Doggerland, northern Europe's own lost city of Atlantis, discovered off Scotland

LONDON - British scientists scouring the bottom of the North Sea have begun piecing together a picture of life in Doggerland, what they believe was the "heart of Europe," connecting modern day Britain to continental Europe, until about 7,000 years ago.

Among fossilized evidence of mammoths and large game animals, divers have found harpoons, flint tools and suspected burial sites they say belonged to residents of the submerged settlement more than 12,000 years ago.

A team organized by Dr. Richard Bates, a geophysicist at the University of St. Andrews, says the evidence points to a once-dry land passage between Scotland and Denmark which that was likely larger than many modern European cities, with tens of thousands of ancient humans calling it home.

"We haven't found an 'x marks the spot' or 'Joe created this', but we have found many artifacts and submerged features that are very difficult to explain by natural causes, such as mounds surrounded by ditches and fossilized tree stumps on the seafloor," explains Bates.

"There is actually very little evidence left because much of it has eroded underwater; it's like trying to find just part of a needle within a haystack," he adds. "What we have found though is a remarkable amount of evidence and we are now able to pinpoint the best places to find preserved signs of life."