Editing Rhine (section)

===End of the last glacial period===
As northwest Europe slowly began to warm from 22,000 years ago onward, frozen [[subsoil]] and expanded [[alpine glaciers]] began to thaw and fall-winter snow covers melted in spring. Much of the discharge was routed to the Rhine and its downstream extension.{{sfn|Ménot|Bard|Rostek|Weijers|2006}} Rapid warming and changes of vegetation, to open forest, began about 13,000&nbsp;BP. By 9000&nbsp;BP, Europe was fully forested. With globally shrinking ice-cover, ocean water levels rose and the English Channel and North Sea re-inundated. Meltwater, adding to the ocean and land [[subsidence]], drowned the former coasts of Europe [[transgression (geology)|transgressionally]].

About 11000 years ago, the Rhine estuary was in the Strait of Dover. There remained some dry land in the southern [[North Sea]], known as [[Doggerland]], connecting mainland Europe to Britain. About 9000 years ago, that last divide was overtopped / dissected. Humans were already resident in the area when these events happened.

Since 7500 years ago the situation of tides, currents and land-forms has resembled the present. Rates of [[sea level rise]] dropped such that natural sedimentation by the Rhine and coastal processes widely compensate for transgression by the sea. In the southern [[North Sea]], due to ongoing [[tectonic subsidence]], the coastline and sea bed are sinking at the rate of about {{convert|1|-|3|cm|in|abbr=on}} per century (1&nbsp;meter or 39&nbsp;inches in last 3000&nbsp;years).

About 7000–5000 BP, a general warming encouraged migration of all former ice-locked areas, including up the [[Danube]] and down the Rhine by peoples to the east. A [[Black Sea deluge hypothesis|sudden massive expansion of the Black Sea]] as the [[Mediterranean Sea]] burst into it through the [[Bosporus]] may have occurred about 7500&nbsp;BP.