This popular-science book tells the story of one of the most important, but least known major archaeological sites in Europe: Doggerland. Few people know that the beaches along the North Sea lie on the edge of a vast lost world. A prehistoric landscape that documents almost a million years of human habitation and lay dry for most of that time. Doggerland is where early hominids left the first footprints in northern Europe, more than 900,000 years ago. Later, for hundreds of thousands of years, it was the scene of ice ages. A world of woolly mammoths and rhinoceroses, horses and reindeer and the successful Neanderthals who hunted them, including Krijn: the first Neanderthal from Doggerland. At the end of the last Ice Age, the first modern humans also left their traces here, including the famous Leman-and-Ower-Banks spearhead – the first documented Doggerland find – and some of the oldest art in the region. With the onset of the Holocene, our current era, Doggerland’s inhabitants were increasingly confronted with climate change and rising sea levels, just as we are today. The Mesolithic hunter-gatherers lived in a rich, but constantly changing world – to which they successfully adapted. Ongoing submergence and a huge tsunami around 6150 BC marked the beginning of the end. A few centuries later, the last islands disappeared under the waves and with them the story of Doggerland was lost in time. This book brings this vanished world back to the surface. Foreword Vince Gaffney First encounters Leendert Louwe Kooijmans Following in their footsteps, but choosing my own path Leo Verhart PART 1 DOGGERLAND A lost world rediscovered Luc Amkreutz Ice, rivers, sea and spectacle. Geological variation in a drowned landscape Kim Cohen & Marc Hijma Mapping a drowning land Luc Amkreutz, , Kim Cohen, Marc Hijma & Olav Odé PART 2 DOGGERLAND EARLY INHABITANTS Stepping into Britain. Happisburgh and the first humans in northern Europe Nick Ashton Citizen science and the submerged Palaeolithic landscapes in the North Sea Rachel Bynoe Krijn. Face to face with Doggerland’s first Neanderthal Luc Amkreutz & Luc Anthonis Neanderthals in the cold ‘North Sea Serengeti’ Marcel Niekus & Dimitri de Loecker Neanderthal treasures Marcel Niekus, Dimitri de Loecker & Luc Amkreutz Modern humans at the end of the Ice Age Luc Amkreutz & Marcel Niekus The oldest art. Ice age Expressionism Luc Amkreutz, Marcel Niekus & Jan Glimmerveen Animals of the mammoth steppe Dick Mol, Bram Langeveld & Jørn Zeiler PART 3 DROWNING DOGGERLAND Animals after the ice age Jørn Zeiler Hunter-gatherers in a rich wetland Luc Amkreutz & Marcel Niekus A lucky shot? A red deer in the crosshairs Marcel Niekus A thousand hunts. Barbed points from Doggerland Merel Spithoven Bouldnor Cliff. A drowned prehistoric site emerging from the seabed Garry Momber Rotterdam-Yangtze Harbour. Excavating at 20 metres deep Dimitri Schiltmans The North Sea as Highway. Neolithic argonauts and prehistoric trade Luc Amkreutz & Jan Glimmerveen PART 4 DOGGERLAND INVESTIGATED Tracing people. Secrets of bones and teeth unravelled Eveline Altena, Lisette Kootker, Bjørn Smit & Paul Storm Points of animal and human bone. Sorting with collagen Joannes Dekker, Virginie Sinet-Mathiot, Alexander Verpoorte, Marie Soressi & Frido Welker Europe’s Lost Frontiers. Mapping the landscape Vince Gaffney & Simon Fitch On course to the Brown Bank. Research in the North Sea Tine Missiaen & Ruth Plets PART 5 DOGGERLAND TODAY Collecting Doggerland. Searching along the coast, making finds and then? Luc Amkreutz, Rachel Bynoe, Bjørn Smit & Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof The North Sea. The busiest sea in the world Luc Amkreutz & Stichting de Noordzee Future for Doggerland? Collect, research and protect Hans Peeters & Bjørn Smit Thinking of Doggerland. A vanished landscape remembered Luc Amkreutz & Sasja van der Vaart-Verschoof Afterword Hans Peeters Further reading