The Storegga slide : A stone age Apocalypse

The Storegga slide would have seemed like the end of the world for many mesolithic populations living in the British isles. Discover how a domino effect of climate change, melting ice, and rising water levels resulted in an apocalyptic event that transformed Britain forever.

Source:
Waddington, C. (2015) “A case for a secondary Mesolithic colonisation of Britain after rapid inundation of the North Sea plain” In N. Ashton, C. Harris (ed.) No Stone Unturned. Papers in Honour of Roger Jacobi. Lithic Studies Society, (pp.221-232)

Waddinton, C. and Wicks, K. (2017) “Resilience or wipe out? Evaluating the convergent impacts of the 8.2ka event and Storegga tsunami on the Mesolithic of northeast Britain”, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 14,Pages 692-714.

[leah]

Wonderful history lesson. Thank you so much for your knowledge sharing

[joshuaconnelly]

Fascinating lecture! I had no knowledge of this event, but as always, Alex Iles makes the topic accessible and relevant.

[Acadian]

Wondering how the hige amount of fresh water effected the oceans livestock. Is it possible that this was another reason why people possibly started to live more inland as well, a lack of fish due to a sudden increase of fresh water and change of water temperature causing people to begin hunting more than fishing?

[martins]

This is a very in depth and well made video, thank you for this.

[scarletpimpernel]

Great description and analysis. Thank you.

This has gotten me curious enough to research other major worldwide 'submarine slides'-one is the 'Alika Slide' on Mauna Loa, of approximately 110 ka, with claims of a run-up of 400+ m (on Lanai?). Hard to believe, but, of the marine fossil deposits, the boffins remark:

"Given rates of subsidence on Hawaii, this would place the deposit at an original palaeo-altitude up to 491 m. "

That would really seem quite extraordinary. (See 'The Hawaiian megatsunami of 110 +/- 10 ka: the use of microfossils in detection'.)

[nixonsmateruby]

I live in Newcastle and I found a Tsunami sculpture that must be from that. Its astonishing and obviously must be priceless. Any archeologist is welcome to see it.

[steenrumbenak]

Tell me why research say that it was up till 40 meters in Norway and Faroe Islands?

[klkw]

There are varied theories on why the world went through the climate changes, during the time you are discussing. Possibly other geothermic and comet/meteorite events, scientists aren't 100% on all that, it could even be a combination of factors

[gregwilvert]

Thanks so much for the fascinating video. Maybe I missed it, but where exactly are you in this video?

[wilsontheconqueror]

Wow! Wasn't aware of that. Can you imagine seeing those sunami!?

[eleanorsopwith]

Remember it well when I was a nipper. Lol

[dtikvxcdgjbv]

Yeah, it was human-caused global warming that melted the Canadian ice shield. 😂
Mesolithic fireplaces in caves produced too much CO2 and freon that damaged the ozone layer. 😂
Cavemen should have eaten the bugs instead 😂😂😂