HOW BRITAIN BECAME AN ISL AND
The real Brexit started more than 8,000 years ago
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD
A depiction of Doggerland’s ancient residents
© Alamy / Getty / M.Muru,2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd
Around 18,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch, the majority of modern-day Britain was covered in ice. This period of glaciation persisted for thousands of years, lasting until around 12,000 years ago after a warming climate brought the icy expanse to an end. In the wake of the ice age, today’s North Sea and the English Channel were filled with grassy marshland, wooded valleys and swamps. This area of land, known as Doggerland, once connected Britain with mainland Europe and spanned over 18,000 square miles.