Digging underwater, scientists are uncovering a lost world
There's more than fish and sand lying 30 yards off the coast of Britain.
Somewhere beneath the waves off the coast of Britain lies the remnants of an area where early humans lived in a forgotten world.
A tsunami 8,000 years ago likely covered the final wisps of the landmass, known as Doggerland, but only after it was once home to mammoths, hyenas, lions and Neanderthals, the human-like species that went extinct roughly 20,000 years before. The area once connected Britain to continental Europe, until rising seas levels swallowed the region 3,000 years before the initial construction of Stonehenge.
Now, researchers are trying to piece together details that might illuminate what life was like during the Stone Age.
Unlike most archaeological sites, though, Doggerland is underwater, meaning specialists like Rachel Bynoe, a lecturer in archaeology at the University of Southampton, spend much of their time digging through sand in England’s North Sea, looking for ancient animal bones.
“When I first heard about it I was like, ‘What? Is that right?’ It blows your mind,” Bynoe said during a recent phone call.
British geologists started studying the area in the early 1900s, inspired by remains of plant-life that had floated to the sea surface. From there, they found a lump of peat containing an 8-inch harpoon constructed out of antler point. The use of tools and discovery of apparent footprints suggested human communities, while prehistoric forests could provide clues about climate change in the ancient world.
If only it was easier to learn more.
During a typical research trip into the North Sea, Dr. Bynoe will spend up to a week with a small team at a single location. Divers jump into the ocean within roughly 30 yards of shore — sections of Doggerland are still visible at low tide in some areas — and in perhaps 20 feet of water. They dig by hand, moving the sand with occasional help from a small shovel, mallet or test tube to collect samples.
“It’s ridiculous! But people keep giving me money to do this, even though it’s sometimes like finding a needle in a haystack,” she said. “We’ve found extensions from the landscapes by hammering into the seabeds.”
Recently, two divers found adjoining sections of a bone that belonged to a mammoth that went extinct at least 14,000 years ago. The “massive” bone was either a leg or rib that was broken in half, reshaped by centuries in the water and covered in barnacles.
“It’s amazing,” Bynoe said. “Despite the fact it’s been in the sea long enough to get rounded and covered in rebirth, it’s still in the same kind of area it was…Ultimately, we should be able to backtrack to these kinds of areas and understand the way things are moving.”
Archaeologists are sifting through similar locations of plant and animal remains deposited into congregations by ancient rivers that once flowed through Britain. Natural, tectonic movements pushed many of the artifacts into small areas, meaning one object from 300,000 years ago could be located near specimens that are 200,000 years older than that.
Researchers hope further study will provide lessons about human life.
Already, evidence proves that small children braved long winters some 800,000 years ago. Footprints at Habbisburgh beach in Norfolk, along the edge of Doggerland, are the oldest fossilized hominid footprints outside Africa. They belong to 50 people who would have lived in pine forests alongside mammoths, saber-toothed cats and giant deer in freezing temperatures.
"It really was not a nice environment to live in, but people were here in family groups," Bynoe said. "If there are children, then there might have been pregnant women and older people."
If humans lived further north, in Doggerland, it would add crucial data to current understanding of coastal populations and migratory routes, which is part of the story of evolution, as Bynoe put it.
"The way we see our world today and the landscapes we exist in are a temporary expression," she said. "They're always changing. You can be on a boat on a sea, floating over where people used to live and walk. There's so much left that we don't understand about the evolution of our species."
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