New research led by the University of Warwick shows that forests were already growing across Doggerland, a now-submerged landmass beneath the North Sea, far earlier than scientists once believed. The findings indicate this lost landscape may have served as a welcoming refuge for plants, animals, and possibly humans long before forests became common across Britain and northern Europe.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) , used sedimentary ancient DNA to uncover evidence of temperate trees such as oak, elm, and hazel more than 16,000 years ago. Researchers also detected DNA from a tree genus thought to have disappeared from the region around 400,000 years ago.…