#446: Doggerland

Doggerland is the name given to an area which is now submerged beneath the North Sea. 

The higher sections of the land are known as Dogger Bank: a fishing ground.

The National Geographic has explored the area.

At the end of the last ice age, Britain formed the northwest corner of an icy continent. Warming climate exposed a vast continental shelf for humans to inhabit. Further warming and rising seas gradually flooded low-lying lands. Some 8,200 years ago, a catastrophic release of water from a North American glacial lake and a tsunami from a submarine landslide off Norway inundated whatever remained of Doggerland.

There have been many items dredged up by trawlers from this area, or found on beaches along North Sea coasts. Doggerland was home to Mesolithic peoples.

Origin of the name:

Doggerland was named by University of Exeter archaeologist Bryony Coles in the 1990s after the Dogger Bank, a stretch of seabed in the North Sea in turn named after the 17th century “Dogger” fishing boats that sailed there

From Archaeology.Org.

The floor of the North Sea is now recognized as the largest well-preserved prehistoric archaeological landscape in the world. It would have been a paradise for the bands of hunter-gatherers who followed the retreating ice sheets into the region to settle there. They, however, were not Doggerland’s first inhabitants. Millennia prior to their arrival, the North Sea basin had belonged to Neanderthals, who lived there for hundreds of thousands of years. During the last Ice Age, between roughly 125,000 and 15,000 years ago, Doggerland was part of the cold and dry mammoth steppe. Because vast quantities of water were trapped in glacial ice sheets, the North Sea was around 450 feet lower than it is today. It was a mostly treeless, grassy plain that attracted mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses as well as herds of reindeer, horses, and aurochs.

This would be a potential case study for the proposed theme on landscape change.

#243: Cave Paintings #3 - Cresswell Crags

As mentioned in previous blog posts, the possible specification that will emerge is likely to include some reference to early artworks which represent nature. The earliest of these that survive are rock carvings and cave paintings.

One proposed theme in the first iteration of the new specification is 'Life in the Early World'

This would include students exploring early representations of the natural world.

Cave paintings are the first examples of this.

The hand silhouettes in Cueva de las Manos (Cave of Hands) in Santa Cruz, Argentina, form part of an exceptional assemblage of cave art executed between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago. The site was granted @UNESCO World Heritage status in 1999 https://t.co/NEipFKHIRm ✋🖐🏾✋🏽🖐🏻✋🏿🤚🏼🤚✋🏽 pic.twitter.com/JpcEJlJvkA

— Prof Jamie Woodward (@Jamie_Woodward_) January 1, 2022

There are quite a few theories as to why people decided to decorate the walls of caves.

It's worth having a look at Jamie's book in the Very Short Introduction series: 'The Ice Age'.

Another related book here is 'Transcendence' by Gaia Vince, which explores the significance of this period in the development of language, which in turn led to storytelling. This will be appearing in the library / reading list posts as well.

In some associated posts, I have started to explore some of the possible places that students could be introduced to, which are perhaps a little closer to home. For those in the East Midlands there is a suggestion here:

In the UK, there is Cresswell Crags.

The website has plenty of information on the site.

#172: Natural History Reading List #13: 'The Making of the British Landscape' - Nicholas Crane

A cross posting from my GeoLibrary blog which has been on the go for over 10 years. The title of this book is a slight extension of the W.G. Hoskins classic 'The Making of the English Landscape'. 

The book is written by geographer Nicholas Crane who has previously been involved in series such as 'Coast' and 'Map Man'.

There is also a book of the same name by the archaeologist and historian Francis Pryor.

My copy is a signed copy from Topping Books in Ely - a recommended stopping off point if you are in the fine city of Ely.

The book takes a chronological view of the British Isles going back ten thousand+ years to the end of the Ice Age, whem we were still connected to Europe, before sea levels rose and Doggerland was drowned. 

Chapters explore a range of different time periods, set across three 'books' and six discrete sections of the book.

The first section covers the period from 10 000 - 4050 BC - from the Ice Age to the separation of the UK from Europe.

There are looks at fields and enclosure, the impact of the Romans and other arrivals, and the rise of urbanisation. Flint mining, industrial revolution, agricultural change, castle building, Fenland drainage, road building and hill figures are amongst the areas which are explored.

It is clearly written and provides a sprawling story ranging over thousands of years and numerous locations. It reminds us that the landscapes we see today have evolved through a range of changes - rivers have changed course, sea levels have risen and fallen, weathering and erosion have done their work, and people have imposed themselves on the landscape in various ways.

This book is inevitably going to be very useful for some aspects of the sections: Life in the Early World, Natural Shaping of the World and Human Shaping of the World.

We are waiting to see how the detail in the original consultation document will be translated into the subject criteria and ultimately the draft specification. The subject criteria will be used by awarding bodies.