Professor Vince Gaffney attended the 2-day ‘Rewilding Dogger Bank’ workshop at Wijk aan Zee in the Netherlands – organised by Emilie Reuchlin and the Doggerland Trust, from November 13-14.

The workshop brought together different perspectives on the challenges facing the environment and heritage of the North Sea and specifically the Dogger Bank. Specific discussion asked why have we, as a society, accepted that the North Sea has become so overbuilt and dilapidated? To address this question, biologists, ecologists, archaeologists, lawyers, artists, and policy makers from the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark and Germany all shared presentations from diverse perspectives. Organisations and presenters included the Embassy of the North Sea, Blue Marine Foundation, ARK Rewilding Netherlands, and WWF Verdensnaturfonden / WWF Denmark.

Vince’s presentation, naturally, focused on archaeological perspectives of the North Sea. To illustrate this, he presented an overview of the archaeology of the Bank and the significance of landscape archaeology as part of the marine heritage. The value of this long duree approach was highlighted by centering results from recent projects at Bradford, including Unpath’d Waters, Life on the Edge, Taken at the Flood, and Subnordica.