WI: The British Channel didnt exsist?

dunno if this is asby, but what if the british isles never seperated fully from mainland europe, that everything from say...portsmouth to the dover coastline stayed connected to france...how would the british isles form if that was the case?...what implications wouldve it have for the celtic nations, the romans, etc, if they still even came into promemence?
 
A geologically changed world where humans still exist in modern form usually goes into ASB.

In this case, however, I think it's still possible. Geologically speaking, the British Isles didn't split off — the ground between them and France got flooded at the end of the ice age, long after the first modern humans had appeared. Just raise the Strait of Dover by a couple hundred feet, and there's your land bridge.
 
This is technically ASB, but what it would probably lead to, if it didn't butterfly away everything, is more Celtic presence in what would be the British Isles, making it easier for the Romans to conquer and hold on to.
 
In a sense with The Chunnel Tunnel, it's irrelevant today! BTW I would love to see such a tunnel between Ireland and Britain!
 
This is technically ASB, but what it would probably lead to, if it didn't butterfly away everything, is more Celtic presence in what would be the British Isles, making it easier for the Romans to conquer and hold on to.

The post-Roman isolation that made British development take a completely different track from that of Gaul or Iberia would not be there. Thus, you might well see a Frankish Britain, and if Frankia splinters on similar lines to OTL it would be part of West Francia. What happens then I would be unsure of...


Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
The post-Roman isolation that made British development take a completely different track from that of Gaul or Iberia would not be there. Thus, you might well see a Frankish Britain, and if Frankia splinters on similar lines to OTL it would be part of West Francia. What happens then I would be unsure of...


Best Regards
Grey Wolf

No it wouldn't, butterflies would mean there was no roman empire, celtic or germanic peoples or any other peoples we are familiar with OTL. The POD here is somewhere between 225,000 and 425,000 years ago. This POD could well even butterfly away the evolution of Homo Sapiens, although other human species will exist
 
No it wouldn't, butterflies would mean there was no roman empire, celtic or germanic peoples or any other peoples we are familiar with OTL. The POD here is somewhere between 225,000 and 425,000 years ago. This POD could well even butterfly away the evolution of Homo Sapiens, although other human species will exist

the stretch of land im talking about is simply from modern portsmouth to the white cliffs...it wouldnt butterfly away humans, as humans for a start developed in africa...
and the british channel actually formed during the last ice age, barely 9-11000 years ago...long after humans had moved to the area...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Channel
 
There would be no Britain. They drew all their power from the sea and their navy. If the French had ever managed a successful mass landing of troops, especially one that can be resupplied from land, it is very likely that Britain would have been conquered very quickly.
 
the stretch of land im talking about is simply from modern portsmouth to the white cliffs...it wouldnt butterfly away humans, as humans for a start developed in africa...
and the british channel actually formed during the last ice age, barely 9-11000 years ago...long after humans had moved to the area...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Channel

The original formation was between 225,000 and 425,000 years ago, it then dried out and reflooded several times due to ice ages, but the original channel was formed a lot longer than 11,000 years ago. If we are to take a POD of 11,000 years ago then the only possible way that the channel doesn't exist is if there is a current ongoing ice age. This is of course possible
 
The original formation was between 225,000 and 425,000 years ago, it then dried out and reflooded several times due to ice ages, but the original channel was formed a lot longer than 11,000 years ago. If we are to take a POD of 11,000 years ago then the only possible way that the channel doesn't exist is if there is a current ongoing ice age. This is of course possible

or alot more silt and crap was dumped into it as the ice age recedded...i never said it was marshy land, or still had small lakes dotting around it, i just said what if the area was still connected...

and even the 200 000 year thing wouldnt effect human development
 
As far as geographic POD's go, having Antarctica end up in the south Pacific is ASB, having a 50 mile wide stretch of land raised 200 feet in elevation is no more ASB than having typhoons not sink the Mongol fleets heading to Japan.

As has been said this is fairly late into human development and so would not stop the ascendancy of homo sapiens. In fact, if Ireland is still separate I don't think you see too much variation until a few thousand years ago. You're most likely going to see the isles still populated with Celtic tribes, though with a higher population earlier. This would probably encourage more Brythonic Celtic immigration to Ireland precluding the Gaelic settlement later. You'll also have increased contact with the mainland. Expect to see a "tin road" akin to the silk road spring up from Cornwall to Calais, up the Rhine and down the Danube towards the Middle East pop up in the Bronze Age.

I think you might start to see big differences pop up around 1100 BC or so as the collapse of trade routes at the end of the Bronze Age will look rather different with the Mediterranean not being the only viable source of tin. I don't think the collapse would be prevented, but possibly delayed. From this point on, it becomes harder to speculate.

The Eastern Mediterranean probably stays largely the same but it might be possible to see northwest Gaul develop a more coherent society earlier and see a unified state emerging before the a Roman-like expansion can absorb the area.
 
No it wouldn't, butterflies would mean there was no roman empire, celtic or germanic peoples or any other peoples we are familiar with OTL. The POD here is somewhere between 225,000 and 425,000 years ago. This POD could well even butterfly away the evolution of Homo Sapiens, although other human species will exist

Well that makes the entire discussion completely pointless! So its not a viewpoint I would engage with
 
As far as geographic POD's go, having Antarctica end up in the south Pacific is ASB, having a 50 mile wide stretch of land raised 200 feet in elevation is no more ASB than having typhoons not sink the Mongol fleets heading to Japan.

The way you said it makes it entirely ASB.

Why would that stretch of land be raised 200 Feet?

Your example could be as easy as having depart at a different time. This is not that easy to change.
 
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