In June 2024, staff from the SLRC and the Flemish Marine Institute undertook further survey in the Southern North Sea as part of the Taken at the Flood project. New sparker and parametric echosounder data were collected to support an earlier expedition around the Southern River in 2019. During that survey a single worked flint had been recovered and the results suggested that the project’s exploratory methodologies to recover such material were likely to be successful.

In 2024, further survey and dredging took place around the Southern River and Sheringham Shoal palaeoestuaries. This work yielded over 100 worked flint fragments from exposed gravel beds. These finds, potentially reworked and spanning multiple periods, are still being analysed. However, the data from this expedition suggests that where exposed surfaces occur, in areas where previous human activities were likely to be intense, then dredging may recover material in a manner that may be equated with surface survey on land. The current results suggest that extensive artefact scatters do exist on our coastal shelf, and that the results from June 2024 are likely to be replicable elsewhere in the Southern North Sea.

Given the significance of these results, additional core sampling, seismic surveys, and dredging are planned for June 2025.

Images by Dr Rachel Harding and Dr James Walker, the finds were reported in the Independent – https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/stone-age-uk-north-sea-artefacts-b2670049.html

For further information on the project and methodology – Winds of Change: Urgent Challenges and Emerging Opportunities in Submerged Prehistory, a Perspective from the North Sea. Heritage 2024, 7(4), 1947-1968; https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage7040093