Underwater Civilization

A new study by the University of Bradford demonstrates that magnetic fields may hold the key to comprehending buried civilizations. With the rise of North Sea wind farms, the race is on to collaborate with developers to put together facts about Doggerland ahead of development.

Ben Urmston, a Ph.D. student, will analyze magnetometry data to look for magnetic field anomalies that might point to the presence of archaeological features without the need for excavation, as per the release.

“Small changes in the magnetic field can indicate changes in the landscape, such as peat-forming areas and sediments, or where erosion has occurred, for example, in river channels," he said.

"As the area we are studying used to be above sea level, there's a small chance this analysis could even reveal evidence for hunter-gatherer activity. That would be the pinnacle. We might also discover the presence of middens, which are rubbish dumps that consist of animal bone, mollusk shells, and other biological material, that can tell us a lot about how people lived,” he added.
What is Doggerland?

Doggerland was a piece of land that connected continental Europe to Britain but is now covered by the North Sea. A rise in sea levels circa 6500–6200 BCE caused it to be submerged. The Dogger Littora is the name of the flooded area.

Towards the end of the last ice age, due to global warming, Doggerland was one of the most resource-rich and ecologically dynamic regions during the later Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods (c.20,000–4,000 BC), was submerged under the water.  READ MORE...

Europe Faces Historic Drought

Water levels in rivers across Europe are dropping in the historic drought, revealing “hunger stones” 

carved with centuries-old warnings of famine and hardship. PETR DAVID JOSEK AP

Water levels have dropped in major rivers across Europe as the region suffers under a historic drought. In those dry riverbeds, centuries-old warning messages have emerged, locals report. 

The “horrifying” boulders are known as “Hungersteine,” or “Hunger Stones,” local German reporter Olaf Koens said in an Aug. 11 tweet. 

One of these stones is embedded in the Elbe River, which runs from the mountains of Czechia through Germany to the North Sea, POLITICO journalist Aitor Hernández-Morales tweeted the same day.

The stone, dating back to a drought in 1616, is once again visible in the dry riverbed, Hernández-Morales said. The warning reads, “Wenn du mich seehst, dann weine” – “If you see me, weep.” 

“Hunger stones” like this one were used as “hydrological landmarks” across central Europe, NPR reported when the stones last surfaced during a 2018 drought.

These stones are “chiselled with the years of hardship and the initials of authors lost to history,” a team of Czech researchers wrote in a 2013 study. “The basic inscriptions warn of the consequences of drought. 

It expressed that drought had brought a bad harvest, lack of food, high prices and hunger for poor people.” The stones commemorate historic droughts, the researchers said.  READ MORE...

Hadrian's Wall

Hadrian’s Wall once marked the extent of the Roman empire in Britannia. Now it’s a pitstop on the way to Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, or the country’s largest city, Glasgow. Things have changed over the past two thousand years.

But the 73-mile-long chain of walls, ditches, towers, and forts—which stretches across Great Britain, linking the North Sea and the Irish Sea—continues to fascinate. This year, 1,900 years after construction began, soldiers clad in Roman armor will once again patrol its length and the sounds of ancient instruments will float over its ramparts.


Writer Joe Sills and archaeologist Raven Todd DaSilva traverse a tricky section of the wall, just east of Sewingshields Crags. To the right lies Northumberland National Park—home of England’s cleanest rivers and darkest skies.PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID GUEST


These celebrations make now a great time to visit, and an even better time to hike its length. The wall’s most popular attraction, the sprawling hillside complex of Housesteads Roman Fort, sees some 100,000 visitors per year. But only 7,000 people hike the full length of the wall annually.


The reign of Roman emperor Hadrian (A.D. 117-138) coincided with the pinnacle of Roman power. An expansive emperor—Roman territory reached its widest extent when his reign began—he was known as a builder of monuments, from his opulent villa at Tivoli, near Rome, to the defensive fortifications marking the frontiers of his empire; both are UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Built under Hadrian starting in A.D. 122, the wall stretches through the counties of Northumbria, Cumbria and Tyne, and Wear. For hikers, this landmark near the Scottish border makes the perfect trail for those looking for a straightforward route that barely necessitates a map. Guided by stonework and hedgerows, its path blazes by sidewalks, meadows, woodlands, and crags in a line that has been beaten since ancient times.  READ MORE...

Neanderthal Man

A recreation of a Neanderthal man’s face is turning heads all over the world – not only for its strong resemblance to our own physiognomy today but also because of the good humor it exudes, as much as 70,000 years after the man died.

What almost everybody instantly recognizes is that this man, nicknamed “Krijn,” who was not even a Homo sapiens, has a magnetic personality that still radiates over the millennia.

As Live Science reports, experts from Kennis & Kennis Reconstructions created the face of the young Neanderthal man from a piece of skull discovered from the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands twenty years ago.

Face of Neanderthal charms the world
Using what they already knew from the Neanderthals’ sturdy bone structure, the researchers also gleaned information from other skulls that have been found and data regarding their eye, skin, and hair color to help in the recreation of the Neanderthal’s grinning face.

Believed to have lived in Doggerland, which was once dry land but now forms the seabed in the North Sea between the United Kingdom and continental Europe, he died between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago, according to the researchers.  READ MORE...