Western European countries such as the British Isles, France, Belgium, Holland and Germany have large low-lying coastal plains that contain extensive tracts of both fresh water and saltwater wetlands. In the last few decades these wetlands have come under the scrutiny of archeologists, post-glacial geologists, historians and historical geographers. Their research efforts indicate that dyking methods for preventing inundation of marshes from flooding due to run-off from heavy rainfall and by high tides developed, over a long period of time, on Western Europe's wetlands. As well, similar methods may also have appeared on marshes found in Asia and Africa. The research findings of these investigators also indicate that a transfer and adaptation of European marshland technology did take place on the salt marshes located along North America’s Atlantic Coast.

The Roman Aboiteau: An Example of an Early European Wetland Technology.

Dyked salt marshes required sluiceways with tide operated one-way valves to prevent seawater from inundating the marsh at high tide and fresh water to drain from the dykeland at low tide. Tide operated sluiceways, called aboiteaux by the Acadians, aboteaux in France before the colonization of Acadia (Hatvany 2002, p.124), écluses in France in 1863 (Hatvany 2002, p.126), and tide gates in England and the United States, were used in Roman settlements in the Netherlands in the first century AD (Rippon 2000, p. 84-90). The image links below show a Roman aboiteau dating to circa 75 – 125

..it is difficult to pinpoint an exact date for the advent of the tidally-operated water gates and sluices for agricultural purposes, it is certain that by the seventeenth centry such systems were relatively well known in Holland, France and England (Hatvany 2003, p. 41).