Doggerland

On Sunday 2 June at 4pm, Professor Vince Gaffney will uncover the incredible history of Doggerland, a country now sunk beneath the North Sea which once linked the Yorkshire coast with a stretch of Continental Europe from Denmark to Normandy.

6000 years ago this lost world was inhabited by a thriving community of Mesolithic hunter-gathers living, just as they did in many other areas of northern Europe. By c 6000 BC, everything had begun to change for the communities living there. Rising sea levels due to a rise in temperature and melting glaciers drowned Doggerland and its inhabitants were driven to higher ground.

The submersion of Doggerland was the last time inhabited areas of land were lost because of changes in climate. This reminds us of our obligations to future generations who may lose the plains, valleys and rivers familiar to our land surface today if global warming is not arrested.

Tickets for this talk, and other talks featuring in the Birmingham Speakers at Hay series, are available directly from the Hay Festival.