Program > By speaker > Amkreutz Luc

In recent years both off-shore investigation and on-shore discoveries of finds and human remains have greatly added to our understanding of the Mesolithic occupation of Holocene Doggerland. This area in the current North Sea was a major hunter-gatherer heartland from c. 9000 cal BC, until it drowned some 3000 years later. An important aspect of the mesolithic occupation of this landscape was the fact that it gradually and sometimes rapidly changed. This also led to important changes in the environment and its resources. Recent results, including stable isotope analysis has more and more shed new light on the characteristics of mesolithic occupation as well as on the adaptability of the Doggerland inhabitants to deal with the changes taking place. In this paper I will highlight some of the recent finds and discoveries and discuss the current information on human-environment interaction and the potential of this drowned European heartland for the future study of the Mesolithic.