POD: 10,000 BCE?
What if the Dogger Bank (see the nice map at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland) was just a bit higher, so that it persisted as an island in the North Sea?
We can postulate a basal population of Mesolithic and then Neolithic
migrants overladen by dominant Celtic groups. Would any ancient
Germans make it over? Frisians, perhaps - noted ancient seagoing
traders?
Rome would almost certainly have conquered Doggerland, given its
conquest of much larger and more populous Britain nearby. But during
the fall of the Roman Empire, would at least some invading Jutes,
Angles, and Saxons settled on Doggerland instead, weakening their
impact on post-Roman Britain?
Doggerland would be an excellent candidate for outright conquest by
the Vikings.
Christianity would come at roughly the same time as Britain - same
struggle between Roman and Celtic churches? Eventual victory of the
Roman church, due to geographic location, I think.
Things are trickier after the Vikings. Does Doggerland develop like
the rest of post-Viking Scandinavia - a centralizing monarchy? Or
does it get drawn into Anglo-Saxon and then Norman English history?
My guess is, Doggerland would have very close mercantile, feudal, and
historical ties to Englan but probably would have its own dynasty.
So what about World War One and Two? Doggerland would be in a
difficult position - close to both Britain and Germany. Would
probably be occupied by the Nazis in 1940 - ?
Then liberation by the Allies in 1944 or 1945, on the Low Countries/
Norway model?
Postwar, integration into NATO and the EU, etc., etc. "Historical name": Ranheim (after a Viking sea deity)?
What if the Dogger Bank (see the nice map at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland) was just a bit higher, so that it persisted as an island in the North Sea?
We can postulate a basal population of Mesolithic and then Neolithic
migrants overladen by dominant Celtic groups. Would any ancient
Germans make it over? Frisians, perhaps - noted ancient seagoing
traders?
Rome would almost certainly have conquered Doggerland, given its
conquest of much larger and more populous Britain nearby. But during
the fall of the Roman Empire, would at least some invading Jutes,
Angles, and Saxons settled on Doggerland instead, weakening their
impact on post-Roman Britain?
Doggerland would be an excellent candidate for outright conquest by
the Vikings.
Christianity would come at roughly the same time as Britain - same
struggle between Roman and Celtic churches? Eventual victory of the
Roman church, due to geographic location, I think.
Things are trickier after the Vikings. Does Doggerland develop like
the rest of post-Viking Scandinavia - a centralizing monarchy? Or
does it get drawn into Anglo-Saxon and then Norman English history?
My guess is, Doggerland would have very close mercantile, feudal, and
historical ties to Englan but probably would have its own dynasty.
So what about World War One and Two? Doggerland would be in a
difficult position - close to both Britain and Germany. Would
probably be occupied by the Nazis in 1940 - ?
Then liberation by the Allies in 1944 or 1945, on the Low Countries/
Norway model?
Postwar, integration into NATO and the EU, etc., etc. "Historical name": Ranheim (after a Viking sea deity)?