Observations placeholder
Tree, Isabella - Wilding - Doggerland
Identifier
029114
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Isabella Tree – Wilding
There is an ongoing debate about whether bison were ever present in Britain after the last ice age. No bison bones have yet been found here. But fossil evidence is notoriously difficult to come by.
No fossil bones of the wolf, for example, have ever been found in the Netherlands though it was widespread there until only a few centuries ago. The last wolf shot was killed in the southern Netherlands in 1845, and the last wolf seen in the country was in 1897………….
Uncomfortable though it may be for scientists – particularly perhaps for palaeoecologists – who prefer to deal in certainties and tangible remains, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Moreover, bison bones have recently been discovered in Doggerland under the North Sea dating to the beginning of the Holocene (our current post ice-age epoch which began around 11,700 years ago), along with the remains of other Holocene fauna such as the aurochs, wild boar, elk, beaver, roe and otter.
Doggerland was the land bridge that connected Britain to Europe until rising seas separated us 8,200 years ago. It is inconceivable that when we were still physically part of the continent, animals tamely stopped at Calais