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Since the last glacial period, large vertical changes in the height of sea level relative to the land surface have led to considerable horizontal shifts in the position of coastlines around Northwest Europe. Indeed, for much of the last 20,000 years, extensive areas of the present-day shelf seabed were sub-aerially exposed due (primarily) to the glacial eustatic lowering of sea level. Accurate maps depicting these palaeogeographic changes are of great value to a wide spectrum of researchers including (inter alia) archaeologists, marine geomorphologists, climate scientists, biogeographers and palaeobotanists, although a lack of empirical sea level data has often hindered efforts to produce reliable palaeogeographic reconstructions. However, the processes which bring about change in relative sea level can be successfully simulated by …