Archaeologists are beginning to reveal the secrets of a vanished prehistoric land which now lies at the bottom of the North Sea.
Using special dredges, scientists have just brought to the surface a hundred flint artefacts made by Stone Age humans between 15,000 and 8000 years ago.
The artefacts – a number of small flint cutting-tools, as well as dozens of flint flakes from tool-manufacturing activity – were recovered from the seabed in three different locations on the southern coast of the prehistoric drowned land.
Each newly discovered ancient site, some 20 metres below the stormy surface of the North Sea, is located next to a series of now long-vanished estuaries.
The sites – 12 to 15 miles off the Norfolk coast – are now expected to yield hundreds more artefacts which will begin to reveal how the peoples of that doomed land lived.
It’s thought that their economy revolved around hunting red deer and wild boar – and harvesting shellfish. Parts of the bottom of the North Sea are of huge archaeological importance – because they have been relatively untouched by humans since they sank beneath the waves between 10,000 and 7,500 years ago.
On land, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, medieval and modern settlements, roads, forestry activity and agriculture have destroyed huge quantities of early human archaeology.
In Britain 99 per cent of human occupation (in chronological terms) predates Neolithic and later settlement and agriculture – and it’s that 99 per cent which has been partly obliterated by the more recent 1 per cent of human pre-history and history.
But at the bottom of the North Sea, post-Stone-Age human impact has been much less – and, as a result, some Stone Age hunter-gatherer ‘landscapes’ have survived largely intact on the seabed.
“Our investigations at the bottom of the North Sea have the potential to transform our understanding of Stone Age culture in and around what is now Britain and the near continent,” said the North Sea archaeological investigation’s leader, Professor Vince Gaffney of the University of Bradford’s Submerged Landscapes Centre.
However, this prehistoric treasure house hides a tragic story – and a warning. Over a period of just 1500 years (roughly 8000 BC to 6500 BC), an area almost the size of Britain was swallowed up by the sea as a result of sea level rise, caused by an intense period of global warming.
In 8000 BC, around 80,000 square miles of what is now the southern part of the North Sea was dry land. But by 6500 BC, only around 5000 square miles was left.
During that period, an average of 50 square miles of land was lost every year – sometimes much more. And, as sea levels rose, the Stone Age population – living mainly by the coast and thus at elevations ever closer to sea level – became increasingly vulnerable to seasonal flooding.
As hunting grounds were swallowed up by the sea, successive generations of the area’s inhabitants must have been driven from their traditional lands.
Future archaeological work is likely to shed light on how that drama unfolded. However, what happened to Britain’s lost prehistoric North Sea world is a clear warning to 21st century humans as to what modern global warming will do to many coastal and lowland communities worldwide over the coming decades and centuries.
The ongoing archaeological investigation in the North Sea is a joint operation run by the University of Bradford and Belgium’s Flemish Marine Institute.
The exploration is being undertaken in collaboration with the North Sea’s wind farm projects and Historic England’s Marine Planning Department.
The drowning of so much Stone Age land by post-Ice-Age sea level rise was a pivotal event in British prehistory – and Britain’s status as an island dates from that time.
Scientists involved in the research believe that, as well as helping us to understand the past, their work also acts as a warning for the future.
“As we delve into the past, we are beginning to appreciate ever more clearly what future sea level rise could do to humanity.
“Our collaboration with the North Sea wind farms community is part of Britain’s efforts to reach net zero and to thereby combat global warming,” said Professor Gaffney.