How prehistoric communities off the British coast embraced rising seas

The way our ancestors adapted to sea-levels rising may have lessons for us as we face the climate crisis, but not all prehistoric people reacted in the same way. Sophie Ward and Robert Barnett report

The Scilly Isles (Shutterstock)

Legend has it that the land of Lyonesse was engulfed by the sea in a single night during a dreadful storm. They say that this beautiful land, now lost to the seas, lay somewhere between Brittany and Cornwall, much like today’s Isles of Scilly. The weave between legendary narrative and truth has always been challenging to unpick. In this case, the stories of Lyonesse and rising sea levels in southwest Britain are inseparably intertwined.

The legend of Lyonesse predates even King Arthur. It was the land of Tristan (who famously loved Iseult), son of noble King Rivalin, whose adventures were chronicled by Thomas of Britain, over 800 years ago. Now underwater, it is rumoured that fragments of masonry from Lyonesse litter the hauls of Cornish fishermen today:

Back to the sunset bound of Lyonesse –
A land of old upheaven from the abyss
By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwealt …
– ‘Idylls of the King’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1859)