The North Sea Tsunami: Britain’s Deadliest Disaster

it's the deadliest natural disaster in british history roughly 8 000 years ago a gigantic submarine landslide off the coast of scandinavia triggered a tsunami the likes of which europe had never seen in an instant enough sediment collapsed to bury the whole of scotland to a depth of 8 meters so much water was displaced that it created a vast wave which came crashing into britain at 80 miles per hour reaching up to 40 meters high the water obliterated everything in its path rivers and estuaries were inundated entire coastal communities were just swept away it's estimated that up to a quarter of britain's mesolithic population died making it per capita the deadliest disaster in british history and yet britain wasn't even the worst affected region that honour would go to the now lost area that's been called northern europe's atlantis doggerland a lush low-lying plane connecting britain to the mainland doggerland was the closest the mesolithic world had to in eden but when the tsunami hit it would become ground zero for a catastrophe beyond imagination join us today as we explore both the lost world of dogaland and britain's prehistoric apocalypse picture in your head a map of northern europe you can probably conjure its most famous features with ease denmark poking out at the top of germany scandinavia looking weirdly like some guy's leprosy afflicted genitals and of course britain and ireland floating apart from the rest to finally doing their own thing got that well now we're going to take that map and move it back in time all the way back to the end of the last ice age the northern europe you'd see back then would look completely different during the last ice age europe's sea level was a staggering 122 meters lower instead of a separate britain and ireland you just had one gigantic clump of land attached to the rest of europe by a swath of desolate scrub-filled tundra this tundra was essentially uninhabited until that is the world began warming as the ice sheets slowly retreated prehistoric humans pushed north following the wild animals to their presumed surprise they soon found themselves in an ancient paradise where the tundra had once stood now lay a vast low plane teeming with life in this warming world one slightly warmer than today there would have been forests lakes valleys lagoons meadows estuaries wild berries grew in abundance alongside hazelnuts and other foods that were perfect for foraging animals grazed along the shorelines while the waters teamed with fish today we call this lost world land but for mesolithic europeans it probably had a different name for around 100 000 ancient humans it was simply known as home not that the migration stopped at dogoland just as the plane became home to scattered settlements so too did the island of britain of course it wasn't actually an island then even as the melting ice sheets slowly revealed its modern contours for thousands more years britain would be attached to europe via doggerland no more separate than italy is today but whether the migrants settled on the plane or in britain itself one thing is certain for these hunter-gatherers it would have been a time of plenty compared to our mental images of the stone age as a time when dudes lived in caves and hit each other on the head with clubs life in this ancient land would have been surprisingly sophisticated people likely lived in semi-permanent camps of perhaps ten to a few dozen people keeping to the shores and estuaries and the fallen winter and heading inland to hunt during the summer these camps would be moved and rebuilt as needed allowing for a near-nomadic lifestyle but nomadic doesn't mean unadvanced we have evidence of boat building tool making and even the construction of ancient wooden slipways and this last one is important as it suggests mesolithic britons and dogolanders spend more time cooperating than they did fighting over who had the best lawn cloth evidence has even been uncovered of annual social events when all the region's tribes would gather often on low cliffs overlooking ceiling grounds aside from an excuse to hold the stone age equivalent of glastonbury festival these gatherings would have also allowed the young to find mates they would have likely been storytelling too with no written language these bygone cultures would have had oral traditions telling a whole cycle of now lost stories about their forgotten gods in short this was a vibrant world with complex societies interacting over hundreds of kilometers sadly it would be these humans that bore the brunt of the coming disaster even before the tsunami struck there were signs that this whole warming world thing was changing dogaland's fortunes a few millennia before most of the northern hemisphere had been buried under ice including canada and america now as that ice thought those places were experiencing dramatic changes over in the modern u.s so much meltwater came off the glaciers that it formed a gigantic lake known as lake agassiz in fact the world gigantic doesn't really do it justice lake hacker seas was bigger than all of today's great lakes combined closer in size to the black sea than lake superior when it finally burst its banks the whole world knew about it around 6200 bc blake haggar sees sent all of its water flooding out into the north atlantic over in ancient europe this sudden influx of water caused the sea level to noticeably rise and with that rise came some dramatic changes see lake agassiz disrupted the atlantic circulation of warm water causing temperatures to drop for doggerland that meant a one-two punch of vanishing coastline and sudden cold winds pummeling its shores there is always a land no longer such a paradise one where fertile land was replaced by marshes and jagged coastline as dogoland shrank so too did britain's physical connection to mainland europe within maybe a century all that remained was a narrow land bridge and a scattering of low-lying swampy islands yet this wasn't the end of the region while the changes were bad for some it allowed others to thrive those who transitioned to a life ever more based around fishing and boat building for some the changes were probably beneficial sadly rising sea levels weren't the only changes the retreating glaciers were producing off the coasts of modern norway shifts were underway that would soon spell doom for mesolithic britain far beneath the seabed huge chambers of long frozen methane were beginning to thaw this methane had been frozen solid during the ice age but the warming world turned it back into a gas since it was still trapped underground this transformation was hugely destabilizing for norway's continental shelf unfortunately even as things grew less stable underground they became shaky above ground too as the glaciers once covering scandinavia retreated they'd taken untold cubic kilometers of ice with them since ice is really really heavy this meant the ground above norway was suddenly no longer being pressed down on just as gas started bubbling up like crazy below it today scientists believe this combination led to major earthquakes and at some point in 6200 bc the biggest earthquake yet struck the sterego slide remains the third biggest known submarine slide in history over just a few hours nearly 300 kilometers of continental shelf collapsed displacing 3 000 cubic kilometers of debris had a slip this size somehow happened on land it would have been enough to bury the whole of scotland underwater though it instead displaced an unimaginable out of sea water as we saw with the indian ocean in 2004 and japan in 2011 such displaced sea water doesn't just make a bit of a splash and then resettle on the surface it creates a wave a rushing powerful overwhelming wall of water that radiates out in all directions sweeping across the oceans until it finally crashes up against land in tsunami-prone cultures like japan these waves happen often enough that the natives tried to prepare for them even in ancient times but europe isn't a place regularly exposed to tsunamis at the moment the sterega slide sent its annihilating wave shooting out across the water it's unlikely anyone in britain or dogoland had any idea that the sea was capable of such a thing if that's the case they were in for a rude awakening although no one could have known it at the time britain was about to experience the deadliest day in its entire history [Music] the key thing that made the north sea tsunami so deadly is the time of year it occurred thanks to ancient fruit stones discovered in the layers of sediment it left behind we know the tsunami must have landed in autumn the most likely estimate is around late october this was a problem because autumn was when mesolithic peoples returned from their summers hunting on higher ground to settle in beside the coast for winter although britain's population is thought to have been a mere 50 000 at this time nearly all of them were concentrated in coastal areas most of which were on the east coast aka exactly where a giant killer wave was about to hit in dogoland it was even worse nearly entirely low-lying doggerland was like the netherlands without its sea walls flood defenses or excellent cheese a flat space a spilled pint of beer could probably inundate this meant most of its inhabitants stood a roughly zero chance of surviving what came next obviously since there were no written records at this time we don't know exactly what the catastrophe looked like but we can guess if it occurred in the daytime there were likely primitive boats just offshore fires burning outside stone age tents maybe people were working maybe they were playing or eating or in the middle of some ritual maybe neighbors were simply sat together gossiping while they kept one eye on their children whatever the truth there's no ambiguity about what came next up in the shetland islands off scotland's northern tip these mesolithic hunter-gatherers would have all fallen silent stopped what they were doing as the sea mysteriously vanished in an instant the waters would have retreated pulling far far back exposing sure that likely hadn't seen daylight since lake agassiz came pouring into the atlantic today most of us know that this is nature's way of telling you to run like hell but no one in mesolithic britain could have known this they likely just watched puzzled maybe scared as the sea did something they'd never seen it do before somewhere between a few seconds and a few minutes later the horror began a wave up to 40 meters high came crashing in at a speed of 35 meters per second at such speeds water feels less like how you'd expect it to feel and more like a moving churning boiling wall of concrete those on the shore may have just had enough time to realize they were dead before it struck sweeping entire coastal communities away after that it was the rest of britain's turn mainland scotland was next to be hit with a 20-meter wave crashing into its east coast estuaries and rivers helped funnel the devastation and land wiping out fishing communities that were a whole day's travel from the sea evidence from the fourth river shows the waters might have cascaded over 30 kilometers into the interior causing devastation the entire way this was a pattern that repeated over and over as the wave reached modern england valleys filled with water estuaries were inundated marshlands flooded but the worst was reserved for doggerland being the geographical equivalent of a flat table top bulldoggerland didn't stand a chance the wave simply washed over it drowning everything in its path of dogoland's estimated population of a hundred thousand it's unknown how many could have possibly survived overall the wave innovated nearly seven thousand square kilometers of britain equivalent to the whole of delaware sinking beneath the waves sadly this was just the warm-up act over the next few hours two more powerful tsunamis crashed into the devastated coastal communities killing who knows how many ancient first responders by the time the last wave ended its path of destruction east britain and dogoland had been devastated our best estimate suggests that around 12 000 people lost their lives in britain with untold moore dying in dogoland even today this grim tally would make it one of the deadliest natural disasters to ever strike britain adjusted for population it stands second to none only the black death in the 14th century killed a larger percentage of britons and still the tsunami's effects weren't over in fact its victims would be living with them for centuries to come [Music] generally when a large-scale disaster strikes the modern world there are agencies like fema on standby to stop the aftermath becoming even worse than the actual cataclysm of course this doesn't always pan out as anyone living in new orleans in 2005 could tell you but there's usually at least an attempt at disaster relief an effort to alleviate suffering sadly the mesolithic world didn't work like this after the trio of tsunamis had battered them senseless the prehistoric britons were left to fend for themselves not only did they have to deal with a death toll unlike anything they'd ever seen but also the loss of everything that had held dear camps would have been swept away along with any food the inhabitants had stored for winter tools too would have been lost and it's not very likely they could just pop down to the nearest store to pick up a new set vital fishing boats would have been destroyed many of the community's hunters might have been dead or injured and perhaps even entire oral histories were lost when the older folk drowned creatures living in the coastal waters would have been badly impacted too destroying the most immediate source of food these devastated communities had in short surviving may have been worse than dying and it's now thought many of the initial survivors died from the after-effects during the winter but even those who made it through to spring weren't out of the woods in denmark there's some archaeological evidence that communities hit by the tsunami turned to warfare in the aftermath to win enough resources to survive it's possible if not likely that something similar happened in britain and doggerland if it did then the first few years after the catastrophe were likely so grim they'd make 2020 look like a year of candy floss and unicorns it's interesting to imagine how it must have felt to live through these desperate times how it must have felt to have your perspective so fundamentally altered the sea going from a benign source of food to a tyrant god capable of devouring your entire world in the chinese sci-fi trilogy the three-body problem there's a character who becomes terrified of the sun unable to even go outside in daytime after he discovers its sheer destructive potential who knows if these long forgotten humans came to feel the same way about the ocean in the end it's thought that britain's population took several centuries to recover to give you some perspective a quarter of britain's dying would have been equivalent to about 16 and a half million people being wiped out today but life goes on and recover people did even dogoland recovered at least for a while for a long time it was thought that the storegat tsunami marked the moment dogoland vanished forever beneath the waves but nowadays it's thought the land survived the catastrophe its landscape altered but not annihilated however it couldn't survive what was to come next as the glaciers continued to melt and the sea levels kept on rising dogaland at last became uninhabitable as the waters rushed over its surface cutting britain off from europe forever its desperate people migrated on mass to the island there's even a theory that it was the descendants of the dogolanders who settled orkney off the coast of scotland and built the great stone age structures there around 5 500 bc the last traces of dogoland sank for good by then all memories of the gigantic wave that caused so much chaos probably faded away it had been a one-off event a freak accident that had killed many but was far from a regular occurrence or was it given how destructive the north sea tsunami was scientists today are struggling to answer a chilling question could it happen again if you live in britain your experience with tsunamis is probably relegated solely to news reports from other nations despite being surrounded by water britain rarely suffers from the ocean in the same way that japan does sure occasionally some massive storms might brew up and wash away a load of coastal roads and rail tracks has happened during the winter of 2013 but by and large the chances of watching your house gaily sailing away atop a wave up roughly zero or so we brits like to believe however go digging into the historical record and you'll find more waves than you might expect the greatest of these was likely the one that hit the bristol channel in early 1607 or late 1606 under the old julian calendar on january 30th floodwaters suddenly swept up the channel from the atlantic drowning entire villages and washing away herds of livestock the inundation killed around 2000 people and left its mark on churches and old stone bridges across the region but while a tsunami is suspected as being the cause a storm surge can't be ruled out things are more certain where the cornwall tsunami is concerned in 1755 an offshore earthquake leveled the portuguese city of lisbon while also sending tsunami waves shooting out in all directions one of these impacted southern cornwall while no one actually counted the number killed it was declared that there was great loss of life so tsunamis and britain while rarely seen together are not total strangers but there are two other tsunamis in britain's geological record and frighteningly they hit exactly where the north sea tsunami did around 3000 bc and then again in 500 a.d shetland was hit by two tsunamis at least 12 meters high in each case what caused them is a bit of a mystery but it does seem to show killer waves devastating scotland and not quite rare enough that being said the chances of a tsunami battering britain in your lifetime are extremely small almost unimaginably so but and this is a big but that's not the same thing as those chances being zero thanks to climate change there are currently processes taking place beneath the north sea that could potentially spell destruction as in the run-up to the sterega slide trapped methane in places like greenland could well be melting even as local glaciers retreat as the 21st century grinds on we may find the combination triggers earthquakes leading to submarine landslides while these slips would almost certainly be too small to cause many noticeable effects there is an outside chance that a stergasized event could happen again if it does all bets are off where this new slip to take place near svalbard or greenland it could send a cascade of water hurtling towards scotland unseen since that fateful autumn day eight thousand years ago waves taller than 10 meters could come crashing into edinburgh and newcastle causing destruction on a massive scale bridges would be swept away cars would be picked up and carried like toys fires would break out smaller buildings would crumble and break and everywhere people would be caught up in the water's embrace killed as surely as if they'd stepped in front of a freight train if you've ever watched the footage of the japanese tsunami sweeping inland you'll know what horrors to expect the slow-moving wall of death the flood that obliterates roads and rail tracks the untold numbers dying thankfully though this nightmare scenario remains purely hypothetical while the san andreas fault or the cascadia earthquake will certainly unleash chaos at some point in the next century or two the next great north sea tsunami may never come it could be that another 8 000 years from now our distant descendants are still waiting for that next great wave but that won't change the fact that the real disaster already happened eight millennia ago the peoples of two regions were forced to watch as everything they held dear was destroyed it was a cataclysm on par with anything in modern history the titanic 911 the 1906 san francisco earthquake they all pale compared to this ancient catastrophe the main difference is that we were able to record those other tragedies to write articles and make videos to record our stories so the disaster wouldn't be forgotten in the case of the north sea tsunami no such records existed nothing survived to tell us how it felt to be those ancient hunters watching their world crumble around them nothing but a layer of sediment in the geological record waiting patiently for someone to decode something that finally happened in our lifetimes now at long last the story of that bygone tsunami's victims can be told their forgotten suffering finally understood so i'm not going to ask whether you enjoyed that video but i do hope you found it interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe and thank you for watching

Channel: Geographics

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Id: QrEn666Q1mE

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020