ExtinctZoo - The Sunken Continents That History Forgot About

Episode Date: September 14, 2025

Turns out the story of Atlantis is more realistic than you once thoughtIf you want to support the podcast consider checking out my merch :) https://store.extinctzoo.org/

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with the right skills, certifications, and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this shell will get a $75 sponsor job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. You know what surprisingly gets under a lot of people's skin, be it if they're a child or an adult? Being told what to do, or perhaps even more so, what they can't do. And I am sure you can relate to this on at least some level. Maybe a teacher told you to stop picking your nose once, or your boss made you attend some pointless meeting.

Or perhaps, even in the worst of cases, someone told you to put down your phone while you're watching one of our videos. Blasphemous, I know. So if that already makes your blood boil, as it should, hold on to your temper, because I'm about to hit you with a few more things that you cannot do. And I don't mean things that you shouldn't, or probably won't do, more like things that are literally impossible, as today we're going to take a look at a few ancient places that humans used to live, places that simply no longer exist. Not fair, right? Now off the rip, you may be thinking in places like Pompeii, the Roman city that was wiped out by volcanic eruption. But I'm not referring to any ancient cities. Instead, I'm talking about entire pieces of land which were once explored by our ancestors that have literally vanished from the face of the earth, along with all the wonders they held. many of which don't even exist anymore anywhere, including extinct prehistoric animals and lost cultures. And perhaps no ancient land better represents these two things than the giant realm of doggarland.

And yes, this is both an actual place and its real name. Today, the United Kingdom is known for being isolated from the rest of Europe, something which they really took to heart during Brexit. But once upon a time, they weren't so distant, and in fact, were close neighbors who were once connected to the rest of the continent, through what is now known as Doggerland, a massive landmass that in its prime was even larger than certain countries like Switzerland or the Netherlands. And that's pretty massive for a now-disappeared land, and also massive in terms of what was lost.

Which also makes one wonder how is something like this even discovered? And that's actually a pretty unusual story. Imagine yourself back in the late 19th century, and you're an English fisherman, working out on a trawler along the doggar banks. Not the most flashy job, and probably one that got pretty harsh at times. with chilly weather and lashing rain. But then, one day while you were out on your usual route, you start seeing some strange things among your normal catch, namely what seems to be a bunch of plant material, specifically the type

you'd see from plants on land, not what you'd expect at the bottom of the seafloor. And while you may not be all that excited to be pulling up plants instead of fish, I will say congrats, because you've just become one of the first people to find any evidence of doggerland, and now, of course, forgotten land. And this story is basically how it went down in real life. with a trawler revealing that plant matter existed in the depths of the North Sea, which was unlike anything you'd expect to find. And things soon got stranger, as other items were recovered from the abyss,

with a big find consisting of a lump of peat which possessed a barbed antler point, emphasis on the barbed part, because what this implies is that humans manipulated it. In other words, they discovered a man-made relic from the Ice Age, which was dated to between 6,000 and 12,000 years ago. And so all of this sparked the initial and perplexing idea that a real lost world reside at the bottom of the sea. And this interest would grow until it reached a breaking point,

one in the 1990s, a paleontologist, created speculative maps of this land, which he dubbed Doggerland, a name that for better or worse, has stuck since. And these maps provided just enough juice for a whole new wave of research on the supposed location of this region, with seismic surveys, having played a huge role

in revealing that Doggerland had truly existed. And they even gave us some rough ideas of what it looked like, geographically, which is not an easy accomplishment. But that being said, this part was still a lot easier than solving just about any other question regarding this lost region, including its origins. And while the exact details will likely always remain hazy, many agree that the region got its start roughly about 120,000 years ago, during the onset of the last glacial cycle, which was the

cold spell during the greater ice age, which for the record has lasted far longer than 125,000 years. But it is this cold spell that we usually imagine the ice age to have been like. You know, with all that ice, mammoths, and big stuff roaming around. And with the arrival of this last glacial cycle, the world's sea levels drastically dropped as ice extended farther, and thus exposing doggarland to the world. However, I will mention that its land has been exposed periodically prior as well. But the term doggarland explicitly applies to the region as it was during this last glacial period. Now, given its higher latitude and the fact that, well, the ice age is raging on,

it shouldn't come as a complete shock that you would have needed to pack a few jackets or miss. and most likely some mammoth repellent just a visit. However, timing would be very important to determine your exact packing list, as this lost land experienced many different biomes over the ages, especially as the Ice Age warmed, leading to times of tundras, tempered grasslands, and forests, where rolling hills, valleys, wetlands, lagoons, and plains were plentiful. And these environments actually made doggarland exceedingly fertile at different points,

and we know that many walks of life ended up taking residence here, as fossils from literal lions, wolves, hyenas, mammoths, saber-toothed cats, bison, deer, orrocks, and woolly rhinos have all been discovered by boats. And, of course, from the title of this video, we humans are included in this list as well. Yet I'm using the term humans as a rather general term, as actually the oldest known people of Doggerland were not necessarily us, so to speak, but rather our cousins, the Neanderthals. As the skull fragment belonging to a young man was located in the middle deep, some 16 kilometers or 10 miles off the coast of Zeeland, which dated to 40,000 years ago.

On top of this, various tools and weapons attributed to Neanderthals were found as well, including flint flakes and spearheads, suggesting that our close relatives once used Doggerland as hunting grounds and a place to gather resources. And you know how the old saying goes, sharing is caring, and eventually our kind, Homo sapiens, made their way over to Doggerland as well. And it is possible that co-mingly incur between us and our Neanderthal cousins, but for now it does seem rather doubtful, considering that the oldest skeleton from a Doggerland homo sapien is only about 13,000 years old. And not to mention the fact that most other finds,

attributed to our kind, represent the Mesolithic period, which took place between 15,000 to 5,000 years ago. And in this age, Doggerland and the rest of the world had warmed up quite a bit, and melting ice had created endless coastlines, salt marshes, mudflats, and beaches, while inland areas were invaded by streams, rivers, lakes, and marshes, and in turn causing an explosion in life, and leading some to consider Dockerland as Europe's most prosperous region for hunting, folling, and fishing during the Mesolithic. And this hunch is reflected by the abundance of human tools found here, including stone ones like axes, hammers, and azis, and over 2,000 barbed points, which is a lot of barbs,

but at least they're not cairns. Sadly, though, beyond these tools, not a whole lot of info exists on the ancient people of Dockerland. Now what I can say is that certain studies do suggest they mainly, belonged to Haplogroup I, and were hunter-gatherers. However, given the size of the area and his prosperity, there were ultimately many groups, including various cultures, that were posted up here, possibly including populations belonging to the Maglamosian culture, who might have occupied the eastern plains, forests, and coasts of Doggarland. And most of these guys would have

been nomadic, but some seem to have settled down in these lands as well, utilizing huts made out of bark. And in total, it's believed that Doggarland would have supported at least 10,000 individuals at any given time whose entire lives and history surrounded this lost world, but which to them was simply home. And sadly, this home would eventually turn into a straight-up nightmare. As beginning roughly 12,000 to 11,000 years ago, the interglacial period started to come to a close, leading to a sharp rise in temperatures. And for a time, this actually created a relatively warm paradise in Doggerland. But eventually, the illusion was shattered, as the ice continued to melt, leading to the land, slowly beginning to vanish beneath the waves.

Meanwhile, as the ice vanished, the great release of weight started to tilt Doggerland, and thus speeding up its destabilization. And over the next few thousand years its inhabitants would start to notice more frequent and severe flooding, first along the coasts, but then eventually inland, forcing many to abandon their homeland entirely. And unfortunately, things would only get grimmer, especially 8,200 years ago, which might sound pretty specific, but was a very important and a devastating time, as it was roughly then when and Doggerland experienced the Storragas slide, also known as the Storraga tsunami, a giant submarine

landslide which occurred after the partial collapse of a coastal shelf in the Norwegian Sea and sent waves as tall's eight-story buildings crashing into Doggerland and the surrounding areas, causing absolutely catastrophic damage to the coastal communities, who, mind you, likely had never even seen a tsunami beforehand. And the damage would have greatly varied by area, but just to get a feel for how bad it was, it's estimated that a quarter of Mesolithic Britain's humans were wiped out. And this event, in addition to the already rising waters, was enough to finally disconnect Britain from Europe once more, and turned doggarland more into a doggar island. And no one knows if any people remained on these last vestiges of the once expansive land.

But I sure hope not, as the fate for these low-lying islands was the same as the rest of doggarland, with waters finally taking down the very last shred of green about 7,000 years ago. So a real-life Atlanta story. But funny enough, or perhaps depressingly enough, you'll find that such stories are rather common when it comes to lost lands in general. Just take a look at Sunderland in Southeast Asia. Today, this region of Earth is littered with well over 10,000 warm tropical islands that are surrounded by blue. Yet at one point, they were surrounded by green. It's like Doggerland, this area is fluctuated in sea levels, and therefore the amount of exposed land. And for quite a while at that, with its origins dating back to two million years ago.

But newsflash, we weren't around so far back. And that's honestly fine, as Sunderland wouldn't get all that interesting until the last glacial maximum. So about 26,000 years ago, where in ice sheets were at their peak. And as a result of that, we also had Peak Sunderland, a sprawling region which put even doggarland to shame, having measured some 4 million square kilometers. In other words, bigger than India. And despite Sondaland being in its prime during the height of the ice age, do not expect a frozen

wasteland, as it was situated along the equator and likely would have been the place to be back in those days, with the temperature being about 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, or 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit lower than now, which is not exactly insignificant, but we're still talking about temperature as akin to present-day Ecuador, so not chilly, no pun intended. And research also shows that it was quite moist, too, with only temporary periods of drier conditions. It is worth mentioning, though, that you could actually still find some glaciers located inland at high enough altitudes, as they were more common than now, but still somewhat avoidable. And overall, Sunderland offered immense habitats to choose from,

with the most prominent being, lowland rainforests, and drumroll please, savannas. Yeah, not exactly what you'd expect from this region based on his present looks, but at that time, they were huge. And really, one of the only things that was the same was its good old volcanic activity, so that's nice, I guess. And all these factors made Sunderland quite lively throughout its entire history, especially when Archine eventually posted up here, and they might have done so early on, even before Peak Sunderland,

with a possible arrival date between 70,000 and 50,000 years ago. Now, they would not have known this, but these OG Sunderlanders weren't actually the first homoes to live in this ancient land, as in recent times a homo erectus skull was dredged up from a sunken region, confirming that once upon a time, our close relatives lived here too, and also would have encountered another older resident of Sondaland, the Sino-Mastodon, an extinct genus of Gomphathyrs that are very related to modern elephants. But with all this said, any sign of theirs, or the Erectus' presence, was likely already hidden by the time Sapiens arrived, which is a darn shame, but Sapiens did still see some lively

things, literally, as Sundaland continued a team with life, and this included an insane amount of turtles, crocodilians, pythons, hippopotamade, rhinos, tigers, bovids, servids, and proboscidians. And so, based off of a few of these animals, you already know the living here meant that life could sometimes be dicey. And this was especially true, along the coasts, where many humans actually ended up settling, as fossils showed that not only that sharks were beyond plentiful, but so were the now-elusive Komodo dragons. So yeah, this region was no joke. But at the same time, these coasts did provide communities with an abundance of food and different resources. And recent studies in the seafloor also found that along with

coasts, major river systems existed in Sundaland as well, that acted as a hotspot for both human and animal activity, for tens of thousands of years at that, over which Sundelanders became adept fissures who utilized a myriad of coastal technology, including simple rafts. And in some ways, this land was truly a haven for humans, especially given the overall bitterness of the Ice Age. And it wasn't just those lived their full time through the benefits, as researchers reckon that its human population would greatly fluctuate on an ongoing basis, with many groups apparently using Sunderland as a migration route. In fact, some even think that Austronesian languages as a whole originated somewhere in Sunderland before being dispersed

through human movement, though I will say that not everyone is on board with this idea. But whatever the case, the point still stands that Sunderland was vital to many, which makes it all the more tragic that it too would face a similar end to doggardland. And for it, things started to go south, or down, not so long after the last glacial maximum, as beginning 18,000 years back, the water level started to rise permanently. But it was really in three distinct pulses in which the worst of flooding occurred, and as a result, coastal areas quickly started to be swallowed up, forcing many settlements to abandon their homelands and venture further and further inland. Eventually, a few thousand years later,

the flooding had gotten so bad that Sunderland had now become completely splintered. And both people and wildlife found themselves marooned on islands, with the final result being the thousands upon thousands of islands that we know of today. And so this is obviously kind of unfortunate, but I guess at the same time, Sunderland does have a bit more of a happy ending than compared to Doggerland, as at least its legacy still continued to live on through these islands. Plus, while humans were forced to move and lost an important migratory route, their relocation further inland did lead to them adopting new environments like forests,

as well as more mountainous areas, which might have actually nudged them into developing farms and domesticating animals, and of course becoming the predecessors to the future humans of these lands. So not all bad, though I do admit that having a giant India-sized land to explore with crazy wildlife and savannas wouldn't be so bad either. Both Sundaland and Doggerland are among the most prominent examples of lost lands that we know of. But in truth, there was another that may have a claim to being a tad bit more monumental, and that is Beringia. Today, the U.S. and Russia are not exactly known for being close, figuratively that is.

But literally, the two are not so distant, with their closest points being only 2.4 miles or 3.8 kilometers away. A small enough gap that during winters, you can technically walk from Russia into the U.S., and vice versa, as the water freezes over. Not that I'd probably recommend that. But with that said, this applies only to their closest islands, because the mainland distance is far greater, being about 55 miles or 90 kilometers. So in that case, no amount of ice is going to save you from swimming or boating. But back in the day, the situation was very different, and the two countries were actually united as one. How lovely. And this was all made possible by Beringia. Funnily enough, Beringia is also far older than the two previous places I've discussed,

since evidence supports it periodically existing as far back as the Cretaceous, seeing that many types of dinosaurs that lived in Asia also had very close relatives in North America. And then we also see a similar thing occurring during the early and middle of Zenozoic, with various paleofana showing up on both sides. But naturally, our kind wasn't yet available, so to speak, to experience Beringia so far back, and it would ultimately go through a cycle of submerging, reappearing, reappearing, and so forth, as the oceans waxed and waned. However, one of its most prominent reappearance phases began about 60,000 years ago, thanks

to the interglacial period, with intermittent connections between Asia and North America, that eventually transitioned to a stable land bridge around 30,000 years ago, give or take, as we drew over closer to our good friend, the glacial maximum. And it was actually quite early on into this new stage that humans first popped up in this area, as we have evidence of people camping out in eastern Beringia as far back as 34,000 years ago. And to say these guys were absolutely metal, just putting it lightly, as they would have endured not only extreme conditions, but do so, all the while hunting, megafaunal animals like mammoths using stone points. Yes, stone.

And they might have even learned to burn various parts of the landscape, in order to clear out areas and make hunting a bit easier. Emphasis on the easier part. But nature evidently saw their struggle, and it would then lend a helping hand, as bryngea would continue to grow and grow and expand as sea levels continue to drop. And at its peak, this hunkering landmass measured over 1,000 kilometers, were 620 miles wide, and covered an area that was essentially equal to British Columbia and Alberta combined, creating a huge corridor between Siberia and Alaska, and thus allowing humans to creep further west as well. But given its higher latitude, it should be quite obvious that Beringia was in no way a tropical paradise, and a vast, cold mammoth step stretched out across large swathes of it.

But there was a silver lining, being that Beringia did receive more moisture and cloud cover, from the northern Pacific Ocean, making it unusually wet for a mammoth step, especially compared to the extremely dry lands that sandwiched it. And this unique weather ultimately helped to create a shrub tundra habitat that effectively turned it into an ecological refugium for vast amounts of plants and animals, humans included, who actually might have temporarily been wiped out of the surrounding more harsher areas as the ice age intensified. And so, we often think of this area as having only served as a stepping stone between Asia

and North America. But in reality, this was in some ways a sanctuary, and given the conditions it meant that a lot of people permanently lived within its confines too, where they likely encountered an unimaginable amount of strange life, which included camels, mammoths, mastodons, giant beavers, at least one kind of ground sloth, and then the bit more feisty homotherium and short-faced bears, who definitely made life interesting for the Beringians. And then, of course, you can't forget about the animals that are still around, like wolves, extant bears, foxes, otters, numerous small animals, And the list goes on. And this ain't even touching on all the marine life that lived off its coasts, which includes the largest Arrhenian ever discovered. So all in all, plenty of life to go around, and ancient Beringians made the most of this,

with various discoveries showcasing that these people meant business, with tools and weapons made from both bones and stones, being regular discoveries, in addition to the remains of a bunch of different kind of prey. And along the water, these prey remains primarily consisted of hundreds of accumulated salmon bones. While more inland, ancient Bering burundians were adept big-game hunters, butchering the likes of mammoths, bison, and elk that existed in abundant herds.

But of course, small game was also on the menu, as settlements tended to be in areas dominated by, hares, birds, ground squirrels, and other small mammals. So clearly, hunting was booming, and these groups even set up complex infrastructure in order to maximize efficiency, with one community located the upwards-sun river site, having constructed spike camps. In other words, minimal temporary base. where they would hunt and stack up on resources, before then transferring them to a central main settlement, which in this case supported a population possibly in the low thousands.

And similar to Doggerland, it is believed that up to 10,000 people permanently lived on the actual land bridge. However, as you may know, not all humans were down to settle here, not sure that I blamed them given the presence of homotherium and the short-faced bear. And ultimately, Burundi would play a crucial role in the founding of the Americas. At first, access would have been cut off through the massive Wisconsin glaciation. But eventually, as things heated up, ice-free corridors formed the giant ice sheet, allowing small groups to venture further south. And these adventurous people, now regarded as paleo-indians, turned out to have made the right decision, as Bringia was ultimately doomed by the very same melt. And it's believed that by 10,000 years ago, the connection between

east and west was finally severed, as seas swept over and reclaimed the land bridge, and thus bringing an end to paleo-baringia. Yet, its legacy would still persist in some ways, at least for a bit longer, as some areas became islands after the flooding, just like what was seen in Sunderland, chief among them being Rangel Island. And this was literally a lost world within a lost world, as after Beringia's submergence, it provided a temporary paradise for one of the landmass's most wondrous residents, Willie mammoths. And it was actually on this very island that the very last mammoths lived, with the youngest remains being dated to, and the youngest remains being dated to to just 2000 BC.

In other words, the 4th Dynasty of Egypt was underway at the very same time, and the pyramids were already hundreds of years old, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. But alas, not even these titanic relics from Beringia would last. And today we only have our imagination to picture this almost mythical land. Besides the Ice Age being responsible for their coming and going, these three lost lands share another similarity, which is the fact that we know for a fact that humans lived on them. But there are other lost lands that have drawn interest specifically because we aren't sure if people reached them.

And this mystery is perhaps no greater than when dealing with the Persian Gulf. Now if you were to travel to the Gulf today, you would find yourself a salty Mediterranean sea with blistering heat and sand dunes all around, as the desert is tightly hugging it. Doesn't necessarily scream oasis, right? But at one point it very much was. At least according to one researcher who found based on bathymetric data that the Gulf's basin was likely above sea level up to 125,000 years ago, which was the very beginning of the glacial cycle. Just like the previously mentioned lands, the exposed parts of the Persian Gulf would continue

to grow as sea levels dropped further, at one point reaching a size greater than Great Britain. See what I did there? And it wasn't just an additional slab of desert, as back then the area would have been getting a regular supply of fresh water from the Tigris, Karun, Wardibaton, and Euphrates River, while underground springs surely helped as well. Resulting what the researcher has termed the Gulf Oasis, a refuge from the surrounding harsh desert that housed a mosaic and mangrove swamps, lakes, rivers, marshes, estuaries, and springs, making it a very fertile area to say the least, and a good place to be, no matter who or what you were. Now the question is, did humans ever live here? Because at this point, humans were obviously already a thing, but did they ever make it to the Gulf

Oasis? And the answer to that is, we don't know, at least not for sure. As no one's been swimming along the bottom of the Gulf to check for science. of our presence. However, that research I mentioned thinks the answer is a resounding yes, and that deep beneath the waves lie the remains of an ancient civilization. And yeah, this is quite a bold claim, but their confidence has a lot to do with what has been discovered on land. As along the shores, archaeologists recently discovered 60 sites, where well-kept and complex settlements had once thrived, which boasts as stone houses, apparent trade networks, domesticated livestock, art pieces, and evidence for one of the oldest known true boats.

But what's strange is that these settlements all seem to have just popped out of nowhere around 7,500 years ago, with no precursor settlements being found in the area, including further inland. And so to recap, we basically just have this endless sand, and then boom, sophisticated ancient populations by the water. And this has led to the intriguing idea that perhaps humans lived in the Gulf Oasis for a mind-boggling amount of time, like over 100,000 years kind of long, eventually being forced out by flooding. Now, if you're familiar with human migration, then you might think this has to have a lot of hypothesis sounds a bit off. It's currently the most supported idea is that humans who left Africa

and successfully spread throughout the globe only departed about 70 to 50,000 years ago, not over 100,000. And so this gives us a few possibilities. One, that the 60 sites found along the shore don't matter as much as we thought, and are not a sign of exceedingly long habitation, two, that the humans who found the Gulf Oasis left no descendants, or three, that this eradicated oasis actually represents a vital and forgotten part of our history. one that could change everything we once believed. And while that remains unclear and a bit controversial, it is an interesting thought to think that the secrets to our past

are hidden beneath the waves. However, even if the researcher was off about the timing, it's still very likely that at some point a few humans took advantage of the Gulf Oasis, as it would exist for an extended period of time, with its refuge status persisting throughout the glacial cycle and glacial maximum. In fact, it wouldn't be until 8,000 years ago that the party finally came to an end, thanks to our good old friend rising sea levels, which swiftly overtook the Gulf through catastrophic floods

as the Indian Ocean essentially gobbled it up, devolving the world of an oasis into one of the world's harshest environments. Thanks for watching, and until next time on Extincts. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million

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