Events of rising sea levels around the shores of the Low Countries in the late Roman period.
North Sea Periphery, c. 250–c. 500: High Water Levels and a generally cooling climate. Source: Higham's Rome, Britain and the Anglo-Saxons (
ISBN1-85264-022-7, 1992).
The exact scale of each event with notable human impact in duration, being hypothetically determined, is debated. The cause of each is also somewhat debated, however
tidal bulges have been a continuing cyclical problem of the
North Sea in the centuries since.
Chronology
The main parts of the Low Countries were lightly populated until about
200 BC, when the climate and environment became more amenable to human habitation.[1][2] Conditions remained favourable until 250 AD, and the region became densely populated.[3][4]
Across the Rhine/Meuse delta, the population became scant. Between the 5th and 7th centuries there were few centers of population there, and in the estuarine and peat areas no settlements have been found. The area would not be repopulated until the
Carolingian Era.[11] Zones with river clay were so regularly deposited with
alluvial silt that habitation was almost impossible between the years 250 and 650.[12]
Soil survey evidences and relative lack of human occupation artefacts leads scientists to theorise the
Netherlands was largely underwater between the mid-third-century and 1050. This more narrow geographic range of depopulation covers the third Dunkirk
Transgression period (alternatively suffixed III).[citation needed]
Ejstrud, Bo (2008). The migration period, Southern Denmark and the North Sea : a workbook in relationship to the Gredstedbro find. Esbjerg: Maritime Archaeology Programme, University of Southern Denmark.
ISBN9788799221417.
Louwe Kooijmans, L. P. (1974). The Rhine/Meuse delta. Four studies on its prehistoric occupation and holocene geology. Leiden: Leyden University Press.
hdl:
1887/27971.
ISBN978-90-60-21194-6.
OCLC1095248.
Meier, Dirk (January 2004). "Man and environment in the marsh area of Schleswig–Holstein from Roman until late Medieval times". Quaternary International. 112 (1): 55–69.
Bibcode:
2004QuInt.112...55M.
doi:
10.1016/S1040-6182(03)00065-X.