In the Prehistoric Society’s 1998 annual journal, the archaeologist Bryony Coles contributed a survey of the land that had once existed under the southern North Sea.* She named this place “Doggerland” (after the Dogger sandbank) and pointed to evidence of a distinct landscape and a unique people who had left behind tools different from those found in the adjoining countries.
Around 5500BC this land was completely submerged and thus lost to the sea. But on the coasts around that sea, centuries of land reclamation have taken place. Swathes of Holland, East Anglia, Frisia, Flanders and Jutland have been formed by digging dykes and dredging the seabed. As is evident in Happisburgh in Norfolk or on the island of Sylt, the sea is all too willing to get these places back. Nation states have to build coastal defences to keep hold of these lands. If they didn’t, they would be subsumed back into the sea.
You could argue that these places should, by right, belong to the North Sea – and, if so, to Doggerland – and not to the Netherlands, to the United Kingdom, to Belgium, to Germany or to Denmark. Perhaps Doggerland still exists, and perhaps it has a right to its own nationhood.
This project is an attempt to remap Europe and claim back the lost territories of the North Sea.
* Coles, BJ, 1998, “Doggerland: A speculative survey”, Proceedings of Prehistoric Society vol 64.
****
The following images have been scanned from Coles’s paper and are copyright BJ Coles and SE Rouillard.
Hypotheical landscape at Devensian/Weichselian Maximum
Hypothetical maximum extent of land. Later Devensian/Weichselian
Hypothetical landscape with first extensive coast. Bølling-Allerød/Windermere Interstadial
Hypothetical landscape with extensive coast and estuaries. Earlier Holocene
Hypothetical North Sea and islands c 5000 cal BC
I have read the interresting article about Doggerland. I am a danish amateur-archaeologist, and I new that the North Sea had earlier been dry land, but I have allways thourght of it as kind of a land-bridge, untlill I early thi, wheres summer saw a program on National Geograpphic television called “The Atlantis og the North”, where they told about all
the interresting objects that has been found on the shores
around the North Sea both in England, Holland and France,
and I look forward to hear more about this and I will consult
your website freequently.
how intresting to be able to create or bring back a lost country. how far under the water is the dogger island and could it really be done to re surface this island ? steve laird
Through Oral History we knew of this sea (Dogger Banks) and land, through knowing the mainland slipped away from other isles. Our Dogger ancestors date back to 1607, Obbe Saak Dogger. Until this time children took the first name of their fathers ie: son of Obbe Saak would be Saak Obbe. At this time (1600′s) the fishermen took the name Dogger as they fished in the sea for DogFish (cod). We search for what we teasingly call our *Holy Grail* ; a silver goblet gifted to a Dogger who was Captain of a whaler and caught 13 whales in one season. We have seen a photo of this Goblet and the name inscribed.. WE shudder now to even think of a whale being caught for oil or “sport”
Doggers in Canada are rare, there may be no boy children left to carry on the name.. Not so in Australia where there appear to be many .
I continue using my maiden name to sign my photography and paintings.. Sandra Dogger Klassen
I have never heard of Doggerland until recently my wife and i had our genetic profile done by a company called 23andme.. That profile includes diseases,carrier status,traits,and low and behold ancestry.. My Y chromosome contains with a high degree of certainty completely Doggerland DNA. The Y chromosome does not share DNA with the X (female) chromosome. In fact it is and exact copy of my fathers and his fathers all the way back to when the genetic mutation first happened, Doggerland. It is fascinating that my ancestral home is now under water. I want my land back.
Frank Boyle Lexington,Kentucky,USA
Well, I never! I came across this website (or is it a blog?) almost by accident during research into the coble – an inshore fishing boat prevalent along the east coast of England. I knew, very sketchily, about the land bridge between the UK and the continent, but the historical sources that this site has thrown up are amazing and have certainly opened up my eyes! The next time I gaze out across the North Sea when fishing off a Northumbrian beach, I’ll be thinking of you all. Well done and more power to your elbow!