The impact of the Storegga Slide tsunami on the Mesolithic population of Britain

The lecture:
Around 6,175 cal BC Britain was irrevocably impacted upon by what is probably the largest marine megaslide tsunami so far recovered on the planet. This event, combined with the climatic cold period or ‘neoglacial’ within which it occurred known as the ‘8.2 kyr event’, had significant effects on both the landscape, seascape as well as the human population of much of Britain. This paper will explore these events and their impact on the Mesolithic population with specific reference to several sites, including Howick and Low Hauxley, as case studies.
The lecturer:
Clive is a well-known archaeologist with a long career as both an academic, consultant and founder of Archaeological research Services Ltd. His specialist interests include the Mesolithic and Neolithic, landscape archaeology, technique development, lithics, coastal archaeology and prehistoric rock art. He has worked for commercial archaeological units, English Heritage, as both an Adult Education and University lecturer at the University of Newcastle and has appeared regularly on television and radio.

[@bruiserdog6662]

I live in a town called Ellon in the north east of Scotland and about five miles from the coast. There is a tidal river that runs through my town and in the middle of the river there are islands. You can see where the original river ran, then a massive rush of water running downstream, cut a new path of the river, and creating these islands. On the west side of town there is sand quarry and if you go upstream 15 miles there are more sand quarries. I always wondered if it was these slides that created this. I might make a youtube video on it.

[@matthewgartell6380]

Make the vid. Sounds really interesting

[@briandawson8701]

You're on the Ythan min Mak the video !! Will it be available on Beta format fae Ross Records ?😅

[@OIcurawake2]

My great Grandmother was from Ellon. I'd be interested in your video

[@Yakkityyak248]

My birthplace. Bide in the blue toon

[@boyscott7193]

Excellent presentation - thank you for posting.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

You're very welcome! Thanks for watching.

[@robg3545]

Spent some time drilling on the Ormen Lange gas field shown in the graphic at 13:00 The sea bed (about 450m deep I think) is still so badly disrupted by the slide that there are building-sized blocks of rotated sediment lying chaotically across the field. The drillship had to have very detailed sea bed plans to avoid striking high points in case of moving away from the drill sites in emergency if the riser was hanging below it.

[@amystubby]

I would watch a whole ass documentary on this process. The mapping. The having to avoid the rocks. All of it.

[@Vimby233]

Absolutely fascinating, this was just the thing to prove I still have a couple of brain cells working! Thank you.

[@isobelholland8552]

Absolutely fascinating, thank you.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thank you too!

[@ianandjohnandmaniandreni9323]

This has fascinated me since I found out about it a few years ago. I worked out of sand and gravel quarries around Lanark, seen the Montrose basin, and all the flat lands around the River Clyde and especially the River Forth and along towards Stirling. The tsunami would have been devastating to all coastal and Riverside settlements all around Scotland and a lot of the evidence now lies under mud, silt, rubble and the 100-odd metre sea-level increase from Ice Age levels (the Northern Icecaps were up to 2 miles deep in places, comparable with Antarctica).

[@mavisemberson8737]

Fascinating to an old student of Prehistoric Archaeology University of Edinburgh ( M A hons 1965) where we covered these subjects along with courses in Geomorphology.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

So pleased you enjoyed, Mavis! What was your area of interest when you were studying?

[@anitapeura3517]

Wonderful stuff, great research well put together. I felt a deep shiver the 1st time I heard of Doggerland and have devoured so much of what's been written about it. I especially loved Julia Blackburn's book, Time Song. The lives of the coastal peoples there is so vivid for me. I hope further wide-ranging research is well supported - so much North Sea oil and gas money floating about.

[@neilmarshall2315]

An excellent lecture put across in a very accessible manner to highlight such an interesting story.

[@roguetamlin]

I wish I had the time and money to devote my life to studying Doggerland, it's just so fascinating to me and there's so much to learn!

[@GermanGreetings]

That`s my desire as well... I work on that subject since long time and I am so glad, having found this video :)

[@Greblav]

Don’t think there is much to study.

[@GermanGreetings]

@@Greblav It`s maybe not your subject. That`s ok :) Have a nice day !

[@Greblav]

@@GermanGreetings You too 🤗

[@daizyflower272]

​@@Greblavyou joined 3 months ago. Says it all. Have a nice life.

[@LukaRejec]

Deeply enjoyed this erudite yet concise and informative lecture. A fascinating dive into deep (pre)history.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thanks a lot for the lovely feedback!

[@jenniferharrison4319]

Another piece in the puzzle, thanks

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

You're very welcome, Jennifer!

[@misssherrie-may1041]

I've just discovered your channel!! It's amazing!!

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thank you so much! We have lots more videos to come!

[@briancooper562]

If you watch a cab view rail journey from Inverness to Aberdeen you can see the influence of the tsunarmi event on the passing landscape. Areas of sand with no related waterways, rounded small hills, the influence of coastline features, cliffs and rivers on the wave and backwash. I am surprised by the lack of data from this area with a few data points near Inverness and Aberdeen but few if any in between. The 8.2Ka event also explains the loss of Rannoch and other highland forest as the climate got wetter.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thanks a lot for your comments, Brian. Do you know anything more about what happened to Rannoch forest?

[@briancooper562]

The evidence of the forest would be found when constructing the railway and the 'new' road. The timbers and roots in the 'bogs' that had to be crossed. I read that the forest turned too wet to be sustainable but no dates. There is an event when the tilt of the earth shifted and the Sahara desert formed from green and pleasant. In the time when African culture flourished.

[@briancooper562]

Another element which can cause problems in this area is the fall out from Icelandic volcanoes. This can cause crop failure, and die off from the gases and rock shards in the fallout. Bog oak in Ireland can give dates to some of these events and some other climate bourn events.

[@ianandjohnandmaniandreni9323]

​@briancooper562 I think the same event caused the tsunamis and flash-freezing which swept across Alaska and Siberia, which were also more temperate around this time, killing and mashing together in the muck and wreckage all the giant animals. Tens of thousands have been found dumped together. Siberia ivory from Mammoths was a massive trade in the 1800's. It could have also been the catalyst for the second rapid melting event known as Meltwater Pulse B, as the southern end of the North American Ice Cap rotated down closer to desert heat and Middle section above it was now being rained on constantly, all of which was unleashing millions of tons of fresh water per day into both oceans either side of the continent. The worldwide shaking could also have caused this underwater landslide tsunami event here. Scotland and Northern Europe would be badly hit and the worst damage would be gradually hidden over the next decades and centuries with the seas rising, massive storms and much more rainfall changing our landscapes. . The Younger Dryas events and the long-reaching fallout from whatever caused them devastated the whole planet and utterly changed every inch of the globe, compared to the relative 40-50,000 years of paradise before them, back to at least the Toba volcanic eruption.

[@paulhill3187]

Nice presentation and a revelation for me. Very different from most other such KZbin efforts. Congratulations !

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thank you very much! So pleased you enjoyed!

[@tikaanipippin]

You don't get a "cap of cold water".Glacial melt is never lower than 0C, but North Atlantic saline water can be below 0C by a couple of degrees. it's relatively fresh, similarly cold to the denser saline ocean and very disruptive of currents, due to mixing but it is also very turbid and muddy having just washed off the land. This causes solar surface water heating, and cooling of layers below, from less solar penetration, increasing subsurface current flow of displaced dense cold saline waters.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thanks for the message! This is from our speaker, Dr Clive Waddington: "Thank you for these comments. The reason freshwater meltwater sits on top as a cap is because it is relatively less dense than the saline Atlantic water and this can impact the creation of North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) in the Labrador Sea via the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). There are still some schools of thought that the 8.2 ka Event could be entirely solar forced, or the result of general climate instability of which the Laurentide out-flux was just a part. Thank you for the point regarding turbid, muddy water given the rapid outpouring, the source that it came from and the potential impact on ocean surface albedo. This an interesting perspective and any reference/s regarding this would be welcome - many thanks." We hope that helps!

[@angelabrady9342]

I think the ‘cap’ is relative… to the Gulf Stream waters that push up from the equator and warm the west coast of Britain (he had a graphic showing the circulation of water, but didn’t really go into it). Also fresh water forms a wedge over saline as it is less dense (no salts). [Plus I would imagine that once the initial breach of Lake Alvarigg (sp?) occurred, the vast body of water moving out would have been clear, from my experience of coastal lakes and streams - this last bit only a ‘thinks’!]

[@jonathaneffemey944]

Thanks for posting

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

You're very welcome. So pleased you enjoyed it.

[@matthewgartell6380]

This terrifies me. Imagine something like this happening again.

[@Bob.Jenkins]

Awesome presentation of Data, Logic and Deductive Reasoning... spoiled only by the Presenters overuse of 'erm' and 'hmm'.

[@harrisonofthenorth]

As Dogger Bank is directly eastwards of Cumbria in the west - and given that the Storegga Slide was the final culmination of broader migration westwards from Dogger Land - I'd be interested in a study that focuses on that broad westwards migration from the coastline between Star Carr to Sunderland, and its dispersal from there. Surely, that part of the coastline is the source of the gradual migration over millennia as Doggerland slowly sank into the sea; why would those migrating from the Dogger Bank part of Doggerland have paddled north to Howick when the most direct route was westwards to the coastline between Star Carr and Howick? When you are seeking safety, you take the most direct route, and starting at Howick, you seem to overlook the migrational patterns that got people to Howick over millennia in the first place. The Storegga incident was just the final cataclysmic event that ended the period, yet the migrational patterns were formed by the preceding period that started when Doggerland finally became an Island, ending with the Slide. Surely the people of Star Carr even migrated so far westwards as The Lakes, and then down the ages. The lakes, of course, are the high ground between the corresponding western lowlands between the Isle of Man and Whitehaven, that I call the Cumberland Basin. The raising of the tide essentially flooded the lowlands of the Cumberland Basin in the west, as well as the corresponding lowlands of Dogger Bank in the east. For example, how can any of the highland mesolithic sites in Scotland be attributed to the Storrega event itself without considering that the westwards from the now Dogger Bank between Star Carr and Sunderland may have given the people a reverence for any highlands, hence their presence in the now Scottish Highlands may have been a result of that reverence and as such, have nothing to do with the later Storrega event. These are very interesting questions that can only be resolved by also studying the latitudes between Sunderland and Star Carr, right across to the western highlands of Cumbria that we now call The Lakes.!

[@roberthiorns7584]

Very interesting, thank you.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Mythsinger]

There is a clear Storegga tsunami site in Montrose basin (NE Scotland) you may like to look at. It is thought the wave travelled as far inland as Forfar.

[@kubhlaikhan2015]

I'm surprised to see so little ice on your reconstruction of 10k BP Britain, and also so many settlements in a northern landscape that other archaeologists and climatologists have previously depicted as pretty much uninhabitable. Some reconstructions show the entire North Sea plugged by glaciation and Doggerland therefore dry despite its low altitude. Is the northern coastline a reliable guide to the entire North Sea environment?

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thanks for the message! Here's a reply from our speaker, Dr Clive Waddington: "By 10,000 years ago we are well out of the ‘Ice Age’ and with temperatures getting close to those of today and so Britain was almost certainly ice free by this time. Furthermore, at this time Britain was becoming a verdant landscape with widespread tree cover and we have clear evidence that woodland had developed from climax Post Glacial tundra and birch woodland through to deciduous woodland with not just oak, elm, pine and hazel but even alder as well. This, together with the highly productive seas, would have attracted a multitude of animals, birds and fish and marine mammals. For example Britain has had the largest density of grey seal anywhere in the world and we have found evidence of them at these northern coastal sites dated to 10,000 years ago. Bear in mind there is evidence of human settlement all the way up the Norwegian coast going back several thousand years earlier still. The northern coastline of Britain is therefore quite a good guide for what was happening around the North Sea, but there will of course have been regional variation, however, the main takeaway is that temperatures were warmer than you perhaps think at this time and rich vegetation and plant life inhabited the entire region, as did people." We hope this helps!

[@kubhlaikhan2015]

That's interesting @@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland and yes it is an earlier end to the ice than I had thought. I suppose ice ages don't just stop - there may have been ice free periods before the final melt which is perhaps why I also read that there was not one but several tidal wave events in the geological record. What is your opinion on that? I can imagine a glacial lake forming and bursting several times but its harder to believe in repeated land slides. It seems most people put the final destruction of the Dogger land bridge at about 6200 BC, following a 150 year return to Arctic conditions, but I've seen estimates at least 2000 years earlier and 2000 years later. Does the inundation you are tallking about fit into that picture or would you reject the idea of successive freeze, thaw and flood events?

[@mikeharrington5593]

With all the melting glaciers in Scandinavia & Greenland, what is the chance of a similar event recurring this Century? Have vulnerable locations been identified ?

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Hi Mike, here's a reply from our speaker, Dr Clive Waddington: "I suspect the chances are very low as the amount of additional water and hence sea level rise and over-pressure will not be anything like occurred as a result of the breaching of the Laurentide Lakes ice dam. The build-up of sediment and material and Continental shelf edges is also likely to be much less than was there on the edge of the Norwegian shelf in the Post Glacial. I'm not aware of other vulnerable locations that been identified". We hope that helps!

[@chung5436]

@@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland There is a volcanic island, La Palma, in the Canary Islands that developed, during a 1949 eruption, a 4-km fault scarp. There's a finite probability that a part of the island could split off and slide into the Atlantic. If it does, the resulting tsunami would devastate coastal cities along the eastern edge of North America.

[@icantseethis]

It's crazy to think of all the change that Queen Elizabeth saw in her lifetime, having lived trough all of this.

[@rkerr7258]

Stupid question but in from the isle of Arran and on the maps it shows Arran as part of the mainland. The sea is 60 meters deep 20 meters from the shore, why?

[@ianandjohnandmaniandreni9323]

Sea levels were up to 150 metres ( up to 450ft) lower during the last Ice Age. They rose due to the Younger Dryas events which shattered the Northern Ice Caps and started the unstoppable melting of not only the North American ice caps but the Northern European one to. The mass release of water vapour from the impacts on ice would have started the most severe storms ever seen and continued release of water from the melting ice caps into the seas upset forever the Pacific and Atlantic weather systems. The massive outflow from glaciers covering the UK cut the English Channel before the whole area was permanently flooded to it's present depth.

[@abisu5273]

Does the mesolithic grave site at Paviland in Goat Hole not count as a burial site?

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thanks for the message! Here's a reply from our speaker, Dr Clive Waddington: "The so-called ‘Red Lady of Paviland’ (actually a man) is of Upper Palaeolithic date and much earlier than the Mesolithic period. It is of course certainly a burial site. However, the point being made is that we have very few Mesolithic burials in Britain and so we know very little about how they treated their dead, disposed of the dead and so on. There is the odd occasional burials within a cave, such as at Avaline’s Hole, and recently a handful of examples of Late Mesolithic cremations in pits." We hope this helps!

[@davidwilkie9551]

So the moral of this typical tale of history is to invest in a backup plan in what is feasible, like higher tech Nuclear Batteries.

[@Dadbro_]

Incredible

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

It really is a wild historical event!

[@Stroopwaffe1]

If you look at the sea floor you can see it looks like a vallet scoured into the sea floor by turbidites, i watched a guy called Myron Cook taling aboutthem in his recent upload.

[@illumencouk]

I accept that the Northern seabed shows evidence of great upheaval, the entire region was forced to migrate. The relocation of the Jutes, Angles, etc into first land linked Eastern Britain, and then the Southern corridor before the sea-door finally shut, shows how our 'Island' state emerged over a period of months, years or decades.. These different cultures all record rising sea levels as the cause of the upheaval but the rate of increase is measured in metres per year, not a single cataclysmic pulse like a Tsunami or Landslide would probably produce. Jutland and Doggerland were once populated regions just like York, Paris or Rome were, but their lands slowly sank beneath the waves. The point is the region this stegga slide tsunami was supposed to have occurred in, was inhabited by those already mentioned, so there cannot have been a great body of water at that time. Doggerland

[@edwardbernthal160]

Jutland is still populated. Greetings from Jylland.

[@illumencouk]

@@edwardbernthal160 Good evening, its lovely to hear from someone living there, thanks for commenting. I see you live in modern day Denmark, which geologically speaking lays along a peninsula, a semi-submerged mountain chain which would present extremely steep sided valleys and inlets, a watery rock archipelago. Sounds lovely.

[@SocietyofAntiquariesofScotland]

Thanks for the message! Here's a reply from our speaker, Dr Clive Waddington: "I think there is some confusion here. There are no records whatsoever of the Middle Mesolithic period when the Storegga tsunami occurred or the millennia prior to this when large areas of land in what is now the North Sea became submerged as sea levels rose. Therefore, there is no records of sea levels at this time rising by metres per year. However, the wave cut platforms I referred to do indicate small pulses of sea level rise against a background of steadily rising relative sea level resulting from ice melt and isostatic and eustatic effects. What I snow the North Sea was covered in ice during much of the Pleistocene. As the ice melted this left a large land mass connecting Britain and the Continent in what is now the southern North Sea area and quickly giving wat to sea in the northern part. As sea levels rose in the Post Glacial and early Holocene the land masses and islands created in this gulf started to be submerged and the water body increased until the final strip of land connecting Britain to the Continent that ran from roughly the area of the Wash and north Norfolk over to what is now Holland, and once that had occurred it created a sea and Britain as an island." We hope this helps!

[@susanb4816]

Agga-see not agga-siss, french name. As someone from the area bit of a pet peeve

[@SPierre-dm4wo]

Glad I'm not the only Agassiz local who caught that :)

[@delhog6161]

All the water would not flow out of the lake unless the bottom of the lake is above sea level. Also the ice would not melt suddenly it would release the water slowly over days/weeks. The sea temperature is about the same as the lake temperature.

[@antred11]

Very interesting subject, but the constant uh, uhm, uh ... makes it very hard to listen to.

[@spotthedraco2353]

👍👍SUBSCRIBE 😉

[@ianandjohnandmaniandreni9323]

It's pronounced Haw-ick, like paw, not like how or now.

[@pyrsartur3675]

BP. Can we just stick with what people are used to? I’m always converting from Km to Miles and Meters to feet and now we can’t even stick with BC (before the common era) anymore. BP… stupid!

[@tanler7953]

Let's just go with BM.