Lost Continent Revealed in New Reconstruction of Geologic History
Robin George Andrews
National Geographic
"This continent first separated from what is now Spain, southern France, and northern Africa, forming a separate landmass the team has formally dubbed Greater Adria. But as the planet’s rocky plates continued to inexorably jostle about, this continent tumbled down into several subduction zones, Earth’s destructive geological maws."
Did the Vanished Kingdom Foreshadow the EU?
Michael O'Loughlin
The Irish Times
"Lotharingia can be defined as that huge stretch of land, including the Netherlands, Belgium, and large parts of France, Germany and Switzerland, that runs down through the heart of Europe from the North Sea to the Alps. Squeezed between the great states of France and Germany, it long ago ceased to exist, becoming one of Europe’s vanished kingdoms, like the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. But it continues to lead a ghostly afterlife."
Searching for Doggerland
Laura Spinney
National Geographic
"Eighteen thousand years ago, the seas around northern Europe were some 400 feet lower than today. Britain was not an island but the uninhabited northwest corner of Europe, and between it and the rest of the continent stretched frozen tundra. As the world warmed and the ice receded, deer, aurochs, and wild boar headed northward and westward. The hunters followed. Coming off the uplands of what is now continental Europe, they found themselves in a vast, low-lying plain."
"Archaeologists call that vanished plain Doggerland, after the North Sea sandbank and occasional shipping hazard Dogger Bank. Once thought of as a largely uninhabited land bridge between modern-day continental Europe and Britain - a place on the way to somewhere else - Doggerland is now believed to have been settled by Mesolithic people, probably in large numbers, until they were forced out of it thousands of years later by the relentlessly rising sea."
Note - I've decided to adopt the "Unholy Misc" format from Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque (a blog so gothic, even its miscellany is unholy!) This will be an occasional feature, because I don't want to overdo it, but I have always considered inspirational media to have a home on my blog. This first miscellany is devoted to recent (-ish) news about "lost worlds" in Europe.
Been kind of a fan of Doggerland since hearing about it a year or so ago.
ReplyDeleteEvery now and then they dredge up something interesting from that area.
IIRC it's thought that the land flooded very gradually at first but some kind of tsunami type event from a submarine subsidence might have finished it off.
I think the first time I ever heard of Doggerland, it was reading about the effect on Europe if it had never submerged.
Deletehttps://www.abroadintheyard.com/if-doggerland-had-not-drowned/
I'm very drawn to places and things that are both real but that also no longer exist as elements to include in games.
Doggerland could be interesting as a location for a Stone Age game. (Or possibly a Pugmire game? How can you resist the urge to put dog-people there?)
I like to think of Doggerland as the place where cavemen still live and occasionally raid from in Arthurian Britain
ReplyDeleteKing Arthur vs the Cavemen would make a decent scenario for a wargame.
DeleteI love lost lands. My favorite is the "land" that existed millions of years ago when the Mediterranean Sea dried up for a while... then there was a breach at the Straits of Gibraltar and it became a long waterfall that eventually refilled the sea.
ReplyDeleteThat is a wild occurrence, and apparently, it has a wild name - The Messinian Salinity Crisis.
DeleteYou also reminded me of Project Atlantropa, which was an insane Nazi-era plan to dam the Straits and convert the Mediterranean into farmland and new territory for the colonial powers to divvy up.