of humans occupying the area again.
The people responsible for the incredible cave art in Spain and France known as the Magdalenian
Cultures started to settle in the area we now know as Doggerland and Northern Europe.
The Hamburg Culture and Cresswellian Culture are related to the Magdalenian
Cultures and settled in the areas of North and Mid-Netherlands,
North-Germany, Denmark, the South of Sweden, Poland and the UK.
This warm period lasted approximately 2000 years and during this time Doggerland flourished and
temperatures were almost as high as the temperatures we currently experience.
Fun fact, the oldest Northern European Palaeolithic cave art was discovered in
Derbyshire in a limestone gorge known as the Creswell Crags.
These carvings are found in the Church Hole Cave
and they depict red deer among many other things, a total of 80 carvings have been
discovered here and they are dated to be from between 15.000 and 13.000 years ago.
Another remarkable find found here is known as the Robin Hood Cave Horse,
this is a fragment of a rib engraved with a horses head.
Sea levels around this time were approximately 80 meters lower than present day
As the climate in the Doggerland area became warmer the reindeer
started to travel North where the landscape was still grassy and open.
The Doggerland landscape grew Pine, Birch, Juniper,
Oak and Hazel trees and there was an influx of different animal species like red deer,
wild boars, aurochs, moose, horses, beavers, and geese roaming the land.
In Northern-Germany the hunter gatherers hunting the moose in this time period are referred to as
the moose hunters, although they are most well known under the name of the Federmesser Culture,
this culture is characterized by their flint arrowheads that look like thin quill knives.
These knives are found all over from the United
Kingdom in the west to Ukraine in the East and Northern-France in the South.
The diversity of the sites where the artefacts are found show that
humans settled in shorter and longer occupied encampments,
theyve discovered numerous small encampments where flint tools were created.
The Federmesser culture were very mobile but returned to
specific places during the different seasons.
In February 2004 bones were fished up along the Brown Ridge in the North Sea, among these
was a metatarsal bone from an Auroch or Bison that had incredibly intricate carvings on it.
It was thought that it wouldve been an artefact from the Mesolithic era,
but radiocarbon dating concluded this piece to have been created during the
BllingAllerd interstadial approximately between 13.480 and 13.285 years ago.
You can clearly see on this picture the V-shaped
decorations that have been carved on the bone fragment.
This is a beautiful piece that shows that the Federmesser culture was highly skilled.
They lived in prosperity in the Doggerland area with temperatures similar to todays climate,
unfortunately their luck was short lived..
Disaster struck around 12.900 years ago when the Laacher See Volcano located in Germany erupted,
the blast was so strong that no tree stood upright within 4 kilometres of the Volcano.
The plume would have reached a height of approximately 40 kilometres and
the initial eruption lasted for about 10 hours.
Although the activity of the volcano lasted for several months, producing pyroclastic
currents that covered up entire valleys up to 10 kilometres away with tephra.
Near the crater the tephra deposits can be as thick as 60 meters and even
5 kilometres away from the location of the volcano the tephra deposits are around 10 meters thick.
All plants and animals in a radius of approximately 60 kilometres around
the volcano must have died because of this blast.
Ash from the volcano fell down on earth in a radius of 300.000 square kilometres,
from France to Poland and from Northern Italy to Sweden.
Even at the bottom of the North sea where Doggerland now resides
they have discovered pumice fragments from the blast.
The Federmesser culture seemed to have disappeared quickly
from the area after this disaster unfolded.
Approximately 100 years after the Laacher See Volcanic eruption
12.800 years ago, the Younger Dryas started and returned the climate to glacial conditions.
The eruption has been discussed as a possible cause for the start of the Younger Dryas,
although a new improved dating of the start of the Younger Dryas published in 2021 now
suggests there might have been 200 years between the eruption and the start of the Younger Dryas.
It might not have been the actual cause but you still cant rule out cause and
effect, I do believe the eruption made it easier for the climate to drastically change
in the short timespan of either 100 or 200 years.
In less than a decade temperatures dropped 15 degrees Celsius in Northern Europe, to give an
example; the average temperatures in England dropped to approximately -5 degrees Celsius.
Ice sheets and glaciers expanded once again and
the arctic cold and dry climate once again returned to Europe.
In English literature this period is known as the Big
Freeze and it lasted for approximately 1200 years.
Another fun fact to note, the Younger Dryas (and the Older
Dryas) got their name from a plant that only grows in cold climates, Dryas octopetala.
Large quantities of its pollen were found in cores
dating from these cold spells as the once luscious forests were replaced by tundra.
In the tundra-like environment we see a new group of nomadic hunter gatherers emerge;
the Ahrensburg Culture.
Many bows and arrows can be found all over Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium,
the North of France and the East of England.
Researchers have suggested that the higher grounds of the Ardennes would
have most likely been the place for the people to settle during the summers and
the low lying countries including Doggerland would have been the winter hunting grounds.
Rivers were most likely the most important routes for these people
to migrate between the summer and winter grounds.
During the Younger Dryas the sea level in the North Sea area was approximately 120 meters
lower than present day, but after almost 1200 years of glacial conditions the Younger Dryas
came to an abrupt end, within less than 50 years the climate warmed up and the Holocene started.
Because the climate warmed quite abruptly the ice sheets and glaciers melted at a rapid rate,
sea levels started to rise quickly, at the start of the Holocene around
11.650 years ago the sea level was 85 meters lower than present day
but within 3000 years that level would rise 60 meters, that is a 2 meter rise per century.
Around 9000 years ago Doggerland started to submerge as sea levels kept rising and
eventually after 500 years of rising sea levels Doggerland was no more,
only a remnant from the Dogger Hills known as the island of Dogger Bank survived above the water.
During the early part of the Holocene in the age known as the Boreal
many plants grew in the area, among these were pine,
birch, willow, alder and juniper trees, tabby grasses, blueberries and herbs.
The animals that roamed the area were Elk, Brown Bears and Red deer who would
mostly live in the forests and near the rivers that were rich in salmon and trout.
8500 years ago around 6500 BCE the large glacial Lake Agassiz in North America that
was filled with glacial meltwater started to almost completely drain,
this made global sea levels rise another 1 to 2.8 meters.
Its suggested this event may account for the flood myths of prehistoric cultures,
including the biblical flood tale.
The hunter gatherers in the area seemed to flourish near the coast
where they would hunt seals, shellfish and whales would wash ashore at times.
They also flourished in the extended wetlands where there was an abundance of Swans, Geese,
migratory birds, pike, eel and sturgeon.
They would create canoes and paddles from linden trees that grew in the area,
willow trees and red dogwood were perfect for the weaving
of traps while reed was perfect to use as ground and roof cover of their huts.
Here you can see an example of such a canoe, this is the Canoe van Pesse
which might be the oldest boat discovered in the entire world.
This canoe has been dated to have been constructed between 8040 and 7510 BCE, it measures 298
centimetres long and 44 centimetres wide and was cut out a single piece of a red pine log.
Marks from flint or antler tools are still present in the cavity of the boat.
It was discovered in 1955 during the construction of the Dutch A28 motorway,
as they were digging to remove the peat bog a crane operator discovered the canoe.
Dogger Bank would meet yet another disaster before it disappeared under water forever.
3 large submarine landslides known as the Storegga Slides occurred between 6225 and 6170 BCE,
this triggered large tsunamis in the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean.
In Scotland traces of a tsunami have been discovered through deposited sediment up
to 80 kilometres inland and 4 meters above current sea levels, here you can see an example
of this evidence in Scotland as a grey upper layer bracketed by peat which are the dark brown layers.
Before or around the time of the second Storegga slide there
was still some land near the coasts of England, Scotland,
The Netherlands and Denmark that extend beyond the areas that are submerged in modern times.
The second slide had a catastrophic impact on the Mesolithic inhabitants of the coastal areas,
submerging the coastlines as we know them in modern times.
Approximately around 6150BCE Dogger Bank became submerged under the sea
as well due to the effect of the Storegga slides.
Dogger Bank now measures approximately 260 kilometres long
and 100 kilometres wide and now lies between 15 and 36 meters below sea level which is
approximately 20 meters higher when compared to the surrounding seabed.
Yet another fun fact to note; Doggerland and Dogger Bank are named after the 17th
century Dutch Fishing boats called Doggers who often fished in the area of Dogger Bank
as it was very rich in fishing grounds with cod and herring being caught in large quantities.
There is quite a number of shipwrecks that can be found on the bank as well.
The area of Dogger Bank is rich in ancient artefacts, among these are remains of
Mammoths and Rhinoceros, large amounts of moor peat and Palaeolithic hunting tools.
The youngest artefact found at Dogger Bank is a bone or antler tool dating from 6050 BCE.
The Mesolithic inhabitants of Scandinavia, Great Britain
and the Netherlands stopped living a nomadic steppe lifestyle, as there was
no need to keep travelling from one place to another during the changes of the seasons.
They still travelled in small groups but much shorter distances,
as their surroundings were filled with forests and rivers with great biodiversity.
Their tools started to change as well,
they started to create smaller and more refined flint knives, arrows and spearheads.
A real eye opener into the lives of these Mesolithic inhabitants was discovered in
1997 by the discovery of 2 encampments in the higher dunes in a swampy area
of Hardinxveld in the Netherlands.
These encampments are incredibly well preserved due to the quick deposit of peat and clay,
making the conditions excellent for preservation.
These encampments date from between 5500 and 5000 BCE, in one of these encampments archaeologists
discovered the oldest burial in the Netherlands, the burial of a woman dubbed Trijntje.
It was a treasure trove of artefacts as well,
tools made from bone, wood and antlers, paddles a bow and a 5.5 meter long canoe
made from linden wood were discovered as well as pieces of traps and fishnets.
Most Mesolithic artefacts in the Netherlands are discovered along the coast,
while there have been some artefacts found in North-Holland like this flint
tool that you see on screen here, most artefacts are found in South Holland.
I will most likely create an entire video about the discovered artefacts from the Netherlands
from this time period as it is simply too much to put in this video.
These Mesolithic people in the Netherlands eventually made way for the Funnel Beaker
Culture who eventually created the Dutch Dolmens around 5300 BCE from
the Glacial erratics that were deposited throughout the landscape in the East.
Ive made a video about 2 of the 54 Dutch Dolmen,
Ill put a link to that in the description and its here as a card in the upper right corner.
Doggerland may have disappeared but it hasnt been forgotten,
in all actuality it is slowly gaining more popularity and attention as the years go by.
Fishermen keep finding fossils in their nets and a research boat goes out to sea
regularly to investigate and research the submerged ancient landscape of Doggerland,
on a daily basis people will scour the beaches in the Netherlands as they search for remnants
of this lost land and Im sure the same is done in England, Denmark and other places.
All these finds have been incredibly important to the
research and understanding of the ancient world and the inhabitants of Doggerland.
Theres been an exhibit at the National Museum of Antiquities in the Netherlands, better known as;
The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden.
A few weeks ago I went there to see the exhibit for myself
and I was amazed by the artefacts that were on display there.
Throughout this video youve seen footage of the museum and I will
link the online tour of the exhibit in English from the Rijksmuseum van
Oudhedens Youtube channel in the description down below.
In the museum the focus was on the story of Doggerland, the ancient inhabitants, the artefacts
and last but absolutely not least the people who discovered the artefacts that were on display.
Their hard work has been crucial and I was truly happy to see how they were honoured
with small stories of the day they discovered the displayed artefact and
almost all of them got a feature in the Doggerland book I bought at the Museum.
The Doggerland book that you can see here, its one of my most prized possessions now.
I personally would like to thank one of them, Rick van Bragt whom I contacted to ask for
permission to use the pictures and video of his discovery of a Cave Hyena Tooth he recently made.
He was featured in the Doggerland book as well and
has been so kind to send me the original high resolution files,
for the past decade hes been searching for fossils and made some incredible finds,
I hope he will continue to scour for artefacts for a long time to come, he does have a keen eye.
Doggerland is teaching us that the world as we know it is only temporary,
borders, countries, coastlines and our way of living will forever keep changing.
The way we are treating this planet in modern times is unsustainable and we are speeding up
the natural cycles of the climate and sea levels will start to rise again in the near future.
We need to make changes and at the same time start preparing ourselves
to be flexible to an ever changing climate.
We are only a part of the ecosystem on this floating globe in space,
we might be at the top of the food chain, but that also leaves us with the responsibility
to do and to be better for future generations and the future of the planet.
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