Formby Point is an area of unspoilt coastline near Liverpool in the North West of England. Here, sand erosion has revealed traces of prints preserved in the underlying mud. Thousands of years ago this area was a wetland, with trees that supported a variety of birds, animals and humans. In the summer, any footprints in the mud, hardened by the sun during the day, would fill with fine sand blown from nearby dunes. The incoming tide would then cover them with mud and so preserve them. In this way, over the centuries, thousands of layers were preserved like the pages of a book.
SECRETS OF THE SEA
More recently, the sea has begun to wash the sand away, turning those pages backwards to reveal the secrets of Formby Point’s fascinating past. By studying these traces, archeologists have been able to discover evidence of rabbit warrens, asparagus cultivation, shipping and shipwrecks, fishing, smuggling and tree planting.
There are currently more than 220 identified trails of human footprints and studies have even revealed that the average height was 1.66m for a man and 1.45m for a woman. Where male prints are present, they usually occur near the prints of red deer, suggesting they were hunting. Other animal prints include large wild cattle called ‘aurochs’, deer, wolves and wading birds. The sea is gradually washing the prints away so they won’t be there for long.
Storm Hannah
Sometimes the prehistoric past can be revealed more abruptly. On April 2019, Storm Hannah struck the coast of Ceredigion county in west Wales, uncovering a prehistoric forest that was buried under water and sand more than 4,500 years ago.
Archaeologists had been aware of the existence of a petrified forest on the Welsh beach because small tree stumps were sometimes visible at low tide. The storm, however, revealed the thick trunks and massive roots of pine, alder, oak and birch for the first time in thousands of years. Fossilised animal and human footprints and archaeological objects such as tools were also uncovered.
An ancient civilisation
Local folktales, songs and legends from the 17th century identify the forest with Cantre’r Gwaelod (The Sunken Hundred), an ancient civilisation which has been described as a Welsh Atlantis and which once extended some twenty miles west of the shoreline to what is now Cardigan Bay. According to the legend, this land was highly fertile and protected from the sea by floodgates, which held back the tide. Different versions of the story blame different characters for the civilisation’s submergence. Some speak of an absent-minded priestess who allowed a fairy well to overflow. Others blame a drunken prince who forgot to close the floodgates. The most likely cause, however, is rising sea levels.
Goodbye Dunwich
Other lands have been lost to the sea more recently. Known as the Lost City of England, or England’s Atlantis, the tiny village of Dunwich on the Suffolk coast in the east of England now has a population of about 120 residents but was once much larger. In Anglo-Saxon times Dunwich was the capital of the Kingdom of the Eastern Angles, and at its largest rivalled London for size. The Domesday book of 1086 puts the population at over three thousand. For centuries Dunwich was an international port and a seat of power for Anglo-Saxon bishops. However, the town was hit by a succession of storms in the 13th and 14th centuries and is now largely below the sea.
Deep treasures
A three-year research project that cost almost one million pounds corroborated written historical records by examining sediment taken from the cliffs. Using acoustic imaging technology, underwater divers also uncovered a series of buildings, including the ruins of about four churches, what is thought to be a toll house and several shipwrecks. With rising sea levels and the constant erosion of the British coast, only time can tell what other fascinating discoveries will come to light.