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Mr Hamhead M
Mr Hamhead Nov 20, 2006 08:18:34
Replying to The Eternal

The sea levels would definatly have been lower 4000 years ago making the islands more prominant from the mainland. Today they are very hard to make out unless you know where to look. Were they seen as somewhere safe to bury the dead, away from your enemys who might descicrate the graves on the mainland? Were they seen as a mystical land inhabited by gods who would look after the dead.

And nobody has mentioned Lyonesse, where did the varous legends originate? This fabled land that is now under the sea somewhere of Lands End must have its origins somewhere....or is it all just a load of romantic rubbish?

Mr H

S StoneLifter
StoneLifter Nov 20, 2006 10:32:19
Replying to Mr Hamhead

The large sea level rise was at the end of the last Ice Age when the sea rose at the rate of about a metre a century. I'm not sure how much the sea level rose by, however. The myth of the flood and the destruction of 'Atlantis' as well as the flooding of the eastern land bridge to the European mainland occurred. There has been a sea level rise since the Neolithic - perhaps about a metre or two. ( http://www.stonepages.com/france/erlannichi.html ) The current sea level rise is 1.8mm/year - but the rate appears to be doubling every two or three years. The ice sheets that are now breaking up are reckoned to raise the sea level by about fifty or sixty metres !