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An Anglo-French study has revealed that long before the English Channel there was a giant river which ran south from an area of the North Sea. Previous research found that 500,000 years ago a range of low hills connected Britain to Europe between the Weald in South-East England and Artois in northern France. But during a series of ice ages beginning 450,000 years ago huge ice sheets covered much of northern Europe, trapping a portion of the North Sea the size of East Anglia. The great rivers of Europe poured into this lake at the southern end of the North...

Migrants Poured into Britain after Ice Age By John von Radowitz, Science Correspondent, PA News Britain experienced a tidal wave of immigration as soon as the last Ice Age ended, new data has shown. Previously it was thought that Britain’s repopulation was a slow process led by a few pioneering explorers. Researchers now know that humans responded rapidly to climate change and moved into Britain en masse as soon as the ice receded. Up to 20,000 years ago a huge ice sheet extended as far south as Norfolk. Then temperatures rose rapidly, producing warming weather than we have now. Once...

Last Updated: Wednesday, 18 July 2007, 18:08 GMT 19:08 UK Megaflood 'made Island Britain' By Jonathan Amos Science reporter, BBC News The megaflood made Britain what it is today, geographicallyBritain became separated from mainland Europe after a catastrophic flood some time before 200,000 years ago, a sonar study of the English Channel confirms. The images reveal deep scars on the Channel bed that must have been cut by a sudden, massive discharge of water. Some event, or combination of events, resulted in a huge lake breaching the chalk ridge between what is now Dover and Calais. Scars from the torrent...

Divers have found traces of ancient land swallowed by waves 8500 years ago Doggerland once stretched from Scotland to Denmark Rivers seen underwater by seismic scans Britain was not an island - and area under North Sea was roamed by mammoths and other giant animals Described as the 'real heartland' of Europe Had population of tens of thousands - but devastated by sea level risesBritain's Atlantis' - a hidden underwater world swallowed by the North Sea - has been discovered by divers working with science teams from the University of St Andrews. Doggerland, a huge area of dry land that...

Scientists discover lost world A prehistoric lost world under the North Sea has been mapped by scientists from the University of Birmingham. The team used earthquake data to devise a 3D reconstruction of the 10,000-year-old plain. The area, part of a land mass that once joined Britain to northern Europe, disappeared about 8,000 years ago. The virtual features they have developed include a river the length of the Thames which disappeared when its valley flooded due to glaciers melting. This is the most exciting and challenging virtual reality project since Virtual Stonehenge. Professor Bob Stone Professor Bob Stone, head of...

Archaeologists working on Stone Age remains at a site in North Yorkshire say it contains Britain's earliest surviving house.The team from the Universities of Manchester and York reveal today that the home dates to at least 8,500 BC - when Britain was part of continental Europe. The research has been made possible by a grant from the Natural Environment Research Council, early excavation funding from the British Academy, and from English Heritage who are about to schedule the site as a National Monument . The Vale of Pickering Research Trust has also provided support for the excavation works. The research...

People may well have been roaming the land we now call the Netherlands for far longer than was assumed until recently. There is evidence to suggest that the country was home to the forebears of the Neanderthals. Amateur archaeologist Pieter Stoel found materials used by the oldest inhabitants in the central town of Woerden. These artefacts were shown to be at least 370,000 years old, which takes us back to long before the time of the Neanderthals. Our ancient forebears are often described as cavemen but that is not entirely accurate. There were no caves in this environment, explains Pieter...

It is just eight inches long, but its discovery changed what we know about prehistoric Europe and our ancestors. The harpoon, which was found by a Lowestoft fishing trawler in 1931, was yesterday under the lens of a Norwegian television crew, who are making a documentary on the origins of Norway. It is 14,000 years old, but in perfect condition, the points carved into it still sharp. It would have been used for hunting by modern man in late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic times; a time before written records when people lived in hunter-gatherer communities. But it is where it...

The remains of a 9,000-year-old hunter-gatherers' house, uncovered during construction at an airport, have been unearthed in Great Britain's Isle of Man. The house was surrounded by buried mounds of burnt hazelnut shells and stocked with stone tools, according to archaeologists working on the project and a report in the latest British Archaeology. It is the earliest known complete house on the Isle of Man and one of Britain's oldest and best-preserved houses, according to the report. The find also offers a glimpse of domestic life 4,000 before Stonehenge.

Scientists in Leiden, in the Netherlands, have unveiled the specimen -- a fragment from the front of a skull belonging to a young adult male. Analysis of chemical "isotopes" in the 30,000-60,000-year-old fossil suggest a carnivorous diet, matching results from other Neanderthal specimens... The Neanderthal frontal bone is the first known "archaic" human specimen to have been recovered from the sea bed anywhere in the world. It was found among animal remains and stone artefacts dredged up 15km off the coast of the Netherlands in 2001. The fragment was spotted by Luc Anthonis, a private fossil collector from Belgium, in...

AMATEUR archaeologists have uncovered evidence of Scotland's oldest human settlement, dating back 14,000 years. The team dug up tools that have been shown to date from the end of the last Ice Age. It is the first time there has been proof that humans lived in Scotland during the upper paleolithic period.

Mesolithic burials in northern Europe could be elaborate. People were buried lying, sitting cross-legged or on their bellies. They were buried with goods that included dogs, red deer antlers, food and amber beads. At Vedbaek Bogebakken, north of Copenhagen, a newborn baby was buried on a swan's wing, next to a woman who is presumed to have died in childbirth. But quite possibly, Mesolithic people in Britain didn't practise the same traditions. The only known Mesolithic burial site in Britain is Aveline's Hole, a cave in Somerset where the remains of around 50 individuals dating from approximately 10,000 years ago...

Palaeolithic Handaxes from the North Sea What are handaxes? Handaxes are stone tools that were used in the Ice Age. They were multi purpose tools, a bit like a modern Swiss army knife. Twenty-eight handaxes and some smaller pieces of flint (known as flakes) were found. The remains of mammoth, including tusk fragments and teeth, and fragments of deer antler were discovered at the same time. The discovery of the handaxes was reported through a scheme set up to report archaeological finds from the sea; the BMAPA Protocol. How old are they? We know that handaxes date to the Ice...

Flood made Britain into an island 'in 24 hours' By Tim Hall (Filed: 25/09/2006) Britain may have become an island after a Biblical-style flood split it from Europe in less than 24 hours, according to new geological research. The flood would have taken place between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, sweeping away hills between Britain and what is now France. The theory could rewrite British prehistory, as current text-books teach that Britain - once a peninsula of continental Europe - split from the great land mass after a long process of erosion and rises in sea levels. However, surveys of...

Biblical-style flood tore Britain from France Jonathan Leake September 25, 2006 SCIENTISTS have found that Britain owes its island status to a catastrophic flood that swept away in less than 24 hours the hills that once joined the land mass to France. The flood, which took place between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, instantly turned Britain from being a peninsula of continental Europe into a separate entity, changing forever the way it would develop. The finding has emerged from an advanced sonar survey of the sea bed of the English Channel that revealed huge scour marks, deep bowls and piles...

Source: University of Southampton Date: August 5, 2007 Stone Age Site Surfaces After 8000 Years Science Daily — Excavations of an underwater Stone Age archaeological settlement dating back 8000 years took place at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton between 30 July – 3 August 2007. A diver working at the site just off the Isle of Wight coast. (Credit: Copyright Simon Brown 2007) Maritime archaeologists from the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (HWTMA) have been working at the site just off the Isle of Wight coast. Divers working at depths of 11 metres have raised sections of the...

Study: Megaflood Separated U.K., France Jul 18, 4:22 PM (ET) By THOMAS WAGNER LONDON (AP) - One of Earth's largest-ever megafloods broke apart a strip of land connecting what is now Britain and France, permanently separating them, a new study says. The flood unleashed about 35 million cubic feet of water per second, 100 times greater than the water discharge of the Mississippi River. The natural disaster, which occurred about 400,000 years ago during a glacial period, was later followed by rising sea levels that created what is now the English Channel, the study says. It is not known if...

The cultural rift between Britain and France endures as an amusing mystery for many, but the physical divide between them can now be blamed on two ancient floods. About 450,000 years ago, a "megaflood" breached a giant natural dam near the Dover strait and began the formation of the English Channel , according to a study detailed in the July 19 issue of the journal Nature. Following this first disastrous flood, a second deluge finished the job. "The first was probably 100 times greater than the average discharge of the Mississippi River," said Sanjeev Gupta, a geologist at Imperial College...

SCIENTISTS have found that Britain owes its island status to a catastrophic flood that swept away in less than 24 hours the hills that once joined the land mass to France. The flood, which took place between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, instantly turned Britain from being a peninsula of continental Europe into a separate entity, changing forever the way it would develop. The finding has emerged from an advanced sonar survey of the sea bed of the English Channel that revealed huge scour marks, deep bowls and piles of rock that could have been created only by a giant...

ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXCITED BY 500,000-YEAR-OLD AXE FIND IN QUARRY By David Prudames 16/12/2004 This image shows the axe head from different angles. Photo: Graham Norrie, University of Birmingham Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity. A Stone Age hand axe dating back 500,000 years has been discovered at a quarry in Warwickshire. The tool was found at the Smiths Concrete Bubbenhall Quarry at Waverley Wood Farm, near Coventry, which has already produced evidence of some of the earliest known human occupants of the UK. It was uncovered in gravel by quarry manager John Green who took it to be identified by archaeologists at...