REVIEW BY GEORGE NASH
Due to current climate change, the coastline of north-western Europe is in a state of flux, resulting in the slow but inevitable inundation of the sea. This change in coastline is clearly witnessed by the ongoing disappearance of land along the eastern seaboard of England. The rise will account for around 2m to 3m in global sea level. Compare this with the changes that occurred in north-western Europe following the rapid deterioration and retreat of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet at the end of the last Ice Age: a rise in sea level of between 70m and 120m resulted in wide sea inundation, by which the British Isles literally become the British Isles by being separated from Continental Europe. This process was underway by 6500 BC (that is, during the Early Holocene), when the region now known as Doggerland was being submerged beneath the waves of the North Sea. Within a few centuries, the land bridge between eastern England and Europe had been severed. Before this, the landmass extended from the current coastline of south-eastern England to the coastlines of Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. This landscape was settled by Mesolithic hunter-fisher-gatherers, who fully utilised the available economic resources.
The eagerly awaited Europe’s Lost Frontiers volume, edited by Vince Gaffney and Simon Finch, reports on the context of Doggerland, and the methods employed to investigate one of the largest submerged landscapes in north-western Europe.
