Background:

Doggerland was lost to sea level rise during the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene. It is the largest submerged landscape in Europe and best understood, in terms of palaeogeography and environment, in the world. However, our knowledge of the nature of prehistoric settlement within this inaccessible landscape is extremely limited. Advances in archaeological prospection mean that just as targeted analyses of this unique landscape become viable, the unexplored prehistoric archaeology of Doggerland is facing significant risk from the development of windfarms in the southern North Sea. Offshore windfarms will expand significantly over the next decades as coastal nations adopt clean-energy infrastructures. Such initiatives are a welcome response to climate change, and the UK aims to quadruple offshore wind capacity, powering all UK homes by 2030 in a bid to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The scale and rapidity of this development within the southern North Sea is unprecedented, and its impact on Europe's largest and best-preserved prehistoric landscape, Doggerland, will be substantial.

Within the last twenty years, globally innovative, UK research has begun to reveal the vast prehistoric landscape beneath the North Sea that was lost to sea level rise after the last glacial. Doggerland is the first, and only landscape of its kind, where research has achieved the position that archaeological investigation is now feasible. There remain, however, significant gaps in our knowledge. Whilst we know much about the physical landscape of Doggerland, its rivers, lakes and valleys, no evidence for settlement or in situ activity is known from the offshore zone of the North Sea, and our understanding of the communities who lived there is little better than that of the pioneers of our discipline over a century ago. Ultimately, the most significant staging ground for the last hunter-gatherers of Northwest Europe is, outside of disparate chance finds, unaccounted for.

Consequently, it is questionable whether adequate curatorial protocols exist nationally, or internationally, to fully mitigate the impact that development will have on this exceptional national resource. If immediate action is not taken, we risk damaging or destroying unique and unrecorded archaeological resources. Moreover, access to explore this incredibly rich and unique heritage will be significantly limited or lost following development. Academics, developers and curators must work together to devise mitigation strategies that assist green development and provide critical cultural information before the opportunity for exploration of Doggerland is lost.

Our knowledge of the physical landscape of Doggerland is relatively well developed and suggests that it was once the most resource-rich and ecologically dynamic landscape available to postglacial hunter-gatherers in North West Europe. Archaeologically, however, our knowledge is limited to chance finds recovered through fishing or dredging. Although this evidence suggests the region possesses a uniquely rich archaeological dataset and has the potential to transform our knowledge of life in Europe after the last ice-age, the offshore zone (> 12 nautical miles from the coast) lacks any evidence at all of stratified, in situ remains, or evidence for settlement.

This situation persists despite previous development-led exploration within the North Sea and it is clear that satisfactory curatorial protocols do not exist at national levels to mitigate the impact of development on this unique resource. Conventional means of archaeological prospection used in terrestrial or shallow-water surveys are not viable for deeper offshore waters. However, extensive, detailed mapping of Doggerland allows us to determine where accessible prehistoric land surfaces exist, where settlement or activity areas may be located, and where targeted archaeological prospection may be carried out with success. Recent research has identified two such areas. The first is the estuary of the submarine, Southern River, off the East Anglian Coast, the second is the Brown Bank, equidistant between the UK and Belgium. Both of these sites are associated with significant prehistoric finds and are accessible to investigation. Using high-resolution geophysics, autonomous vehicle survey, high-resolution vibracoring, grab sampling, and surface dredging, the project will recover archaeological, environmental and sedimentological data, and provide the first evidence for in-situ, deep-water archaeological settlement. This information, supported by the extensive landscape data derived from seismic mapping, will be used to generate models identifying areas of the North Sea that have greatest potential to provide settlement evidence. Within development zones, where future access will be limited, mitigation activities will be informed using data, developed during the project, indicating areas that are both accessible and likely to provide evidence of human activity.

Taken at the Flood

Taken at the Flood, AHRC project will provide an opportunity for UK and European academics to work with national curators and developers through a network established by the project. This partnership will disseminate the experience gained from survey on the Brown Bank and Southern River and provide the evidence we require both to understand and protect the exceptional archaeological resource contained within the North Sea, and to support the UK's national green energy strategy.

This project will work with heritage professionals and industrial partners to develop alternative strategies. Along with directed fieldwork, it will utilise the extensive legacy data sets available in the southern North Sea, to test models that can determine where accessible prehistoric land surfaces exist across Doggerland, where settlement or activity areas may be located, and where targeted archaeological prospection may be carried out in advance of development. The project will support green policies and provide a template for action that other nations may follow. Project objectives are to:

· Eliminate the lacuna of prehistoric settlement in the area of the southern North Sea by explicitly targeting areas of in situ archaeological significance using methods that may be developed for use in other areas of Europe and further afield.

· generate academic impact across multiple disciplines including archaeology and heritage management, geosciences and palaeoenvironmental research, contemporary climate challenges and sea-level change.

· inform public policy and national responses to climate impacts, and support commercial groups implementing green energy policies and sustainable marine development.

· Position the UK as a leader in the field of submerged landscape archaeology be guiding cultural heritage strategy behind industry development processes in marine environments.

· To answer questions of colonisation, migration and adaptation, and ultimately the globalisation of the human species.

· Support the development of a green energy infrastructure framework that integrates legal protection for submerged prehistoric heritage in UK waters beyond the 12 nautical miles from the coast.

Taken at the Flood will provide a methodology to evaluate the nature and significance of the archaeological remains in the deeper waters of the North Sea. It will establish a dialogue between researchers, heritage specialists and developers to attain a balanced approach to managing submerged heritage, while supporting key green-energy infrastructure development and raising the profile of these matters among the wider public. Finally, the project will provide examples of best practice for countries seeking to develop the energy potential of coastal shelves around the world, and where curators are facing similar challenges to their submerged heritage.