Researchers are using the latest technology to map a land that sank beneath the waves of the North Sea more than 8,000 years ago. Valleys, hills and rivers are being mapped using the latest techniques used in oil exploration.
Commonly known as Doggerland, after the North Sea Dogger Bank, this lost land once connected Britain to continental Europe. It was much more than a land bridge the people and animals passed though. It was a land that was settled in its own right. It is estimated that over the last 100 years the bones and tusks from more than 50,000 mammoths have been dredged up in fishing nets. Tools and spears have also been found indicating a human population was also present.
After the last ice age, the melting ice resulted in a rise in sea levels. A much larger effect came about through the land rising and falling when the weight of ice was removed. The north rose when the ice went and the south dropped as land mass tilted to its new balance point. This process is still going on with movements in the order of a millimetre per year.
