Noah's Ark?

[Teallaura]

Should this be spilt across to Nat Sci?

No, Nat Sci threads about the Flood are even less on point and devolve to name calling much faster. This one has actually done pretty well.

[Doug Shaver]

If the flood happened it probably happened through the intervention of God. Trying to find a scientific explanation for it would probably be an exercise in futility.

I agree. And so, the only real question we're left with is whether we have any good reason to believe it happened.

[Roy]

Thank you.

Any time.

[tabibito]

If we assume that the Bible refers to the flood as covering the entire world to a depth of whatever number of cubits it was, I'd have to say "no good reason to believe it at all". If we take the "erets" in its alternative reading as "the (local) land" there's an outside and thoroughly implausible chance that it can have happened.

[Meh Gerbil]

If we assume that the Bible refers to the flood as covering the entire world to a depth of whatever number of cubits it was, I'd have to say "no good reason to believe it at all". If we take the "erets" in its alternative reading as "the (local) land" there's an outside and thoroughly implausible chance that it can have happened.

The only odd thing about the 'local land' reading would be the question of 'why not just have Noah emigrate to some place safe'?

[tabibito]

The only odd thing about the 'local land' reading would be the question of 'why not just have Noah emigrate to some place safe'?

restating: "there's an outside and thoroughly implausible chance that it can have happened."

You would need humans to populate a very sizable island near a volcano that went bang and caused the island to go glug. Tsunami, earthquakes collapsing an eroded substrate and dumping the lot underwater - as happened to Port Royal in the 1600s might do the trick. Or perhaps a significant sized bolide strike would do the trick.

It seems that there was a fair amount of that kind of thing happened 5000 - 8000 years ago. The last remnants of Doggerland, a city sized piece of Yonaguni Jima, Dwarka.

But the king pin of Noah's Ark is a near extinction event ... that would place it hundreds of thousands of years in the past.

[shunyadragon]

restating: "there's an outside and thoroughly implausible chance that it can have happened."

You would need humans to populate a very sizable island near a volcano that went bang and caused the island to go glug. Tsunami, earthquakes collapsing an eroded substrate and dumping the lot underwater - as happened to Port Royal in the 1600s might do the trick. Or perhaps a significant sized bolide strike would do the trick.

It seems that there was a fair amount of that kind of thing happened 5000 - 8000 years ago. The last remnants of Doggerland, a city sized piece of Yonaguni Jima, Dwarka.

But the king pin of Noah's Ark is a near extinction event ... that would place it hundreds of thousands of years in the past.

Based on the evidence, and earliest flood accounts, I believe it is related to memories of catastrophic flooding of the Tigris Euphrates River Valley. Because of the potential of wide spread catastrophic flooding in these valleys up to hundreds of square miles can be flooded particularly in the lower flood plain and delta, it could appear to the people in the valley as the world was indeed mostly covered in water.

[Tassman]

Based on the evidence, and earliest flood accounts, I believe it is related to memories of catastrophic flooding of the Tigris Euphrates River Valley. Because of the potential of wide spread catastrophic flooding in these valleys up to hundreds of square miles can be flooded particularly in the lower flood plain and delta, it could appear to the people in the valley as the world was indeed mostly covered in water.

...and given that primitive people's have historically attributed catastrophic events to the gods' being angry it's very likely that this was the explanation at the time, which gave rise to the Noah's Ark myth.

[shunyadragon]

...and given that primitive people's have historically attributed catastrophic events to the gods' being angry it's very likely that this was the explanation at the time, which gave rise to the Noah's Ark myth.

There is archaeological and geological (geomorphology) of the Tigris Euphrates valley that supports this. I have seen this before, and I consider it worth citing.

Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/history-deluge-2.htm

A prolonged series of excavations was conducted at Ur under the leadership of Sir Charles Leonard Woolley from 1922 to 1934. Woolley found evidence of a settlement at Ur during the `Obeid Period (before 3500 B.C.). Flint objects, clay figurines, and pottery of the `Obeid type were made by the pre-Sumerian settlers at Ur. Above this `Obeid level, Woolley found a layer of silt from three to eleven feet thick which he thought to be the remains of the biblical flood. This seemed to support the claim of a catastrophic flood in the area around 2800 BCE. The event was clearly a local, not a global, event, however) and pre-dates the Biblical book of Genesis in the tale of the good Ziusudra who builds a great boat by the will of the gods and gathers inside two of every animal.

According to tradition Kish was the first city founded after the Biblical flood. Captain Ernest Mackay and Stephen Langdon, excavating at Kish, also came upon flood deposits, but pottery evidence indicates that the two floods did not take place at the same time or even in the same century. Watelin found evidence of two floods, one dated in 1923 as occurring about 3400 BC and the other some six hundred years earlier. He further suggested that the later flood may have been the flood mentioned in the Bible. The Dynasty of Kish, the second of the Babylonian dynasties of the Sumerian rulers, was once dated as early as c.4401-3815, but is now dated at 2844 BC.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers changed their beds several times, and the so-called flood silt may have been formed when the rivers inundated parts of the land that had earlier been inhabited. Martin Beek suggests that the so-called flood silt was not caused by water at all. In his opinion it was produced by the dust storms which occur in southern Mesopotamia each spring and summer.

The flood layer in Ur discovered by Leonard Woolley occurred about the same time as a flood in Nineveh, but is dated in the late Ubaid period [generally held to have ended around 3800 BC]. This Ubaid period flood was too early to be the flood of Ziusudra which was dated by archaeologist Max Mallowan at the end of the Jemdet Nasr period and the beginning of the Early Dynastic I period. This flood was radiocarbon dated at about 2900 BC flood and corresponds to flood layers attested at the Sumerian cities Shuruppak, Uruk, and the oldest of several flood layers at Kish. This flood of 2900 BC left a few feet of yellow mud in Shuruppak. The Kish Flood of 2600 BC was too recent to be the Deluge.

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[rogue06]

There is archaeological and geological (geomorphology) of the Tigris Euphrates valley that supports this. I have seen this before, and I consider it worth citing.

Source: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/history-deluge-2.htm

A prolonged series of excavations was conducted at Ur under the leadership of Sir Charles Leonard Woolley from 1922 to 1934. Woolley found evidence of a settlement at Ur during the `Obeid Period (before 3500 B.C.). Flint objects, clay figurines, and pottery of the `Obeid type were made by the pre-Sumerian settlers at Ur. Above this `Obeid level, Woolley found a layer of silt from three to eleven feet thick which he thought to be the remains of the biblical flood. This seemed to support the claim of a catastrophic flood in the area around 2800 BCE. The event was clearly a local, not a global, event, however) and pre-dates the Biblical book of Genesis in the tale of the good Ziusudra who builds a great boat by the will of the gods and gathers inside two of every animal.

According to tradition Kish was the first city founded after the Biblical flood. Captain Ernest Mackay and Stephen Langdon, excavating at Kish, also came upon flood deposits, but pottery evidence indicates that the two floods did not take place at the same time or even in the same century. Watelin found evidence of two floods, one dated in 1923 as occurring about 3400 BC and the other some six hundred years earlier. He further suggested that the later flood may have been the flood mentioned in the Bible. The Dynasty of Kish, the second of the Babylonian dynasties of the Sumerian rulers, was once dated as early as c.4401-3815, but is now dated at 2844 BC.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers changed their beds several times, and the so-called flood silt may have been formed when the rivers inundated parts of the land that had earlier been inhabited. Martin Beek suggests that the so-called flood silt was not caused by water at all. In his opinion it was produced by the dust storms which occur in southern Mesopotamia each spring and summer.

The flood layer in Ur discovered by Leonard Woolley occurred about the same time as a flood in Nineveh, but is dated in the late Ubaid period [generally held to have ended around 3800 BC]. This Ubaid period flood was too early to be the flood of Ziusudra which was dated by archaeologist Max Mallowan at the end of the Jemdet Nasr period and the beginning of the Early Dynastic I period. This flood was radiocarbon dated at about 2900 BC flood and corresponds to flood layers attested at the Sumerian cities Shuruppak, Uruk, and the oldest of several flood layers at Kish. This flood of 2900 BC left a few feet of yellow mud in Shuruppak. The Kish Flood of 2600 BC was too recent to be the Deluge.

© Copyright Original Source

Source: Lost Civilization May Have Existed Beneath the Persian Gulf

0000000000000cc2.jpg
This map reveals the Arabian Peninsula with regions that were exposed as sea levels fell,
and so became environmental refuges, possibly for some of the earliest humans out of Africa.

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.

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.


Source

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