7 Things You Didn’t Know About Prehistoric Europe

As the word “prehistoric” suggests, things have been happening long before we humans started to record and share our stories, legends, and cheesecake recipes through time. You see, since it all happened before the early humans could write stuff down, it’s pretty much lost. But thanks to the uncanny efforts of our awesome archaeologists, we now know quite a bit about the prehistoric world. And, boy, does it have a few surprises!

Here are 7 things you didn’t know about prehistoric Europe!

1. Early Humans in Europe
When do you think humans got to Europe from Africa? Taking into account that the earliest stone tools and bones found in Africa were 2.5-ish million years old, and the fact that the first Homo Sapiens developed around 200,000 years ago, it sounds kinda crazy that the first people reached Europe only 37,000 years ago. Their remnants were found in a cave in Romania of all places.

2. Doggerland
The history of Doggerland is quite fascinating. Known also as the British Atlantis, this scrap of land between modern day England and Denmark is now completely under the sea. There’s nothing mystical about why it sunk, the ice caps melted around 6300 BC, making the sea levels rise by 400, and the poor Doggerland with all its mammoths and Neanderthals was one of the victims. Till this day fishermen pull up mammoth fossils, harpoons made of antlers, and other stuff dated to about 11,000 BC. One time, they brought up a 40,000 year-old Neanderthal skull piece!

3. The Storegga Slide
Around 8-9,000 years ago a huge natural disaster hit Europe. Caused by a massive earthquake, an enormous landslide of apocalyptic proportions broke off from Europe’s continental shelf, causing 80-feet-high tsunami waves rolling in the general direction of the present day British Isles, Norway, Netherlands, Greenland and whatever was left of the Doggerland at that time.