Sea Level Shifts Over Geological Time（地質年代中的海平面變化）:
Sea levels have experienced numerous fluctuations throughout Earth's 4.5 billion-year history.Over the past 22,000 years, sea levels have been on an upward trend.Changes in sea levels have led to the emergence, disappearance, and significant alterations of entire islands and coastal configurations.（地球在45億年的歷史中經歷過無數次的海平面波動。在過去的22,000年中，海平面呈現上升趨勢。海平面的變化導致整個島嶼和沿海形態的出現、消失和重大改變。）
Archaeology and Coastline Changes（考古學與海岸線變遷）:
An example from a million years ago in England involves the River Thames. The ancient river channel, situated near the river, unveils evidence of early human presence during coastline changes. This evidence includes flint tools, butchered animal bones, and preserved human footprints.（以英格蘭一百萬年前的例子來說涉及到了泰晤士河。位於河流附近的古老河道，在海岸線變化期間揭示了早期人類存在的證據。這些證據包括燧石工具、屠宰動物的骨骸以及保存良好的人類足跡。）
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延伸閱讀：Archaeology and Coastal Shifts
A coastline marks the convergence of land and ocean. Changes in coastlines result from variations in land or ocean conditions, such as erosion, deposition, and shifts in land elevation due to geological forces. Moreover, changes in sea level, whether rising or falling, significantly impact the coastline.
Throughout Earth's 4.5 billion-year history, sea levels have fluctuated numerous times. For example, around 100 million years ago, the interior stretch of North America, spanning from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, was submerged in a shallow sea during the Cretaceous period. The coastlines of that ancient sea, known as the Western Interior Seaway, no longer exist. As sea levels fluctuate over geological time, entire islands emerge, vanish, or undergo significant alterations in coastal configurations.
The high point of the last Ice Age was 22,000 years ago. Over the last 22,000 years, sea levels have been on an upward trend. Approximately 12,000 years ago, during the retreat of glaciers in the most recent Ice Age, the release of pressure from the ice in what is now northern Germany and the Baltic Sea caused the underlying rock to tilt like a see-saw. Coastal areas inhabited by humans sank beneath the rising sea as the northern European coastline shifted southward, while inland regions gained elevation.
As climate change and global warming persist, we expect more substantial changes in coastlines in the coming decades and centuries.
In archaeology, coastline changes can reveal or bury significant artifacts. In England, around a million years ago, the River Thames flowed farther north than today. The old river channel is now buried under thick glacial deposits, but the silts within it are briefly exposed as the sea erodes the overlying sediments, uncovering the earliest evidence of human presence in Britain, including flint tools, butchered animal bones, and human footprints found in the mud in 2013.
Low Hauxley, a small village in Northumberland, has been an archaeological site since 1983. Numerous human burials from the Early Bronze Age were discovered in dunes along Druridge Bay beach near Low Hauxley. Over the past three decades, archaeologists excavated these burials located beneath a stone cairn. Due to the imminent loss of the site, a team of archaeologists excavated what remained of the cairn in 2013.
The excavations revealed that the cairn was originally built on a small hill rising from a coastal saltmarsh, and Mesolithic peoples have inhabited here .
