Doggerland was the imposing land mass that connected the British Isles to mainland Europe during the last Ice Age. When the thaw began and the waters began to rise, this territory remained emerged until 6,500 or 6,200 BC.
During the Mesolithic period men, women and children crossed this area off the current coast of the Netherlands and the western coasts of Germany and Denmark and even built settlements. But this was not the only crossing point in the middle of the Atlantic. On the other side of Doggerland, in the Irish Sea, great roads were also created.
Our ancestors roamed those areas at ease. And they were not alone. Large mammals shared the same routes. Aurochs, deer, roe deer, wild boar, beaver, wolf and lynx left their mark on a lush ecosystem that scientists have called the ‘Serengeti’ of northwestern Europe.
Researchers from the University of Manchester have discovered that hundreds of ancient marks at Formby Point, a Merseyside beach on the coast of England, are much older than previously thought. Radiocarbon dating places them from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages or, what is the same, from 9,000 to 1,000 years ago.
The records studied by archaeologists and geographers confirm what was intuited: that there was a significant decrease in the diversity of large animals in ancient Britain, as explained in an article published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The footprint beds show that as global sea levels rose rapidly between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago, after the last ice age, humans were part of rich intertidal ecosystems alongside mammals and predators such as wolves and lynxes. . In that same period, on the other side of Britain, Doggerland was already being reclaimed by the waters of the North Sea.
In the agriculture-based societies that followed this epoch, human footprints dominated the Neolithic period and also later beds in the modern near-coastal area, along with a striking drop in the species richness of large mammals.
“The Formby discoveries form one of the largest known concentrations of prehistoric vertebrate footprints in the world. This is the first time that such a faunal and ecosystem story has been pieced together solely from footprint evidence,” explains Dr Alison Burns.
The vast coastal landscapes of the European Mesolithic were rich ecosystems teeming with mighty animals. This was a biodiversity hotspot with large herbivores and predators. More or less what the Serengeti of Tanzania represents but located in northwestern Europe.
“The observed decline in large mammals could be the result of several factors, including habitat reduction following rising sea levels and the development of agricultural economies, as well as hunting pressures from a growing human population.” the study authors write.
“Assessing the threats to habitat and biodiversity posed by sea level rise is a key research priority for our time. That increase can transform coastal landscapes and degrade important ecosystems”, concludes Professor Jamie Woodward.
