Doggerland in the North Sea?

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)?
 

Susano

Banned
butterflies.jpg


Wont somebody please think of the butterfly effect?

If theres a Doggerland in in 10k BCE, there wont be a WW2 in 1944. Simple as that.
 
I think it might butterfly away WWI and WWII, or atleast as we now them. It would also not be the sort of thing the Brits would let the Germans take anyway, as it would be practice for a Sealion.
 

Susano

Banned
I think it might butterfly away WWI and WWII, or atleast as we now them. It would also not be the sort of thing the Brits would let the Germans take anyway, as it would be practice for a Sealion.

With a PoD in 10k BCE, it will butterfly away pretty much everything.
 
I think it might butterfly away WWI and WWII, or atleast as we now them. It would also not be the sort of thing the Brits would let the Germans take anyway, as it would be practice for a Sealion.

I think the changes would make Sealion a success, as there would be a lively German sea trade with this North Sea paradise, using enhanced or modified sea barges, based out of the Rhine trade. Further, due to butterflies the Nazis will assume power with a slight POD, based on Goering having served on the armoured sea barge fleet for a few months during the Great War. He will be aware of their uses and apply the covert Luthansa model to the seabarge fleet, under the radar of course.
 

MrP

Banned
With a PoD in 10k BCE, it will butterfly away pretty much everything.

But Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt and Stalin will still turn up at exactly the same times as IOTL, right? Right? Aw. :(
 
yes, massive butterflies, but ignoring them for now here are some random thoughts...

I'm assuming you meant the second map in the link, where it is a fairly large island between denmark and britain.
This might spur earlier naval tech in the north sea area, maybe leading to a viking analogue thousands of years earlier.
I question how hospitable the climate/weather would be. I imagine similar to the shetlands, but perhaps cooler (out of the gulf stream)
Any chance of mammoths and like surviving there?
Any known resources?
eventually it's part of some union of Scandinavia Britain and Denmark?
good location for a central capital...
 
Butterflies are pretty but ...

I have to say, I was disappointed in my very first post on AHDB. I might be new to this site but have been reading and thinking about AH for 25+ years, so, yeah, I know about the butterfly effect. And just let me say that a lot of the posters on this thread seem happy to lean on the butterfly effect rather than do any actual thinking about the hypotheses in question. Doggerland would certainly change things, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater - Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Charlemagne would all still most likely appear, since the impact of Doggerland will be limited by its relatively remote location on the periphery of Europe and smallish size and population. It would make WWI and WWII different for sure - but it would certainly not remove the underlying causes for these wars, which are huge and tectonic and cannot be blithely waved away by a small North Sea island...People, stop with the butterflies and start with the historical thinking! I think all the butterflies have made some of you lazy...
 

Susano

Banned
No, Napoleon etc. will certainly not exist in such a world, since even if their respective parents meet, the chances of exactly the same egg and exactly the same sperm meeting are absymally small, and it takes only little to change such things. Why the hell would history magically follow the same route as IOTL (in our timeline)? If theres a Doggerland, it will change the life of people - people who settle there, people who trade with Doggerland, etc etc. And those changes dont go away, they build up over time - some people with altered lives will have contatc to other cultures, from whom some now also altered people will have contact with yet other people - thus the butterfly effect builds up. After four generations top nothing will be the same anymore. Hell, make it 20 generations, and this still means you wont even have the Roman Empire as we know it!
 
dude, you think that all napoleon's ancestors are going to be exactly the same, marry exactly the same people and have exactly the same kids, with a pod over 10,000 years ago?
That would require everyone on the planet doing the exact same thing they did otl, and ignoring that there is a pod. what's the point of that?
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
I would think the first real impact comes with the Anglo-Viking kingdom of Canute &c. This land is in the middle of his dominions, and although might not play a particular role, which kingdom would it come to be associated with ? It would not be particuarly easy to defend from anywhere, tho its own independent existence is also unlikely. Quite possibly Hardrada and Tostig would use it as a staging post for the invasion of England, and even if defeated at Stamford Bridge (or analogue) it would persist as THE Danish stepping stone, make the 1086 invasion more successful and quite possibly able to drive William out of England at that date

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

MrP

Banned
I have to say, I was disappointed in my very first post on AHDB. I might be new to this site but have been reading and thinking about AH for 25+ years, so, yeah, I know about the butterfly effect. And just let me say that a lot of the posters on this thread seem happy to lean on the butterfly effect rather than do any actual thinking about the hypotheses in question. Doggerland would certainly change things, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater - Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Charlemagne would all still most likely appear, since the impact of Doggerland will be limited by its relatively remote location on the periphery of Europe and smallish size and population. It would make WWI and WWII different for sure - but it would certainly not remove the underlying causes for these wars, which are huge and tectonic and cannot be blithely waved away by a small North Sea island...People, stop with the butterflies and start with the historical thinking! I think all the butterflies have made some of you lazy...

Thing is, old boy, I used to think like that, as did many others. But the more one looks at it, the more one sees how truly open to multiple outcomes situations are. Doggerland's mere existence will -

1) open it to colonisation,
2) increase the possible habitable land area in Europe,
3) decrease fishing areas,
4) alter weather patterns worldwide.

All these things (and someone else will turn up in a mo and suggest a dozen I've missed, no doubt!) have knock-on effects. Some people who IOTL migrated from Gaul to the British mainland will end up here instead. All it takes is for one such colonist to have been IOTL the distant forebear of the Duke of Wellington, say, and there's no Duke ITTL's 1815.

Doggerland's relatively diminutive size isn't an argument for it not removing individuals. However, its existence is an argument for rerolling the dice, as it were, that led to, say, Roman hegemony in Italy, Macedonian domination of Greece and many other things. It isn't to say that one can't get the same roll both times one runs the simulation, but the more dice one rolls (i.e. the earlier the PoD) the greater the possibility of change creeping in. With a geological PoD such as this, the divergence starts in pre-history.
 
Napoleon etc.

1) Napoleon's ancestors lived on the isolated Med island of Corsica. The historical effect of Doggerland on Corsica would have been very small. 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.

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.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Well you can keep the majority of history ontrack, but there are going to be more almosts, more nearlies, more wobbles, more changes that will eventually build up to alter things somewhat.

For example, sure the Danish invasion of 1086 (if I got my date exactly right) could have been DEFEATED but the existence of Doggerland as a staging post is going to lead to a greater Norman concentration upon it. This in turn would lead to a greater Norman concern with defences against the Vikings. It would also probably lead to a greater Danish interest in the place, as an outpost of their kingdom, or potentially so. If England and Denmark get into a war over Doggerland, then Danish adventures in the rest of Scandinavia, and Norman adventures in N France could be deflected

Again, sure at this stage ity might not DERAIL them, but you would build up additional global strategic butterfly-ettes that the next time the island really comes into play would have sidereal effects

After a while these changes would build to a sufficient head that it knocks history COMPLETELY off course

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 

Susano

Banned
1) Napoleon's ancestors lived on the isolated Med island of Corsica. The historical effect of Doggerland on Corsica would have been very small.
For one thing, Corsica isnt that inbred that no outside genes ever entered the gene pool. I dont know how many generation one needs to go back - but make it again 20, and youll find certainly at least one ancestor who is not from Corsica. And that all it takes. And then, Corsica isnt perfectly isolated form the outside world as well. It needs only ONE contact with the accumulated changes in 10k years for changes to begin to accumulate in Corsica as well.

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.
Yeah, thats what I meant with magic. Thats NOT how causality works. There IS no preset way or goal for history - you have one change, and everything slowly changes from there, thats how it is.

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.
Why is there no point to it? Why cant AH be made with fictional people? Yes, there are restrictions to AH. A PoD in geological time as yours is pretty much not useable, yes. And even a PoD in ancient time can lead to a timeline of maybe 300 years, but cant be taken into present. But so what? Every genre and every media has limitations. One cant, oh, I dunno - one cant paint music, either, but that doesnt mean painting is useless as art form.

However, having a PoD 10k years into the past and then STILL have Charles the Great, the USA, Napoleon, the American Civil War and the World Wars in perfect order - that sunrealistic, superficial, not well thought and well, considered somewhat newbish by many here. Including me.
 
The Vikings were in the Medditeranean, so who knows,maybe with the increased resources of Doggerland they would have colonized Corsica like they had done to southern Italy. While I don't argue that Ceaser might be the same, Napolean is highly unlikely.

The point about the Butterfly affect is more: you can't have a surviving Byzantium and expect Napolean to still come around. The point of AH as I see it is to try and speculate about what would have happened and just how different things would have been, sure there will be some similarities, but the world will still be very different.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
The Vikings were in the Medditeranean, so who knows,maybe with the increased resources of Doggerland they would have colonized Corsica like they had done to southern Italy.

I might argue the opposite - if the effect of Doggerland is to increase hostilituy between England and Denmark, then resources would be spent in fighting over the place and not be free to roam afar as much as in OTL

Imagine if Robert Guiscard's role in history is to lead a force reconquering Doggerland from the Danes ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
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