Nederland, a land underneath sea level with outstanding views and rich history on the North sea that left behind some treasures in the form of fossils.
Before we embark on this journey, an important question comes to mind. What is a fossil? And what’s so special about them, aren’t they like ‘rocks’? Isn’t there usually a cartoonish character dusting bones in a distant desert pit in khaki shorts, which then turns out to be (gasp) a fossil. 🦴
Well, it’s much more than that. By definition, fossils are the geologically altered remains of living organisms and their behaviour. Through fossils, not only do we get to know what creatures looked like back in the day, but the remains could also tell us how and why they behaved in a certain way.
And you know what comes with being a country that is partially reclaimed from the sea? Fossils. Lot’s of them actually!
Did you know: sourced and real fossils are not limited to museums and exhibits anymore and can be obtained by hobbyists and aspiring adventurers from trusted networks to keep around as collectable items or even as nifty gifts.
Doggerland: the before times land
Let’s take a step back in history to when glaciers and ice filled the area where the North Sea is today in a vast tundra that connected Britain and Europe, also known as Doggerland.
That ice-age era left the Netherlands fossil-rich. It was a natural fridge, if you may, where “lots of water from the sea became great ice sheets and the land between the Netherlands and the UK was joined up, so megafauna could just walk around.”
Creatures like mammoths, bison, wolves, and ancient deer migrated back and forth across this icy route — and when the creatures breathed their last breath the conditions were perfect intact for preserving their remains.
Great woolly discoveries
We can only count so many, but over the years, the North Sea area brought many revelations, discoveries, and treasures to the surface in the Netherlands.
In 2014, Dutch fossil hunters in Rotterdam collected and assembled the skull and (almost) a full skeleton of a 40,000 years mammoth that once roamed the icy tundra.
Another team of Dutch-German scientists led by Prof. Dr Jelle W.F. Reumer of the University of Utrecht was also able to locate and study several fossil teeth from the North Sea that are 126,000 to 115,000 years old. They are believed to have originated from a creature that carries a striking resemblance to modern-day macaques, a.k.a, old-world monkeys.
Perhaps the greatest discovery so far happened earlier this year off the coast of Zeeland, where an amateur palaeontologist discovered a fragment of a North Sea fossil that once belonged to a 50,000 to 70,000 years old Neanderthal.
The next time you’re floating in the North Sea, or chilling in Scheveningen, think of all the creatures that once lived underneath your feet and keep an eye out for a fossil as you build your next sandcastle.
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Feature Image: wrangel/Depositphotos