A massive tsunami may have wiped out Britain’s Stone Age population 8,200 years ago, and scientists say a similar natural disaster could hit the islands again.

• Tsunamis rarely hit Britain, but one did 8,200 years ago.

• Researchers wanted to know how the massive waves might have affected Stone Age populations.

• They discovered that the tsunami could cause a massive drop in population.

About 8,200 years ago, an underwater landslide called the Storegga slide near Norway triggered a tsunami that engulfed parts of northern Europe.

Around the same time, Britain’s population declined dramatically.

Researchers at the University of York and the University of Leeds looked at whether the disaster was contributing to the population decline, or whether other factors were involved.

“The proposed population decline occurred immediately after the Storegga tsunami,” Patrick Sharrocks, lead author of the paper detailing the research, told Business Insider via email. “However, a cold spell occurred at the same time as the tsunami and it was not clear which event had the greater impact.”

The researchers built computer simulations of how far the tsunami waves could have reached inland.

Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that the tsunami could wipe out a significant portion of the population at Howick, Northumberland in northern England.

They recently published their findings in the peer-reviewed Journal of Quaternary Science.

65ft waves hit the Shetland Islands

When the landslides triggered the massive waves, they had a widespread impact. Evidence of the Storegga tsunami has been found in Norway, England, Denmark, Greenland and Scotland, including the Shetland Islands.

Around the UK mainland, waves could reach 10 to 20 feet. Off the coast of Scotland, the effects may have been magnified in the narrow valleys of the Shetland Islands, resulting in waves over 65 feet inundating land.

There are no written records of the disaster. Instead, the story is in the sediment deposits from lakes, lagoons, and other bodies of water that formed during the tsunami. The wave eroded sediment on land but also brought in more from the sea.

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Although these layers are distinctive, they often erode over time and human activity. However, they can give scientists clues about how far an inland wave has traveled and how often similar events have occurred.

The huge waves may not have reached Howick at all. The site has sediment that appears to be the result of a sudden event. But it is coarser than the fine sand found elsewhere due to the waves of Storegga.

“Further sediment research at Howick could identify precisely whether the tsunami had made deposits at this location,” said Sharrocks.

A population that is not ready for a tsunami

Tsunamis are rare in the British Isles. The Mesolithic population probably never had one before the Storegga landslide, according to the study.

the researchers speculate that the receding sea that comes before a huge wave may have drawn people to the water collect string shellfish.

If that were to happen, a significant percentage of the population could be drowned by the tsunami. Destruction of resources, such as forest trees, could lead to famine among survivors.

Numerical models “can recreate the Storegga tsunami but cannot be fully representative of past events,” Sharrocks said. The event was so long ago that there was considerable uncertainty about the relative location of sea level, topography and elevation at the time.

According to the researchers’ models, Howick would only be affected if the tsunami hit at high tide.

In another paper from 2021, researchers did recommended the tsunami may have destroyed evidence of human habitation in Norway, Britain and other regions. But they also noted that “there are still very few archaeological sites with direct evidence of tsunami deposits,” making it difficult to assess “the extent to which this event was a disaster for the coastal communities.”

Britain’s future tsunamis

For years, scientists thought the Storegga tsunami was a unique event. However, recent research has found that tsunamis hit Shetland between 5,000 and 1,500 years ago.

That frequency means another one is out of the question.

“It means that the hazard, the risk, is much more serious than we previously thought,” Dave Tappin of the British Geological Survey said the BBC in 2018.

That’s why it’s important to understand past disasters, even prehistoric ones.

“Identifying and assessing the magnitude of similar precursor events can help predict where, when, and how large future events may occur in a given area,” a Sharrocks said.

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