A great wave: the Storegga tsunami and the end of Doggerland?

James Walker,Merle Muru,Martin Bates,Simon Fitch,Andrew Fraser,Richard Bates,Vincent Gaffney

doi:10.15184/aqy.2020.49

Abstract

Around 8150 BP, the Storegga tsunami struck North-west Europe. The size of this wave has led many to assume that it had a devastating impact upon contemporaneous Mesolithic communities, including the final inundation of Doggerland, the now submerged Mesolithic North Sea landscape. Here, the authors present the first evidence of the tsunami from the southern North Sea, and suggest that traditional notions of a catastrophically destructive event may need rethinking. In providing a more nuanced interpretation by incorporating the role of local topographic variation within the study of the Storegga event, we are better placed to understand the impact of such dramatic occurrences and their larger significance in settlement studies.

Highlights

In an age of human-induced climate change, catastrophic natural disasters appear to be occurring with greater frequency and magnitude
Tsunamis, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean ‘Boxing Day’ and 2011 Tōhoku (Japan) events, are of particular note, striking quickly and with little warning (Seneviratne et al 2012). Such events have fuelled interest in how people in the past responded to natural disasters (e.g. Burroughs 2005; Cain et al 2018), archaeology has—with few exceptions (e.g. McFadgen 2007)—been slow to engage in the Received: 1 November 2019; Revised: 27 February 2020; Accepted: 11 March 2020
The wealth of sedimentological evidence relating to the Storegga tsunami from around the northern North Sea basin makes the lack of archaeological evidence for the event even more curious

Summary

Introduction

In an age of human-induced climate change, catastrophic natural disasters appear to be occurring with greater frequency and magnitude. Hill et al.’s (2014) model is not fully applicable—as Dogger Island was probably considerably smaller than posited when the tsunami struck (Figure 2c)—it provides insight into how Storegga may have affected other low-lying landmasses. Stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating sequences indicate that these deposits were broadly contemporaneous with Storegga (see Gaffney et al 2020; Figure S1 & Table S2) The location of these deposits—42km inland from the present coastline (Figure 1b)—is striking, and their absence from other nearby cores reflects the importance of valleys and inlets in channelling wave-energy (Smith et al 2004; Gaffney et al 2020). Pingree & Griffiths 1982) This shallow bank or low-lying island may, have exacerbated the impact of the tsunami in other areas, focusing wave energy to the east and west of the bank, including the head of the Outer Dowsing Deep and the basin from which core ELF001A was retrieved (Figure 4). The eventual inundation of the remaining parts of Doggerland resulted from the inexorable sea-level rise, rather than a lasting inundation from the Storegga tsunami

Discussion

Findings

Conclusion

Funding statement