The Atlantis lost 8,000 years ago – near Hull

A PREHISTORIC ‘British Atlantis’ in the North Sea may have been abandoned when it was hit by a tsunami 8,000 years ago, research suggests.

Doggerland, once a low-lying island off the East Yorkshire coast near Hull, was hit by a tidal wave and abandoned by its inhabitants, according to a study by Imperial College London.

Historians say the marshy land mass, roughly the size of Wales, was a ‘paradise’ for hunters and fishermen it was submerged.

For the first time, scientists have linked the abandonment of the island to a tsunami created by a landslide off Norway. A coastal shelf 180 miles long fell into the sea – an event known as the Storegga Slide – producing 130ft waves.

According to the research, the waves were 16ft high when they hit Doggerland, enough to devastate the island. Study author Dr Jon Hill said: ‘The research we’ve done is using advanced computer modelling to look at the Storegga Slide … no other study has predicted what the wave would have looked like.’

Historian Vince Gaffney, of the University of Birmingham, said: ‘We sometimes think we’re a safe place to live in the UK. But sometimes there are risks even in Britain and that’s worth noting.’

During the last Ice Age, sea levels were much lower and Doggerland connected Britain to mainland Europe, allowing humans to walk from north Germany to East Anglia. But 20,000 years ago the sea began to rise, gradually flooding the landscape.