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Earth Science Technology

Mapping Begins of Lands Lost To North Sea During the Stone Age (theguardian.com) 82

Lost at the bottom of the North Sea almost eight millennia ago following the end of the ice age, a vast land area between England and southern Scandinavia -- the home to thousands of stone age settlers -- is about to be rediscovered by scientists. From a report: Marine experts, scientists and archaeologists have spent the past 15 years meticulously mapping thousands of kilometres under water in the hope of unearthing lost tribes of prehistoric Britain. On Wednesday a crew of British and Belgian scientists set off on their voyage across the North Sea to reconstruct the ancient Mesolithic landscape hidden beneath the waves for 7,500 years. The area was submerged when thousands of cubic miles of sub-Arctic ice started to melt and the sea levels began to rise worldwide at that time.

The ancient country, known as Doggerland, which could once have had great plains with rich soils, formed an important land bridge between Britain and northern Europe. It was long believed to have been hit by catastrophic flooding. Using seabed mapping data the team is planning to produce a detailed 3D chart which will indicate the rivers, lakes, hills and coastlines of the country. Specialist survey ships will take core sediment samples from selected areas to extract millions of fragments of DNA from the area's plants and animals.

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Mapping Begins of Lands Lost To North Sea During the Stone Age

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    When the settlers made all those fires to keep warm and cook food, they were warned that those fires could cause global warming which would destroy their land.

    But no, they didn't listen!

  • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2019 @01:24PM (#58559478) Journal
    Doggerland seems to have been a real place. Check it out on the maps [wikipedia.org].
  • Doggerland, which could once have had great plains with rich soils

    And huge ... tracts of land!

  • Rubbish (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08, 2019 @02:07PM (#58559824)

    This is all based on the assumption that the earth is more than 5,000 years old. Poppycock, I say. Utter poppycock!

  • There used to be Dogger land between Britain and Scandinavia... Now Britain IS the land of "Dogging".

    • by _merlin ( 160982 )

      Came here to say this if it hadn't already been said. Perhaps people aren't as aware of the proud tradition of "dogging" across the pond.

  • In the future (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Wednesday May 08, 2019 @02:12PM (#58559858)
    they will be doing the same thing to Florida.
    • We hope...

      • by Anonymous Coward

        We hope...

        You really want Florida Man to be forced to migrate?

    • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      they will be doing the same thing to Florida.

      and finding the bones of stubborn Republicans

    • by jezwel ( 2451108 )
      Miami will become the new Venice first.
    • Which they'll be doing with or without AGW. We're still in an Ice Age interglacial. Historical "average" temps for the planet are rather higher than the numbers people are screaming about in AGW articles.

      But then, humanity has pretty much evolved in an Ice Age...

  • could not be responsible for Brexit that started 6.5kya or?
  • I don't care if it's on the sea floor, and get the Danes to pay for it.

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