Ananova:

Scientists say Britain has its own version of Atlantis under the North Sea.

Ancient stone age communities were wiped out by a series of floods which scientists say should act as a warning about the dangers of global warming and rising sea levels.

Dr Ben Horton of Durham University's Sea Level Research Unit said: "As our climate and oceans respond to global warming , there will be potential for global sea level rise on a massive scale."

He added: "Our investigations have revealed for the first time that large areas of land can be flooded very quickly."

After the last ice age, melting ice caused the southern half of the North Sea to rise by about 65ft over 2,000 years, leaving an area the size of Britain underwater.

The research team at Durham University has discovered that Britain also suffered a series of shorter-term floods which had disastrous effects on the human population.

Between 2,000 and 3,000 people at a time died in the floods, with hunter-gatherer tribes more likely to live near coastal and estuarine areas where food was more easily found.

Between 7,600BC and 5,900BC, around 1,000 square miles of land in the North Sea region would have been flooded by 15ft high tidal and storm surges, the scientists have found. These natural disasters occurred on average four times each century.

Britain's land link to the continent was also flooded, leaving the British Isles lagging thousands of years behind in the rest of Europe in the development of weapons technology, agriculture and architecture, the National Geographic reports.