The Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor

The Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor 

Question; 

"The Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor"; that's a cool title! What's it about?

Answer;

Well, I've been trying to prove that Neolithic people walked from Scotland to Orkney,  but it's easier to demonstrate that they walked from Holland to Norfolk, and if I can do that, the idea that people must have had boats to get from Caithness to Orkney becomes less credible. 

Question; 

At the moment it is believed that Neolithic people came to Britain in boats. So, what is the current understanding of Neolithic movement of people around Britain's shores?

Answer;   

In "Sheridan, A. 2010. The Neolithization of Britain andIreland: The ‘Big Picture’. In B. Finlayson & G. Warren(eds), Landscapes in Transition, the authors suggest the routes of several sea lanes from coastal France to the coasts of Britain at this period, based on pottery typologies etc.

Question; 

When did Neolithic people arrive in Britain? 

Answer;  

In "ScARF Summary Neolithic Report" by Kenny Brophy & Alison Sheridan (editors) it is generally accepted that the arrival of Neolithic "lifeways" to Britain occurred "some time between 4300 BC and 4000 BC" . There are also outliers in Ireland from earlier in the 5th millennium BC. 

Question; 

What is the most likely route that might have been walkable land between Britain and Europe. 

 

Answer; 

The bathymetry map above indicates a broad area of shallow water joining Lincolnshire, and Norfolk, in England to Holland. Elsewhere, to the south of this region deep water gullies would have prevented any pedestrian travel.

Question; 

So. What evidence is there that there may have been land here at level that would have been walkable by Neolithic people? 

Answer;  

There is a group of features called the Norfolk Banks featured on the map below, off the Norfolk coast, that i will demonstrate to be evidence of land crossing between Norfolk and Holland at a time when nomadic neolithic people were migrating into England from Holland. 

 

Below is a detailed chart of the Norfolk Banks, with their location shown.

 

The location of this section of the Norfolk Banks, (fig. 122), is indicated on the above plan.

Question; 

So, what is significant about the Norfolk Banks? 

Answer; 

The main features that can be seen in the plan and section are as follows 

1- the high ridges of these banks are parallel to each other. 

2- the ridges rest on a flat surface which is about 35 metres below sea level here.

3- the ridges are also parallel to Bathymetric lows, gullies that are also linear, and run immediately beside the ridges. These gullies are cut into the flat surface upon which the ridges rest.

4- the gullies lead off in a southeastern direction, attaching to , and becoming part of the Lobourg Channel, a deep water channel in the middle of the Dover Strait. 

5- the Norfolk Banks have not moved in the last 100 years, and are unlikely to have ever moved. ( See appendix)

6-at nearly 2 kilometres wide these features are massive. 

Question; 

What have the Norfolk Banks to do with walkable land in Neolithic times between Norfolk and Holland? 

Answer.  

My assumption is that the peaks of these ridges were once part of a land surface that joined Holland to East Anglia. Subsequent sea level rise here has partially removed seabed sediments, leaving these ridge Formations, the Norfolk Banks. 

Question; 

You mentioned the Lobourg Channel. What's that?

Answer; 

The Lobourg Channel is a deep gully in the floor of the Dover Strait. It connects with the Norfolk Banks at the North and with similar features in the floor of the English Channel between Dover and Southampton. 

The gullies between the banks of the Norfolk Banks are continuous with the gullies in the Dover Strait, the Lobourg Channel and also with gullies in the English Channel. 

 

This is a Bathymetric image of the Dover Strait, and the Lobourg Channel . The dark blue demonstrates how deep the channel is.

 

The Bathymetric map here charts a group of gullies in the English Channel south and west of the Lobourg Channel. 

....and this is a section across one of the gullies, section G G' , showing that it was largely cut at about 21,200BP.

Question; 

So am I suggesting that the all the gullies in the English Channel, including those of the Norfolk Banks date from 21,200BP?

Answer;  

Yes, I am saying that this group of gullies represents the southern limit of the ice sheet over Britain that melted at that date. This southern edge seems likely to have followed the middle of the English Channel along to Southampton where it heads off across southern England towards Bristol. 

Question; 

Are there any of these gullies on land?

Answer; 

Yes, here are some of these valleys on the tops of the chalk South Downs of Kent. 

There is ample evidence elsewhere to confirm that these structures were formed in the deglaciation periods of ice ages , in some places over several glacial events.

Question; 

What caused the gullies?

Answer; 

The gullies were formed by the impact of ice blocks at the edge of an ice sheet falling onto a ground surface from a great height. The height of the fall could be from just 50 metres to over a kilometre up, causing impacts equivalent to the explosion of megatons of TNT in some places. 

Linear edge collapses caused linear valleys, and these are present across the British Isles, the North Sea, Norway, and southern Europe. 

The ice sheet itself was static in southern England and southern Ireland, and could be up to 250 metres thick on lowland Britain. 

As the warm air from the Atlantic flowed over Britain and Europe at the end of the ice age, the edges retreated at speed , collapsing onto the local geology and causing the gullies to form. The rate of collapse slowed in winter, leaving ridges between valleys that are parallel to each other.

It appears that the parallel valleys that formed were an annual event through the deglaciation period, causing huge volumes of meltwater to raise surrounding local sea levels round the British shoreline. 

The type site for this landscape feature (the first area that i identified) below, is the Black Mountain Parallel Valley Array, in west Herefordshire. Moreover, there are hundreds of identifiable valleys across Britain and the North Sea that are recognisable as caused in this way.

 

Question; 

But the scientists who study glacial Britain say that the ice sheet did not extend as far south as the English Channel. How do you explain that?

Answer; 

Glaciologists are mistaking impact valleys like the Black Mountain Parallel Valley Array , for valleys that would have contained glaciers that ground out the shape of the valley as they moved down stream. 

In reality, though, when the ice sheets over these valleys fell they cut deep linear valleys, and in the floors of those valleys there formed a pile of ice and broken stones at the foot of the ice cliff that had been created by the fall. 

This pile of broken ice, broken rocks, and meltwater sludge slid along , down any available slope until it reached water, where it melted dumping it's contents at the water's edge. 

These dumps are mistakenly interpreted as sea ice termini, or terminal moraines. 

In fact though, it is true that they are terminal moraines, but they terminate the progress of fast moving piles of ice and rock, not the movement of an ice sheet.

 

The figure above shows currently understood (in academia) ice limits.

Some of these impact valleys will have been cut out and recut over hundreds of thousands of years, and the most obvious major examples include; the Bristol Channel, the River Severn, the River Trent, the North Channel of the Irish Sea, the Pentland Firth, and the Minches between Scotland and the Outer Hebrides. 

 

 

Question; 

Where did the snow lay, and how thick was it? 

Answer;  

The chart of the southern North Sea, above, indicates a plausible sketch of contours for the likely depth of ice as it lay on the Dover Strait, and southern North Sea before 21,200BP.

The contours are for 100, 50, and for 5 metres of ice depth.

The actual weight of ice on the 100 metre contour line would have been 100 tons per square metre. The weight of ice on the 50 metre contour would have been 50 tonnes per square metre, and the 5 metre contour, 5 tonnes per square metre.

The effect of the kilometre thick ice on the mountains of northern England and Scotland, was to compress those rocks into the earth’s mantle. Further south though, the effect of the albeit thinner ice was to compress the underlying sediments.  

The sediments in southern England, often in low-lying areas , were the result of previous glacial events, possibly millions of years old. This compression of these sediments squeezed out all the air and water held in them, causing a condition which geologists describe as "overconsolidated". From personal experience I can say that this overconsolidated material is as hard as hell!.

This means that sediments against the Norfolk coast would have been a rock hard material, while the sediment under the areas closest to the Dutch coastline would have remained relatively a great deal softer, a condition sometimes described in BGS Lexicon of Named Rock Units, and other sources, as "soft to firm".

 

Question; 

So, are you suggesting that this area of land was present across from Norfolk to Holland after the ice sheets retreated?

Answer; 

Yes.

Question; 

Do you want to call it something? 

Answer; 

OK, how about the Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor? 

Question; 

Well, what happened next?

Answer; 

After 21,000BP the surface of Britain thawed. The tree line moved north as the ice sheet retreated. By about 15,000BP the ice sheets were mainly restricted to the Highlands of England and Scotland, and the Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor permitted the prpogation of herbs and trees to move north across the whole of the country.

At 7000BC the British Isles were forested, and in Orkney "A charred hazel nutshell from the mound at Long Howe produced a radiocarbon date (SUERC-15587 7900±35 BP 7030–6640 cal bc 95% confidence)." Also in Orkney there were Willow, Birch, Heather, hawthorn, Pignut. Plum/Cherry charcoal scraps present in the hearths of people living in the late 4th millennium BC. 

Herbivores, followed the plant life, while carnivores followed the herbivores.

Those animals that are known to have made this journey and to have visited Britain in around 5000BC, are recorded in "The Mesolithic mammal fauna of Great Britain", by Maroo and Yalden.

 

Question; 

Which animal species are known to have reached Orkney? 

Answer; 

Animal bones radiocarbon dated to the Neolithic period in Orkney include:-- sheep, wild pig, auroch, Red Deer, possible wolf, dog, pine marten, wood mouse, and Orkney Vole. 

Question;

So, how did people migrate north after the end of the ice age?

Answer; 

In "New evidence on the earliest domesticated animals and possible small‑scale husbandry in Atlantic NW Europe" by Philippe Crombé et al, the authors provide evidence that people in Neolithic Europe were developing forms of agriculture, including herding or shepherding of domesticated animals into the late 5th millennium BC. (See Conclusions to article in appendix).

Question; 

Are you suggesting that the Swifterbant peoples whose territory is depicted in the plan above from Crombe's report, also occupied part of the Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor? 

Answer; 

It seems quite likely, doesn't it?

The growth of herder communities in Northern Europe, described above neatly merges, in timescale, with the plan of Neolithic movement in Britain in the 4th millennium BC, as outlined by Alasdair Whittle , in "Whittle, A., Bayliss, A. & Healy, F. 2011. Gathering Time:Dating the early Neolithic enclosures of southern Britainand Ireland." See image below...

 

Crombe dates the presence of people in the Swifterbant as follows:- "It was the start of a totally new lifeway which probably would culminate into a fully agrarian society in the course of the second half of the 5th millennium cal BC, around 4000 cal BC at the latest."

He also suggests that the Neolithic people who crossed from northern Europe to south east England were animal herders, and the presence of both sheep and dogs in Neolithic Orkney rather confirms that theory. In his discussion he also offers that there was a transition away from hunter-gatherer behaviour occurring, but this not borne out by the evidence from the middens of the Knap of Howar in Orkney where it is clear from animal bones, bird bones, and molluscs found in them that the people who lived there would eat anything that came to hand, including sheep. 

Question; 

So, am I saying that soft sediments off the Dutch coast were washed away at some time during the period in prehistory called the Neolithic? 

Answer; 

Yes. I thinks so.

At a date during the 4th millennium BC sea-level rose sufficiently that it would erode soft deposits in the Dutch half of the Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor.

The woodland that had grown on this land was then washed away as the waters of the Atlantic Ocean pushed through to the newly developing North Sea. 

As the channel over the Anglo-Dutch Neolithic Corridor was scoured out ,only the compacted ridges of the Norfolk Banks remained in the floor of the southern North Sea. 

Question; 

So?

Answer; 

If we have successfully suggested that Neolithic people walked from Holland to Norfolk without getting their feet wet, it makes sense to reconsider whether the same could not be true for land between Caithness and Orkney. 

Question; 

What do I want from this?

Answer; 

I want to see these ideas explored by the academic communities to which they belong, specifically geology and archaeology. 

I don't particularly want ownership of the ideas, but I do want to see those communities adopting these ideas in preference to the ideas that they currently promote.

I want these ideas to be challenged with actual evidence, to which I can respond. 

The subject of this study is to do with missing landscapes, which by definition cannot be measured or surveyed. To prove that they existed we have to seek out elusive evidence, and in fact plants, animals, insects and people, are part of the evidence. The migration of species has to be an important mechanism for understanding how our own species migrated. 

The more I understand about the people of Neolithic Britain, the more impressed I become with their culture, their compassion, their ingenuity, their creativity, and their sheer guts, 

A fuller description of Britain and the North Sea during the last ice age is at:-

https://orkneyriddler.blogspot.com/2025/05/ice-age-britain.html

Some images may not appear in the web version.

The blog also contains sources.

Appendix 1

"The geology of the southern North Sea. United Kingdom offshore regional report"

By T D J Cameron, A Crosby, P S Balson, D H Jeffery, G K Lott, J Bulat and D J Harrison

Sandbanks (tidal sand ridges)

These are the largest bedforms on the continental shelf, and the sandbanks of the southern North Sea include some of the foremost examples in the world. The sandbanks in the report area are found to occur mostly parallel to one another in groups (Figure 120), the best known of which are the Norfolk Banks, off north-east Norfolk. Two other important groups are the Sand Hills between north-east England and the Dogger Bank, and the banks of the Thames Estuary region. Other isolated banks occur mostly in nearshore areas. The origins of the banks are, to a large extent, linked to the history of Holocene sea-level rise and the evolution of the Holocene coastline.

Norfolk Banks

The Norfolk Banks rest on a relatively flat surface at 20 to 30 m depth (Figure 121). They consist of accumulations of sand on an erosional surface of Pleistocene deposits that in the interbank areas is either exposed or covered by a thin lag gravel. The largest of the Norfolk Banks, Well Bank, is over 50 km long, 1.7 km wide and rises to 38 m above the adjacent sea floor, although some banks are even higher at over 42 m (Gaston, 1972).

The Norfolk Banks can be subdivided into a group of more nearshore, parabolic banks connected by low cols to form a zig-zag pattern; and an outer group of more linear banks. The innermost banks generally have sand waves on their flanks, the outermost banks tend to have a smooth profile. The parabolic form exhibited by the nearshore banks is believed by Gaston (1972) to be a stage in bank development where a single bank may eventually split to form further banks. These banks are more active than the offshore linear banks, perhaps in part due to the greater tidal-current velocities closer to the coast. Many of the Norfolk Banks probably originated at around 7800 years BP (Jelgersma, 1979), although it is likely that the nearshore banks are more recent.

Net sand transport is in opposite directions on opposite sides of banks, as evidenced by the direction of asymmetry of sand waves on their flanks. Nevertheless, there is a dominant north-westerly transport direction (Gaston and Stride, 1970). The linear banks are generally asymmetrical towards the north-east, with the steeper slopes up to 7°, and more gentle south-westerly slopes (Figure 122). Internal seismic reflectors within some of the banks dip to the north-east (Houbolt, 1968) (Figure 122), indicating a migration in that direction which may, or may not, be continuing at present. These internal reflectors probably represent boundaries between cross-bedded sets of sediments (e.g. McCave and Langhorne, 1982).

By studying hydrographic charts dated between 1851 and 1967, Gaston (1972) found that many of the banks have elongated towards the north-west, the direction of net sand transport. Gaston (1972) also found that during the same period, some of the more nearshore banks, such as Haisborough Sand, the Hewett Ridges and Smith's Knoll, had correspondingly migrated hundreds of metres to the north-east. The central part of Ower Bank had apparently migrated over 700 m to the south-west. However, after a similar study of hydrographic charts published between 1886 and 1950, McCave and Langhorne (1982) could detect no movement of Haisborough Sand to the north-east. The evidence for modern movement of these banks perpendicular to their long axes must therefore be regarded as equivocal; the evidence for migration in the direction of their long axes is better.

The banks to the east of Great Yarmouth (Figure 123) have shown measurable displacement almost entirely parallel to the coastline in the direction of their long axes. Since 1866, South Cross Sand may have moved several hundred metres, and the Scroby Sands over 1 km, to the north (Craig-Smith, 1972). South Cross Sand shows dipping internal seismic reflectors which reflect this migration (Figure 124). On the other hand, Lorton Sand has moved over 1 km to the south during the same period. These nearshore banks are separated by channels which have been scoured to a level beneath the base of the bank sediments; Scroby Sands is effectively isolated on an elongate high. Similar highs are seen beneath some of the Thames Estuary banks, where D'Olier (1981) believed that such features predate bank formation. In the case of Scroby Sands, it is likely that at least some of the scouring is modern, and similar hollows interpreted as due to tidal scour occur adjacent to more linear Norfolk Banks (Donovan, 1973). These scoured deeps may serve to fix the banks on to the topographic highs, restricting lateral migration. Evidence from tidal-current data suggests that the Norfolk Banks formed at a greater angle to the prevailing tidal currents than they exhibit at present (Howarth and Huthnance, 1984), which may indicate that to some extent they are already moribund.

If the offshore migration of the banks is continuing at present, a continual supply of sand from the nearshore zone is required if the nearshore banks are not to decrease in size. This supply could come from rapid erosion of the East Anglian coast. It is unlikely that coastal erosion during the Holocene could have provided sufficient sediment to form the whole Norfolk Banks group. Clayton (1989) estimated coastal recession on the Norfolk coast to have been about 4.5 km during the last 5000 years, yielding about 2 x 109 m3 of sand. The volume of Well Bank alone has been estimated to be 2.4 x 109 m3 (Houbolt, 1968).

The banks consist of fine- to medium-grained sands which show a high degree of sorting. On Haisborough Sand, McCave and Langhorne (1982) found the sand to become finer grained across the bank from south-west to north-east, with the best sorting towards the bank crest. Shell content in the Norfolk Banks is low, less than 5 per cent on Well Bank (Houbolt, 1968). Very little is known of the internal composition of the Norfolk Banks, or indeed of any tidal sand ridge. Houbolt (1968) found no vertical gradation of grain size in a borehole through Ower Bank. A borehole through a moribund sandbank north-west of the Dogger Bank, just north of the report area, revealed only subtle vertical trends of grain size (Davis and Balson, 1992). Short cores taken on the steep flank of Well Bank indicate extensive bioturbation to depths of 55 to 60 cm from the surface, probably due to the burrowing echinoid Echinocardium cordatum (Pennant), although large populations of sand eels, which also burrow, are found on the same bank (Wilson, 1982)

Appendix 2

New evidence on the earliest domesticated animals and possible small‑scale husbandry in Atlantic NW Europe" by Philippe Crombé et al

"Conclusions

The present study irrefutably proofs the presence of domesticated sheep/goat and most likely also cattle from ca. 4800/4600 cal BC along the NW margins of the agro-pastoral frontier, and hence supports the model viewing the neolithization of NW Europa as a long-term process. In addition the isotope data, although not yet fully conclusive, seems to be in favor of small-scale husbandry from the very beginning. If this is confirmed by future, more in-depth isotope analyses, it demonstrates that farmer-herders had a considerable impact on hunter-gatherer’s subsistence as early as the first half of the 5th millennium cal BC. Clearly before 4800/4600 cal BC contact and interaction with farmer-herders from the LBK was limited to the exchange of “exotic” commodities, such as decorated pottery. This changed markedly with the development of the subsequent Blicquy/Villeneuve-Saint-Germain and Rössen Cultures. Contact intensified resulting in a transfer of knowledge on pottery production, the production of new stone tools (with new functions) and likely also herding. In this sense the first half of the 5th millennium cal BC was a turning point for hunter-gatherers living in the lowlands along the margins of the agro-pastoral frontier, corresponding to the “substitution phase”5,6 or “Introduction phase”17. It was the start of a totally new lifeway which probably would culminate into a fully agrarian society in the course of the second half of the 5th millennium cal BC, around 4000 cal BC at the latest. The latter might have been triggered by the tidal flooding events in the Lower Scheldt valley which certainly will have reduced the availability of edible plants and wild game considerably. On the other hand flooding might have offered better conditions for local agriculture, through the deposition of more fertile tidal mud, including clay and silt47, in an overall sandy environment.