Black Sea and Baltics importance for civilisation.

Very few will probably deny that the end of big glaciers in large parts of continents may have benefitted the development of diverse civilisations, and the spread of humans.

Other factors,not so obvious, may have contributed as well. Thousends of years ago big "inner parts" of what is now european waters were either land, or lakes, like the Baltics, the Black sea and even long ago great part of North Sea between the Continent and Britain. The opening of those waters meant a very big difference, making a coast and sea civilisation possible for the following millenia. Probably a very significant factor in later periods of european development, and even part of middle east too  perhaps. Indirectly now also for global civilisation, since the later depend heavily on earlier more "local" european development. (not to say that other, similar waters were not important too)