The Last Humans To Roam Doggerland

This is a cheesy man, but this is Cheddaman. He was found in Cheddar Gorge in southwest Britain in 1903, but lived about 10,000 years ago during a time period called the Mesolithic, where humans, at least in Western Europe, were living as hunter gatherers still. He's probably the most famous ancient human to ever be found in Britain. However, when Cheddaman was alive, the island of Britain didn't really exist.

Britain was connected to the continent of Europe by this now lost landmass we [music] call doggand was a world of meandering rivers and ancient trees pine hazel and oak lined the banks of [music] streams and giant rivers at this point in time the tens the rine the sen the muse and the shelt all drained into what we call the channel river an enormous tidal waterway splitting dog land in half it's incredible imagining famous landmarks like the white cliffs of over. Not being on the coastline as such, but being on the edge of this huge plane bordering this massive river. It's always great to imagine a natural feature so differently. Shows you how much time has passed.

However, this was a world living on borrowed time. 10,000 years ago, when Cheddaman called this area home, sea level was rising 70 cm every century. And in a couple of thousand years, Dogland would sink beneath the waves. Still, thanks to modern archaeology, we can get a glimpse into these last few people that ever roamed Dogland.

What were they building and hunting? What art were they creating? How can modern science find where they live? And what happened at the very end of Dogland?

[music] In 1931, the fishing vessel Kinda was fishing off the coast of Norfolk when they noticed a lump of Pete had been [music] brought up with their nets. The captain, a chap called Pilgrim Lockwood, fantastic [music] name, smacked the lump and heard a ring. He thought he had hit a lump of metal, but what he actually found was this. Look at this thing.

This is an absolute beast of a harpoon, 22 cm long, made of antler. It's an absolutely beautiful artifact. This was the first tangible piece of evidence that uh the North Sea had once been home to prehistoric people. There had been other clues before, you know, sunken forests had been found, but this was the ...