The Neolithic shoreline

This Landsat image gives us a clue as to what the coastline might have looked like during the Neolithic, with sea-level about 6m lower than it is today. Around most of the cliffed coasts the difference would have been negligible, except maybe for the emergence of a "fringe" of bouldery beaches along the base of many cliffs. In bays filled with sediments, LWMST would have been further offshore, and the inner parts of bays would have been densely wooded and probably boggy. The most dramatic changes in the configuration of the shoreline would have been in the inner parts of the Bristol Channel and the Severn Estuary.



Loughor Estuary at low tide. These gravelly and muddy flats would have been permanently exposed above HWM in the Neolithic. They would have been heavily wooded too, in sheltered locations.