Going home to Doggerland

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If you are of Western European descent, there’s a strong possibility that you once had ancestors who lived in an area of Europe called Doggerland. If you’re sitting there thinking to yourself that you’ve never heard of Doggerland and haven’t the faintest idea where it is, I can help you.

Doggerland was a stretch of land which now lies submerged beneath the North Sea between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. During the Ice Age, this area of land was exposed and was likely a fertile area for growing crops and raising livestock. As the ice began to melt, rising sea levels eventually turned Doggerland into a few scattered island before it would eventually disappear beneath the Black Sea in its entirety.  Here’s a map of what the area might have once looked like.

Doggerland map
Doggerland” by Max NaylorOwn work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

As you can see, one of the interesting features of this map is that the Thames and the Rhine once both shared the same outlet into what is now the English Channel before Doggerland was submerged by the rising waters from the melting ice.

Over the years, trawling fishing vessels have dredged up interesting prehistoric finds from the area of Doggerland in the Black Sea such as the remains of animals, plants, and humans as well as many tools and weapons contemporary with the time period in which Doggerland would have been inhabited.

However, truly exploring Doggerland and creating accurate maps of the area has been nearly impossible because of the simple fact that it lies submerged.  However, new technology is changing this.

Just this September, the University of Bradford announced plans to take detailed readings of Doggerland and use that to construct a three dimensional map of the area. The team of archeologists, biologists, and computer scientists also plan to collect deep sea core samples from various parts of Doggerland in the hopes of being able to learn more about this area using DNA testing to learn about the plants and animals that would have once inhabited Doggerland.

As for your ancestors, when the water started creeping into Doggerland, it’s likely they left for less soggy pastures in either the modern United Kingdom or continental Europe.

A Slow Return to Normalcy

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As many people who know me in real life know, about the time I was getting started on creating and writing for this new blog, my family life took an unexpected turn for the complicated that slowly grew much, much more complex during the months leading into the new year.  While some of these problems persist, my life has begun to right itself rather like a ship coming out of particularly vicious gale, and I am tentatively stepping back up to bat with my writing and artwork.

Two nights ago, I reopened a piece of artwork I had worked on in Photoshop before the chaos really struck, and I was overwhelmed as I sat there staring at it.  It’s a piece that has somewhere upwards of 100 layers. I haven’t actually counted…

Elf Portrait In Progress
The number of layers I was using to create this piece was astronomical. It was even more daunting coming back to it nearly 9 months later after life pretty much blew up in my face….

That single moment of staring down a project that I could barely remember my thought process on encapsulated the entire experience of piecing my life back together over the past month.  Let me break it down for you.

  1. For a period of time (days, weeks, or whatever it might be) you sit around and think about how you really do need to get back to that project, activity, thing that you were trying to do before things got crazy, but you don’t leap on it because you’re honestly feeling overwhelmed by all the other things that also were dropped about the same time. Which one is most important? What shattered piece of your life to pick up first? Let the wallowing in indecision commence!
  2. One day a fateful moment arrives.  Perhaps a friend, a client, some other outside source, or even your inner self finally prompts you to take the step.  To sit down, brush the dust from whatever it was you were working on, and get back to it.  You take the plunge.  You open the file or the drawer, or the garage.
  3. Then there’s that moment. That utter moment of panic when you look at this thing you abandoned in a moment of crises, and you can’t even remember what you were thinking. How did you do this technique?  Why did you do it this way? Surely it was done with some semblance of logic! Right? Right?!
  4. You take a deep breath, step away, maybe eat some lunch and think about it.  You’ve opened this bag of worms – so what now? In my case, I knew the only answer was to move forward and start working again. I fumbled around feebly until the controls and the memory of using them began to came back like riding a bicycle awkwardly for the first time in years.  Slowly, ever so slowly, the project began to move forward again, and another piece of life returned to its proper alignment.

And, so, as with my long abandoned Photoshop file, the same thing is happening today on this blog. It might only be weekly updates for some time yet, but the only way I can move forward with life right now is one fumbling baby step at a time. I hope that those who are following this blog will find at least some interest and enjoyment in that.

As a parting note to all of you, no matter what season in life you are in, remember that you can only go forwards, not backwards. So step forwards. It may not be bravely. It may not be with any grace, but step forward nonetheless.  Even if you fall flat on your face, skin both your knees, and need help getting up after your epic nose dive, you’re still further ahead than if you had sat on your duff and not moved at all.