David Meadows
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Registered: 09-2003
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Doggerland
This isn't really fantasy but it's such a neat idea that I'm sure it has story potential 
"Doggerland" is the name given to the land which sank beneath the North Sea during a period of "global warming" 8000 years ago (I may have the exact age wrong but it's something like that).
The land area was as large as Britain is today and linked Britain with mainland Europe (from France to Denmark). It was an area of low-lying wetlands, similar to Holland or the Norfolk fens before they were drained. It included a river system where the Thames, Rhine, and Seine were all tributaries of a huge river that flowed east into the Atlantic!
What's more, it appears to have been heavily populated by humans ("heavily" by mesolithic standards) and before that by Neandertals. Underwater archeology has uncovered many artifacts of human inhabitation.
Huge mammoth bones have been recovered from beneath the sea with evidence of injuries from stone spears. Sabre-tooth tiger bones have been recovered that have been dated to (I think) 12,000 years ago -- before that discovery, it was thought that sabre tooths had died out over 100,000 years ago. There are also fossils of giant elephants (twice the weight of African elephants), hippos, and lions. (Not all these animals co-existed at the same time; Doggerland went through a lot of climate change over hundreds of thousands of years.)
Similar 8,000-year-old spears found on the Danish and English coasts and under the North Sea show that the people who lived in Doggerland roamed over long distances.
The inhabitants of low-lying Doggerland would have seen the high chalk cliffs of the English coast as a prominent landmark -- an inhospitable highland area where they probably didn't go much. But when the climate changed and Doggerland sank, the highlands would have looked very attractive...
8000 years ago, the climate was very unstable and the sea level change was very rapid. I think it was a two metre rise in 15 years! So within one lifetime Doggerland would have completely vanished.
I'm sure there's a lot more but that's all I can remember from last night's TV programme. But if anyone wants a good place to set your ancient civilization in, try looking up Doggerland
Last edited by David Meadows, 4/25/2007, 10:07 am
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4/25/2007, 9:11 am
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Firlefanz
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Registered: 05-2003
Location: Germany
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Re: Doggerland
There still is a "Doggerbank" at the mouth of the Elbe river - a last remnant of that realm.
I think it would be very neat to write some stone-age fantasy (not like Jean Auel, though!).
--- - Firlefanz
Writing: "Kiera und der Gauklerjunge" - novel
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4/25/2007, 1:01 pm
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QS2
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Registered: 03-2006
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Re: Doggerland
Sounds interesting, wish there was some article you could read more about it, hmm, I think I'll go check wikipedia. Well after a quick check it did have a little bit, but it covers roughly the same amount you already did. 
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4/25/2007, 1:05 pm
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David Meadows
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Re: Doggerland
quote:
Firlefanz wrote:
There still is a "Doggerbank" at the mouth of the Elbe river - a last remnant of that realm.
I think that's why they picked the name "Doggerland" 
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4/25/2007, 4:20 pm
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