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Subaerially preserved coastal deposits can archive past changes in relative sea level, providing critical insights into Earth processes acting over millennial and longer timescales. Available Pleistocene sea-level reconstructions for the United States Mid-Atlantic Coast disagree due, in part, to uncertainties regarding the evolutionary history of associated depositional units. This study explores the coastal and nearshore deposits emplaced along the central part of this region, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, at times when relative sea level was near or above its modern elevation during the late-Pleistocene (125–40 ka). We combine published records of sediment cores (≤ 27 m deep), subsurface geophysics (ground-penetrating radar and seismic profiling), and high-resolution topographic-bathymetric digital elevation models to generate an evolutionary model that tracks the emplacement of transgressive, highstand, and regressive deposits associated with past sea-level changes. These data are contextualized with new and previously published absolute (infrared stimulated luminescence, radiocarbon) and relative (amino acid racemization) geochronological analyses to determine the age and elevation of relative sea-level highstands associated with Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 5 and 3. We find that deposits located approximately 6, 6, 4, and 1 m above modern sea level were emplaced during MIS 5e, MIS 5c, MIS 5a, and late MIS 5a, respectively. Sediments associated with a highstand during MIS 3c were also observed at ~6 m below modern mean sea level, underlying the modern barrier-island system offshore the mainland Eastern Shore. These findings elucidate new details of mid-field relative sea-level change during the late Pleistocene and provide critical constraints to the potential impacts of glacioisostacy on the study area. • Late Pleistocene coastal deposits along the Eastern Shore of Virginia record five relative sea-level highstands. • Two marine transgressions were identified at ~ 80 and 70 ka during MIS5a. • During MIS3c (~50 ka) relative sea level reached a maximum of −6 m MSL. • Relative sea level along the forebulge during MIS5–3 was 20 m higher than the global average.