A 400,000-year-old prehistoric forest has been discovered beneath the North Sea
Scientists have discovered a hidden prehistoric forest beneath the North Sea, which could revolutionize our understanding of the region’s ancient ecosystem. In particular, researchers found DNA from plants of the genus Pterocarya (the walnut family), which were thought to have disappeared from the area around 400,000 years ago.
According to DailyGalaxy, using ancient DNA analysis, scientists have determined that lush, living forests consisting of oak, elm, and hazel existed on the sunken landscape known as Doggerland more than 16,000 years ago. This is several thousand years earlier than previously thought possible for Northern Europe.
Doggerland once connected Britain to continental Europe, forming a large strip of land before it was submerged by rising sea levels. For a long time, it was viewed primarily as a passageway for early humans moving through the region.
In a new study, scientists analyzed 252 sediment samples collected from 41 marine cores and detected DNA from temperate tree species that existed at least 16,000 years ago. Perhaps most surprisingly, the researchers also detected DNA from Pterocarya species (the walnut family), which were thought to have disappeared from this region 400,000 years ago. This suggests that isolated “micro-refuges” allowed some species to survive much longer than previously anticipated.
Researchers also discovered linden, or Tilia, which appeared approximately 2,000 years earlier than expected on the British mainland. This suggests that the local mild climatic conditions supported more complex ecosystems than previously reported.
Researchers believe that these forested areas may have provided early Mesolithic human populations with food and shelter, which could explain the lack of early human archaeological finds in modern Britain due to the prolonged flooding of the North Sea.
The prosecutor’s officeprevented the destruction of 20 plots of century-old forest near Bukovel.
Also, after nearly five years of legal proceedings, a complex of historic buildings dating from 1830 to 1910, located in the historic part of Podil near Zamkova Hill, was returned to the Kyiv community.
