The Russian Academy of Sciences has produced evidence to show porcupines occupied the Ural Mountains, a generally cool location, during the last major interglacial event. This is one of those strange reports as it is thought temperatures were just a bit warmer than in modern times – but this find indicates it was much warmer. In the Urals, that is. The discovery from a cave deposit and therefore the dating might be conjectural – but it can hardly have been that warm during the intervening Ice Age – could it? The porcupine is an animal of broadleaved forest, not a boreal animal. There were the remains of bears and wolves and these inhabit cool temperatures as well as warmer zones. See http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/prehistoric-porcupi…
Meanwhile, over at http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/sakellariou334/ … submerged prehistoric archaeology – see maps of reconstructed continental shelf systems around the coasts of Britain. It is thought the North Sea has come and gone – on several occasions.