More on the Great Flood of biblical and other ancient myths - see possibly related post on the "Garden of Eden" I did a day or two ago.
From Canada.com
Massive Canadian melt may have triggered flood of biblical proportions
By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News December 10, 2010
A British researcher has published a startling new theory that the remains of untold ancient settlements from a 100,000-year stretch of human history were submerged by the rapidly rising waters of the Persian Gulf around 6,000 BC — the result, in all likelihood, of a catastrophic, planetwide flood triggered in Canada.
There's a consensus among scientists that the collapse of a kilometres-high glacial dam at the end of the last ice age caused a massive outflow of meltwater into the Arctic or North Atlantic Ocean near Hudson Bay, generating a sharp rise in sea levels around the world and profoundly altering the Earth's climate.
Some scientists have even speculated that ancient myths about great floods — culminating in the biblical story of Noah's Ark — were inspired by the worldwide deluge.
But the new theory, advanced in the latest issue of the journal Current Anthropology by University of Birmingham archeologist Jeffrey Rose, offers the clearest picture yet of what may have been lost at the Middle East nexus of human civilization when Canada's super-sized Lake Agassiz — a remnant of which is today's Lake Winnipeg — suddenly burst its banks 8,000 years ago.
The resulting rise of the Indian Ocean flooded a Great Britain-sized expanse of the Arabian Peninsula that had previously been above water and was almost certainly inhabited by ancient peoples for as long as 100 millennia, Rose stated. The rising water created the present-day Persian Gulf and drowned shorelines around the peninsula, along the northeast coast of Africa and elsewhere around the world.
And the flooding of those lands, Rose argued, would have submerged extensive archeological evidence of key moments in the evolution of the human race, of the initial stages of their eastward migration out of Africa, and of the cultural developments leading to the early civilizations of the Middle East. Rose stated in a summary of the study that recent archeological discoveries along the Persian Gulf coast show relatively advanced cultures with no apparent precursor settlements to explain how they attained their level of cultural sophistication.
"These settlements boast well-built, permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world," Rose noted.
"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well-developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," he added. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."
In an email to Postmedia News from Oman, Rose said further research into the precise timing and nature of the flood-triggering event that created the Persian Gulf is "an integral part of the puzzle."
He also referenced groundbreaking studies by University of Manitoba geologist James Teller, whose reconstructions of the colossal drainage of ancient Agassiz — the meltwater basin that once covered most of Central Canada, and held a volume equivalent to 15 Lake Superiors — have initiated a wave of new research on outburst impacts ranging from global climate cooling to the origins of agriculture in southern Europe.
"There is now a critical mass of evidence to indicate that some significant flooding event greatly impacted an indigenous group that had been living within the (Persian Gulf) basin," Rose said. "Whether this was a gradual process over a few thousand years, or, as Teller suggested, happened relatively quickly due to a (meltwater outburst) in the North Atlantic at 8,200 years before present, is one of the questions to be addressed going forward."
As early as 2004, Teller was tentatively linking the 6,000 BC Canadian gusher to flooding in the Persian Gulf region and the ancient flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which scholars see as a possible model for the later biblical account of Noah's flood.
"Who knows how well the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Bible is really reflecting the real world," Teller told Postmedia News at the time. "But the floor of the Persian Gulf is really, really flat in the middle. And like dumping a cup of water on a table — or even a thimbleful — it will rush across the tabletop to the far end."
Rose, referring to recent archeological finds in Oman and Yemen, said there is now evidence suggesting a human presence in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula as early as 100,000 years ago. He noted that such a discovery "alters our understanding of human emergence and cultural evolution in the ancient Near East." These and other findings, the summary stated, indicate that "vital pieces of the human evolutionary puzzle may be hidden in the depths of the Persian Gulf."
© Copyright (c) Postmedia News
Showing posts with label Garden of Eden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garden of Eden. Show all posts
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Is This a New Theory About the Garden of Eden?
From Yahoo News
Lost Civilization May Have Existed Beneath the Persian Gulf
Jeanna Bryner
livescience Managing Editor
livescience.com – Fri Dec 10, 7:25 am ET
Veiled beneath the Persian Gulf, a once-fertile landmass may have supported some of the earliest humans outside Africa some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, a new review of research suggests.
At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean, the review scientist said.
The study, which is detailed in the December issue of the journal Current Anthropology, has broad implications for aspects of human history. For instance, scientists have debated over when early modern humans exited Africa, with dates as early as 125,000 years ago and as recent as 60,000 years ago (the more recent date is the currently accepted paradigm), according to study researcher Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K.
"I think Jeff's theory is bold and imaginative, and hopefully will shake things up," Robert Carter of Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. told LiveScience. "It would completely rewrite our understanding of the out-of-Africa migration. It is far from proven, but Jeff and others will be developing research programs to test the theory."
Viktor Cerny of the Archaeogenetics Laboratory, the Institute of Archaeology, in Prague, called Rose's finding an "excellent theory," in an e-mail to LiveScience, though he also points out the need for more research to confirm it.
The findings have sparked discussion among researchers, including Carter and Cerny, who were allowed to provide comments within the research paper, about who exactly the humans were who occupied the Gulf basin.
"Given the presence of Neanderthal communities in the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates River, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean region, this may very well have been the contact zone between moderns and Neanderthals," Rose told LiveScience. In fact, recent evidence from the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome suggests interbreeding, meaning we are part caveman. [Part caveman? This is baloney -so-called "Neanderthal" weren't hunch-backed slope-browed hairy "apemen" just because they lived in caves. So-called "Cro-Magnon" man also lived in caves, as did so-called "Modern" humans in France and Spain during the last great Ice Age. Duh. This type of writing continues to feed into ignorant and proven to be incorrect stereotypes.]
Watery refuge
The Gulf Oasis would have been a shallow inland basin exposed from about 75,000 years ago until 8,000 years ago, forming the southern tip of the Fertile Crescent, according to historical sea-level records.
And it would have been an ideal refuge from the harsh deserts surrounding it, with fresh water supplied by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun and Wadi Baton Rivers, as well as by upwelling springs, Rose said. And during the last ice age when conditions were at their driest, this basin would've been at its largest.
In fact, in recent years, archaeologists have turned up evidence of a wave of human settlements along the shores of the Gulf dating to about 7,500 years ago.
"Where before there had been but a handful of scattered hunting camps, suddenly, over 60 new archaeological sites appear virtually overnight," Rose said. "These settlements boast well-built, permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world."
Rather than quickly evolving settlements, Rose thinks precursor populations did exist but have remained hidden beneath the Gulf.
"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," Rose said. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."
Ironclad case?
The most definitive evidence of these human camps in the Gulf comes from a new archaeological site called Jebel Faya 1 within the Gulf basin that was discovered four years ago. There, Hans-Peter Uerpmann of the University of Tubingen in Germany found three different Paleolithic settlements occurring from about 125,000 to 25,000 years ago. That and other archaeological sites, Rose said, indicate "that early human groups were living around the Gulf basin throughout the Late Pleistocene."
To make an ironclad case for such human occupation during the Paleolithic, or early Stone Age, of the now-submerged landmass, Rose said scientists would need to find any evidence of stone tools scattered under the Gulf. "As for the Neolithic, it would be wonderful to find some evidence for human-built structures," dated to that time period in the Gulf, Rose said.
Carter said in order to make for a solid case, "we would need to find a submerged site, and excavate it underwater. This would likely only happen as the culmination of years of survey in carefully selected areas."
Cerny said a sealed-tight case could be made with "some fossils of the anatomically modern humans some 100,000 years old found in South Arabia."
And there's a hint of mythology here, too, Rose pointed out. "Nearly every civilization living in southern Mesopotamia has told some form of the flood myth. While the names might change, the content and structure are consistent from 2,500 B.C. to the Genesis account to the Qur'anic version," Rose said.
Perhaps evidence beneath the Gulf? "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands," said Rose, quoting Douglas Adams.
As far as I am aware, of the four rivers named in the biblical description of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, only two have been identified: The Tigris and the Euphrates. Here is a transcription of the account from the King James Version of the Bible:
Gen. 2:8: And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. (10) and a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. (11) The name of the first is Pi-son: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; (12) And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. (13) And the name of the second river is Gi-hon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. (14) And the name of the third river is Hid-de-kel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. and the fourth river is Eu-phra-tes.
Here are the four rivers named in the article: Tigris, Euphrates, Karun and Wadi Baton Rivers.
Perhaps the Garden of Eden (actually, east of Eden) has never been successfully located because it now sits under the Indian Ocean. We shall see, I hope. It depends upon future funding for archaeological expeditions and will take years to locate and excavate underwater settlements, assuming of course, that they ever existed to begin with and that the remains still do exist beneath the seas.
Lost Civilization May Have Existed Beneath the Persian Gulf
Jeanna Bryner
livescience Managing Editor
livescience.com – Fri Dec 10, 7:25 am ET
Veiled beneath the Persian Gulf, a once-fertile landmass may have supported some of the earliest humans outside Africa some 75,000 to 100,000 years ago, a new review of research suggests.
At its peak, the floodplain now below the Gulf would have been about the size of Great Britain, and then shrank as water began to flood the area. Then, about 8,000 years ago, the land would have been swallowed up by the Indian Ocean, the review scientist said.
The study, which is detailed in the December issue of the journal Current Anthropology, has broad implications for aspects of human history. For instance, scientists have debated over when early modern humans exited Africa, with dates as early as 125,000 years ago and as recent as 60,000 years ago (the more recent date is the currently accepted paradigm), according to study researcher Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist at the University of Birmingham in the U.K.
"I think Jeff's theory is bold and imaginative, and hopefully will shake things up," Robert Carter of Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. told LiveScience. "It would completely rewrite our understanding of the out-of-Africa migration. It is far from proven, but Jeff and others will be developing research programs to test the theory."
Viktor Cerny of the Archaeogenetics Laboratory, the Institute of Archaeology, in Prague, called Rose's finding an "excellent theory," in an e-mail to LiveScience, though he also points out the need for more research to confirm it.
The findings have sparked discussion among researchers, including Carter and Cerny, who were allowed to provide comments within the research paper, about who exactly the humans were who occupied the Gulf basin.
"Given the presence of Neanderthal communities in the upper reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates River, as well as in the eastern Mediterranean region, this may very well have been the contact zone between moderns and Neanderthals," Rose told LiveScience. In fact, recent evidence from the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome suggests interbreeding, meaning we are part caveman. [Part caveman? This is baloney -so-called "Neanderthal" weren't hunch-backed slope-browed hairy "apemen" just because they lived in caves. So-called "Cro-Magnon" man also lived in caves, as did so-called "Modern" humans in France and Spain during the last great Ice Age. Duh. This type of writing continues to feed into ignorant and proven to be incorrect stereotypes.]
Watery refuge
The Gulf Oasis would have been a shallow inland basin exposed from about 75,000 years ago until 8,000 years ago, forming the southern tip of the Fertile Crescent, according to historical sea-level records.
And it would have been an ideal refuge from the harsh deserts surrounding it, with fresh water supplied by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun and Wadi Baton Rivers, as well as by upwelling springs, Rose said. And during the last ice age when conditions were at their driest, this basin would've been at its largest.
In fact, in recent years, archaeologists have turned up evidence of a wave of human settlements along the shores of the Gulf dating to about 7,500 years ago.
"Where before there had been but a handful of scattered hunting camps, suddenly, over 60 new archaeological sites appear virtually overnight," Rose said. "These settlements boast well-built, permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world."
Rather than quickly evolving settlements, Rose thinks precursor populations did exist but have remained hidden beneath the Gulf.
"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," Rose said. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."
Ironclad case?
The most definitive evidence of these human camps in the Gulf comes from a new archaeological site called Jebel Faya 1 within the Gulf basin that was discovered four years ago. There, Hans-Peter Uerpmann of the University of Tubingen in Germany found three different Paleolithic settlements occurring from about 125,000 to 25,000 years ago. That and other archaeological sites, Rose said, indicate "that early human groups were living around the Gulf basin throughout the Late Pleistocene."
To make an ironclad case for such human occupation during the Paleolithic, or early Stone Age, of the now-submerged landmass, Rose said scientists would need to find any evidence of stone tools scattered under the Gulf. "As for the Neolithic, it would be wonderful to find some evidence for human-built structures," dated to that time period in the Gulf, Rose said.
Carter said in order to make for a solid case, "we would need to find a submerged site, and excavate it underwater. This would likely only happen as the culmination of years of survey in carefully selected areas."
Cerny said a sealed-tight case could be made with "some fossils of the anatomically modern humans some 100,000 years old found in South Arabia."
And there's a hint of mythology here, too, Rose pointed out. "Nearly every civilization living in southern Mesopotamia has told some form of the flood myth. While the names might change, the content and structure are consistent from 2,500 B.C. to the Genesis account to the Qur'anic version," Rose said.
Perhaps evidence beneath the Gulf? "If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family Anatidae on our hands," said Rose, quoting Douglas Adams.
*******************************************************************
I like a Rose who quotes one of my favorite analogies about the proverbial duck :) As far as I am aware, of the four rivers named in the biblical description of the Garden of Eden in Genesis, only two have been identified: The Tigris and the Euphrates. Here is a transcription of the account from the King James Version of the Bible:
Gen. 2:8: And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. (10) and a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. (11) The name of the first is Pi-son: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; (12) And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. (13) And the name of the second river is Gi-hon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. (14) And the name of the third river is Hid-de-kel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. and the fourth river is Eu-phra-tes.
Here are the four rivers named in the article: Tigris, Euphrates, Karun and Wadi Baton Rivers.
Perhaps the Garden of Eden (actually, east of Eden) has never been successfully located because it now sits under the Indian Ocean. We shall see, I hope. It depends upon future funding for archaeological expeditions and will take years to locate and excavate underwater settlements, assuming of course, that they ever existed to begin with and that the remains still do exist beneath the seas.
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