Under the southern North Sea, east of England
Doggerland
Dry land until about 9000 years ago, a last island to about 7000 (Drowned by rising seas. A great wave struck about 8150 years ago.)
Under the grey water between England and the Netherlands lies a drowned country. Its river valleys, hills, and coasts are still there, buried under sand and sea. For more than a century, trawlers have pulled mammoth skulls and stone tools up from that floor.
Why this is extraordinary
At the end of the last Ice Age, Britain was not an island. A wide plain of rivers, lakes, marsh, and woodland joined it to the continent across what is now the southern North Sea. That land is called Doggerland, after the Dogger Bank, the shallow sandbank that is its last high ground. Fishermen's nets, and sand dredged from the sea floor, bring up its animals and its tools. Mammoth teeth and skulls come up, along with worked flint and fragments of Neanderthal bone.
A 2020 study, built on seismic mapping of the buried landscape and on cores from the sea floor, reconstructs the drowning in stages. Seismic mapping reads buried hills and valleys from echoes sent through the seabed. By about 9000 years ago Doggerland had broken into an archipelago. Between about 8400 and 8200 years ago, global sea level rose by 1 to 4 metres. The Storegga tsunami struck around 8150 years ago, caused by the largest known submarine landslide of the last ten thousand years. By then the main island had probably shrunk to a shallow sandbank, though an area of perhaps 1,000 square kilometres of the highest ground may have survived. By about 7000 years ago only a handful of islands were left.
The same team found tsunami deposits in a core taken 42 kilometres from today's coast. On the British mainland, the wave's recorded run-up rarely exceeds 4 metres. The paper argues that the wave was not one blow that ended Doggerland everywhere. Its effects varied with the shape of the land, catastrophic in one valley and slight on the next ridge.
The people of Doggerland lived through a slow flood that took their land over thousands of years, and then a sudden wave. If the wave fell on a land already mostly drowned, the end was gradual and people moved before the sea. If it fell on islands still lived on, it was a disaster that left almost no ruin, because the ruin is under the sea.
Why it matters
Doggerland is where many of Britain's first people lived after the Ice Age, and it was lost to the sea within human memory. Hunters and fishers there met a rising sea, and then a sudden wave.
Four maps show the land shrinking from a plain to a scatter of islands. A map from 1913 draws the old coastline. A satellite view outlines the Dogger Bank. A submerged forest on the North Sea coast shows drowned trees at low tide. Finds from the sea floor follow, a mammoth skull and a tooth, a flint blade set in birch tar, and a Neanderthal brow bone. The pin is the Dogger Bank, in the sea. The other shelves are gathered in Drowned Lands.
Photo tour
7 photographs, unedited. On a phone, swipe the row. Choose one to look closely.
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- No openly licensed mammoth molar from the North Sea was found. A tooth in the Altamira museum was not used in its place.
What is still unexplained
These sit beside the consensus account, with the same visual weight. None of them is marked solved.
Location and dating
- Location
- The southern and central North Sea, between eastern England, the Netherlands, and Denmark, around the Dogger Bank.
- Period label
- Current consensus — open to revision Dry land after the Ice Age, an archipelago by about 9000 years ago, and a few islands by about 7000 years ago. Current consensus, open to revision.
- How this dating was done
- Seismic mapping pictures buried valleys and coasts. Cores from the sea floor are dated by radiocarbon, a clock in once-living material, and the stratigraphy of tsunami sand in the cores is the order of those layers.
- What could change it
- A dated layer of human occupation, sealed under tsunami sand on the Dogger Bank, would show that the wave fell on people.
What is actually there
- By about 9000 years ago the plain had become an archipelago.
- Sea level rose 1 to 4 metres between about 8400 and 8200 years ago.
- The Storegga tsunami struck about 8150 years ago.
- Perhaps 1,000 square kilometres of high ground may have stood above the wave.
- Tsunami deposits lie in a core 42 kilometres from today's coast.
- On the British mainland, recorded run-up rarely exceeds 4 metres.
Open questions
| Question | Status |
|---|---|
| Did the tsunami strike a living landscape or an empty bank? | Open. The 2020 study favours a mostly drowned bank, with some higher ground still above the water. |
| Where are Doggerland's settlements? | Open. Seismic maps show where to look, and very few of those places have been sampled. |
The current narrative
Where publication stands today. It is the best-supported reading, and it is open to revision. It is not a verdict.
The current narrative — open to revision
A slow drowning, then a wave of uneven force
Rising seas drowned Doggerland over thousands of years. By the time of the Storegga tsunami it was a scatter of islands and a shallow bank. The wave struck hard in some places and lightly in others.
What supports this
- The 2020 study sets out the drowning as staged reconstructions.
- Tsunami deposits were found in one core and were absent in nearby cores, which fits a wave of uneven force.
- On the mainland, recorded run-up is rarely above 4 metres.
What pushes back
- Run-up heights in the field are minimum estimates and may have been metres higher.
- Few cores have been taken, so the map of the wave is thin.
What would settle it
The long drowning is well supported. The wave's impact is a reasoned estimate from a small number of cores.
Emerging narratives
Other published readings. Each may be right. None is adopted here unless the evidence carries it.
An emerging narrative
The tsunami ended Doggerland at a stroke
The Storegga tsunami was the final blow, flooding the remaining islands and killing the coastal population.
What supports this
- The wave was caused by the largest known submarine landslide of the period.
- Some studies note a drop in coastal sites in northeast Britain around this time.
What pushes back
- The 2020 study argues that sea level had already reduced the Dogger Bank.
- Coastal margins were still in use well into the Neolithic.
What would settle it
A single sudden ending is a possible reading. The new cores make it less likely, though not impossible for particular valleys.
An emerging narrative
Flood stories as memory of a lost land
Stories of drowned lands, told around the North Sea and the Atlantic coast, may keep a memory of real land lost to the sea.
What supports this
- The land was lost within human experience, and people lived on its shores.
- The loss of high ground and of islands would have been seen over generations.
What pushes back
- Thousands of years separate the flooding from any written story.
- Flood stories are found in many places, and those places have very different histories.
What would settle it
The reading is possible. It cannot be tested against one dated story, so it stays open.
Should the current view be reevaluated?
Open to revision
The drowning in stages is well supported by seismic maps and by cores. The human cost of the wave is unknown.
What drives this
- The first tsunami deposits in the southern North Sea were found by this work.
- A single-wave ending is now questioned in print.
This is the museum’s own weighing of the evidence. It is not a visitor vote, and it is separate from the slider.
Weigh it yourself
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If the contested reading is right
What would follow if a reading that is not the consensus turned out to be true, and what could settle it. This explains the stakes. It does not adopt the reading.
People still lived on the Doggerland islands when the wave struck.
It would be the oldest known coastal disaster in northern Europe to fall on a living community.
Why it is still worth a test
Core the higher ground south of the Dogger Bank and look for occupation layers under the tsunami sand.
Sources
Image credits
- Four maps of the southern North Sea at four stages. Dry land in green shrinks from a broad plain to a scatter of islands as the sea rises.. James Walker, Vincent Gaffney, Simon Fitch, Merle Muru, Andrew Fraser, Martin Bates and Richard Bates (Antiquity, 2020), CC BY 4.0. Shown unedited.
- A map from 1913 of the North Sea with the likely old coastline drawn in, the Dogger Bank marked as land.. Clement Reid (1853–1916), Public domain. Shown unedited.
- A satellite view of the North Sea, with the outline of the Dogger Bank drawn in red.. Public domain satellite image, Public domain. Shown unedited.
- A submerged forest at Cresswell on the North Sea coast. Dark peat and old tree stumps lie exposed on the beach at low tide.. Andrew Curtis, CC BY-SA 2.0. Shown unedited.
- The skull of a woolly mammoth with its curved tusks, pulled up from the North Sea by fishermen.. Ogmios, CC BY-SA 3.0. Shown unedited.
- A small flint blade still set in a lump of birch tar, on a museum mount.. Otter, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.
- A dark, heavy fragment of a Neanderthal brow bone, found off the coast and shown in a museum case.. Otter, CC BY-SA 4.0. Shown unedited.