The impact of the Storegga Slide tsunami on the Mesolithic population of Britain
Published 2024-02-14
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.
All Comments (21)
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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.
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Excellent presentation - thank you for posting.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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Absolutely fascinating, this was just the thing to prove I still have a couple of brain cells working! Thank you.
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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!
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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.
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Absolutely fascinating, thank you.
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An excellent lecture put across in a very accessible manner to highlight such an interesting story.
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Deeply enjoyed this erudite yet concise and informative lecture. A fascinating dive into deep (pre)history.
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Another piece in the puzzle, thanks
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I've just discovered your channel!! It's amazing!!
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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.
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This terrifies me. Imagine something like this happening again.
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Thanks for posting
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Nice presentation and a revelation for me. Very different from most other such YouTube efforts. Congratulations !
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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.
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It's crazy to think of all the change that Queen Elizabeth saw in her lifetime, having lived trough all of this.
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Very interesting, thank you.
