BRADFORD, ENGLAND—North Norfolk News reports that an international team of scientists aboard the Belgian ship RV Belgica created high-resolution images of the region known as Doggerland, and recovered a flint chip, a fragment of a stone hammer, and evidence of the ancient environment. Doggerland, an ancient landscape submerged by rising waters some 8,000 years ago, stretches from the East of England to the Netherlands and Denmark. The stone artifacts, thought to have been produced by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, were found in two different sediment samples collected on either side of an ancient river estuary off the coast of Norfolk, England. An outcrop of flint and chalk was found near the fragment of heavily used hammer stone, in what may have been a tool-manufacturing site. Evidence of a prehistoric forest was also detected off the coast of the Netherlands. The researchers plan to return to Doggerland with a mini-submarine for further investigation. To read about another discovery from this period in England, go to “Mesolithic Markings.”
