Now, I'm half with you here - I believe that the Butterfly Effect is grossly overrated to the point of making Alternate History pointless if followed to the extent that some people here, such as our friend Susano, advocates. But there comes a point where you have to consider it. So let's look at this.
1) Napoleon's ancestors lived on the isolated Med island of Corsica. The historical effect of Doggerland on Corsica would have been very small.
Consider, if you would, the following:
Now, Bonaparte was born in 1769. Before this time, Napoleon's father worked as secretary for Pasquale Paoli, the Corsican patriot of sorts who wanted to spur Corsican independence and form an English-esque state, even an English protectorate following the Westminster system of representative democracy. He even asked George III of the UK to become Corsica's Head of State. Now, as Paoli's secretary, Bonaparte the elder was repeatedly sent abroad on various diplomatic and personal missions. Now, if we can butterfly away Charles I of England we can butterfly Paoli's life into something completely different, thus completely changing Bonaparte the elder's life. Now I'm not going to talk about nanosecond changes of timing affecting egg and sperm in intercourse, as Susano advocates, because I believe that a person's characteristics will be largely the same, as will their upbringing, moulding a person into virtually the same man or woman they always would be. But if we can have Bonaparte the elder's life change, have him through a slow cause and effect cycle move be elsewhere when he should be conceiving Napoleon, then our potential Napoleon, even if a doppelganger is born, is now older or younger than he should be. Even if the French Revolution happens as in real life, Napoleon needs to be a very particular age to be in the right place at the right time to get involved in the Revolution. This means that the Napoleonic Wars are unlikely to happen, and this has a massive effect, removing a lot of the social changes in Europe and certainly changing motivations enough to destroy the possibility of the two World Wars. You see what I mean?
Now we don't only need to consider that. We have to consider all possible ways things like that can change, from POD. I'd agree with you that for the first few centuries little will change, but let's pretend that by the year 1065 Doggerland is part of the Scandinavian circle. Let's say Harald Haadraada uses it to invade England, and he does this faster because it's closer. Let's say he lands in England just a week ahead of schedule. And let's say everything about the Battle of Stamford Bridge is reproduced. Now Harold II of England has an extra week to get back to fight William the Conqueror. Crucially, he has an extra week to raise more levies. This surely pretty much makes his army too tough for William to defeat. We've now butterflied away all the English Kings from William I, which has effectively destroyed the whole English democracy thing. By the previously-mentioned rippling effect of one thing changing other slowly over time, this has rewritten all of European politics as of a couple of centuries later, at least. Incidentally, through the ripple effect of one thing affecting another, by this POD too, Napoleon born 1769 has no chance here either. Corsica was not as isolated as you think, and I'll remind you that Bonaparte's parents liked to boast that they were more important than the Corsican nobility because they were directly descended from mainland Italian nobles.
It is certainly conceivable that his parents and ancestors would not have been affected enough to change history in that way. That clearly would not be as true for people closer in, say in Germany, the British Isles, Scandinavia. But if we're going to talk about Napoleon and Julius Caesar, yeah, I'd say they'll still show up.
Presuming we keep Caesar - and yeah, there's reasons not to but I think it's possible to get round them - the previous point indicates how we need to consider just about all European (certainly western European) history off-limits as of at least 1200.
2) All the criticism of this proposal keeps bringing up the butterfly effect like some kind of mantra. Yes, changes accumulate over time - but human history is a huge river that will find its way to the ocean regardless of rocks, trees, or other obstacles in its way. What's the point of thinking about AH if you all really believe that one change is enough to wipe away our entire history? We can't do AH in that case, since the feared butterfly effect would - as many of you see it - eliminate all we know in just a few generations. So why are people even speculating about changes pre-1900? If what you say is true, there's no point to any POD's earlier than, oh, say 1990 or so...Can't have your butterfly and eat it too.
How very Braudel-ian of you. You might have had an easier time explaining this if revisionist thought had not died out in the 1970s, I'm afraid, but I agree with your comments to an extent. Certainly I think we might as well abandon this forum if we're going to argue that every historical figure is dead from the POD onwards, and I flagrantly and deliberately ignore this idiom as often as possible. But there comes a point when you do have to accept that some things are just too far derived to be kept. For my part, I'd say that from the Viking era you should start seriously reconsidering how history would go. Certainly there won't be a WW2, or a Napoleon Bonaparte (see above).
