GeoChron Timeline Map
Explore 22,000 years of human history
GeoChron Timeline Map
Active Empires (1)
Shoreline: De Groeve et al. 2022, Global Ecology and Biogeography, DOI 10.1111/geb.13573 (CC BY 4.0). Relative sea level from ICE-6G_C/VM5a on GEBCO.Validated 30°N–30°S. North of that — Doggerland, Beringia, the Baltic — the shoreline is indicative, not checked.
Equator
Tropics
Layers3
Geography
Sea Level
Empires
Sea level
-1 m
global mean, at 5,025 years ago
Global compilation with glacial isostatic adjustment applied, so it is an ice-volume-equivalent curve rather than a single site record.
This is a global mean. The water against any particular coast sat higher or lower than this — about -108 m at the Azores when the global figure was -135 m — so the shoreline drawn here is modern, not derived from this number.
These keyframes are a coarse digitisation, not the published series, and have not been checked against the paper.
Ice Age
Neolithic
Ancient
Bronze Age (5,025 years ago)
Olympics (2,801 years ago)
Roman Republic (2,534 years ago)
Roman Empire (2,052 years ago)
Fall of Rome (1,549 years ago)
Norman Conquest (959 years ago)
Fall of Constantinople (572 years ago)
Columbus (533 years ago)
US Independence (1776)
WWI (1914)
WWII Ends (1945)
22,025 years ago2025
5,025 years ago
Speed:yrs/sec
5,025 years ago
1.0x
Drag the timeline to explore historySwipe timeline to explore