Thursday 1 May 2014

Did a North Sea tsunami wipe out Doggerland?

Did a tsunami more than 8,000 years ago put paid to the last inhabitants of Doggerland, a submerged land mass which once connected north Germany to East Anglia?

Around 10,000 years ago, it was still one of the richest hunting grounds in Europe, but 2,000 years later, it had become a low-lying, marshy island about the size of Wales. That was around the time of the Storegga tsunami – generated by a massive landslide beneath the sea off the coast of Norway.

Fishing boats operating around Doggerland have turned up ancient human artefacts, but none date from later than the tsunami. The tsunami theory of Doggerland’s end is based on computer simulations of the effect of the Storegga slide, but some scientists argue the area had already been abandoned before the disaster.

Some, though not all, scientists also maintain that the deadliest flood ever suffered by mainland Britain, the Severn Flood of January 30, 1607, was also caused by a tsunami. It is estimated that 2,000 people, and thousands of livestock animals were killed.



My A Disastrous History of the World has now been translated into Romanian - http://www.polirom.ro/catalog/carte/cele-mai-mari-dezastre-din-istoria-omenirii-5358/

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