When the Thames and Seine rivers flow into the Rhine: there is another Europe under the sea, and people lived there not long ago.

8,000 years ago, what we now call the North Sea was an almost endless series of calm and relatively fertile plains. This land connected the British Isles to present-day Denmark, the Netherlands, and part of Atlantic France. It was more than a land bridge; It was the promise of an entirely different history of the continent. A word that lasted until the last ice age flooded everything we now know as Doggerland.

120 meters. Geologists estimate that at the end of the last ice age, sea level dropped by 120 meters before the glaciers retreated. This meant that the physiognomy of the coasts of the whole world was very different from what existed: One place where this was particularly striking was on the plains of Europe.

A very similar but very different world. In terms of landscape, fauna and flora, these lands were a strange mix of Northern Europe and Great Britain. A fertile and flat field dotted with hills; A broken shore exposed to Atlantic currents: and plenty of water: lakes, lagoons, and rivers.

The latter is particularly striking because what we know today as the Thames or Seine flowed into a much longer Rhine, which would die in Atlantic waters, via a tributary of the sea that would later become the Canal de the Leke. The world was very similar, of course: it was “only” 18,000 years ago, but it was also radically different.

Civilization that can and will not be. There are really extensive maps showing the enormous dimensions of Doggerland. But the most interesting thing is what you can’t see on the maps: If it had stayed above the water, the story would have been very different.

To begin with, because “flat, fertile and arable land could support a small civilization whose language and culture would have had a significant impact on the rest of the continent.” To finish, because the geopolitics of northern Europe would be very different. However, the end of glaciation caused these populations to mix with those from the south, and Great Britain, which had so much contact with the continent, remained isolated.

Doggerlands of the Future. This story is fascinating because we have the idea that the Earth is much more stable than it actually is. The world’s constant climate changes have had a dramatic impact on its appearance: we humans are already suffering during the last great ice age…who knows where the next change will take us?

Image | NextNature