Thousands of years before the North Sea flooded the region, a vast landscape known as Doggerland once connected Britain to mainland Europe. While this landscape has often been depicted as a cold, barren plain during the Ice Age, new research indicates that some parts of this lost world may have been far more hospitable than scientists once believed.
A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides the first direct evidence that temperate forests existed in southern Doggerland about 16,000 years ago. Scientists reconstructed the ecology of this now-submerged landscape using sedimentary ancient DNA recovered from marine cores beneath the North Sea. The findings show that trees such as oak, elm, and hazel were present in Doggerland several thousand years earlier than previously thought.
“This is the best evidence that Doggerland’s wooded environment could have supported early Mesolithic communities prior to flooding,” said Professor Robin Allaby of the University of Warwick, lead author of the study.
Reconstructing a Lost Landscape
Doggerland covered much of what is now the southern North Sea, forming a land bridge connecting Britain to continental Europe. As glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age, rising sea levels gradually submerged the landscape. Archaeologists have suspected that forests eventually developed in Doggerland, but the exact timing of this ecological transition has been unclear.
The research team analyzed ancient DNA preserved in marine sediments to investigate the region’s environmental history. The samples came from 41 sediment cores collected along the path of a prehistoric river system that once flowed through southern Doggerland. In total, the team examined 252 sediment samples, allowing them to track vegetation changes across Doggerland over thousands of years.
Unexpected Forests in the Ice Age
DNA from the samples showed that temperate woodland species such as oak, elm, and hazel were already established in Doggerland roughly 16,000 years ago. This evidence suggests that forests appeared in Doggerland several thousand years earlier than previously indicated by pollen records from Britain. Researchers also detected DNA from Tilia, a species of lime tree that prefers warmer conditions, indicating that lime grew in Doggerland about 2,000 years before it appeared in mainland Britain.
The team also detected DNA from Pterocarya, a walnut relative believed to have disappeared from northwestern Europe about 400,000 years ago. The findings suggest that this species may have survived in small, isolated refuges much longer than previously thought.
A Refuge During the Ice Age
These results support the idea that small environmental pockets, known as microrefugia, allowed temperate plants to persist through the harsh conditions of the Ice Age in northern Europe. These refuges may help explain Reid’s Paradox, a long-standing question about how trees were able to recolonize northern Europe so quickly after the glaciers retreated.
If forests were already present in scattered refuges such as Doggerland, then the spread of trees across northern Europe after the Ice Age may have involved much less long-distance migration than previously assumed.
Implications for Early Humans
Woodland habitats in Doggerland likely provided abundant resources for animals and early humans. Forests could have supported wild boar and other animals, making the area attractive to prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Researchers say these results add to the idea that Doggerland was much more than just a land bridge between Britain and Europe.
“For many years, Doggerland was often described as a route for prehistoric settlement of the British Isles,” said co-author Professor Vincent Gaffney of the University of Bradford. “Today we understand that it was likely a heartland of early human settlement.”
The study also indicates that parts of Doggerland remained above sea level longer than previously thought, surviving major flooding events such as the Storegga tsunami about 8,150 years ago, before finally disappearing beneath the North Sea around 7,000 years ago.
Austin Burgess is a writer and researcher with a background in sales, marketing, and data analytics. He holds a Master of Business Administration, a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, and a Data Analytics certification. His work combines analytical training with a focus on emerging science, aerospace, and astronomical research.