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A Lost Civilization Beneath the Persian Gulf?
Phoghat sends news of a new theory that a once-fertile landmass beneath the Persian Gulf may have supported some of the earliest humans outside of Africa. "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... 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."
and we will thrive... and we will call it... "this land"
So here we have the origin of much of the stuff in the old testament ...
Wasn't there a book about "crocodile people" who lived in the area of Persian gulf? I am however not sure where I read it and who wrote it.. It was of course borderline fantasy, but still, I recall it was quite interesting.
Is this place which was flooded where the Indo-European language roots come from?
And when Helen sank a thousand ships, was she really just sending them home?
Is Captain Jack Sparrow upside down in the Med?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Quick, check for a Stargate. Then haul it back here.
It's the lost city of... ATLANTA!
So is this the origin of the flood myth? It seems more plausible than the south-east indian origin. I see it as a middle-point between Egypt's myth of Atlantis and the Sumerian flood tale as told in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
because of global warming.
--
BMO
I'm surprised there is no mention of Atlantis in TFA.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Perhaps this is the fabled Atlantis described in Plato's accounts?
Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC[1] or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC.
Alternatively it may be the basis of the Noah's Ark / Flood mythology.
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Let's drill for oil there!
What the fuck? That's a nice Jumping To Conclusions Mat there bro.
Um, and?
Why should that be a problem?
The timescale given doesn't really fit in with any sort of creationist timeline and the Methodist church advocates evolution.
That the Persian Gulf was once smaller and dry where it is now wet is not in dispute, as far as I know.
Unless I'm mistaken, this "new theory" was part of the plot of an Orson Scott Card book, Pastwatch.
but a cataclysm destroyed their civilization and the landform it was built upon. A few survivors made it to Egypt,where they built the pyramids and started an occult tradition of secret knowledge that has been passed down to this very day.
I know this because my insurance agent told me. He belongs to this fraternal organization where they dress up in robes and are instructed in that secret knowledge by the guy who sold me my house.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Um, and?
Why should that be a problem?
Are you really that dense? Mitochondrial Eve demonstrates that we did all come from a single female "mother of us all". You cannot prove a "father of us all" through DNA because of the nature of the male chromosomes but that does not mean that it could have happened. There are two possibilities. 1. Humanity resulted from mating of one single female with multiple males OR 2. Humanity resulted from the mating of one male and an Eve female.
Either way, you cannot get around the fact that some amount of inbreeding would have had to take place.
Breeds of dog are the result of directed inbreeding for a specific purpose.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
It may be R'lyeh!
There was not a single female ("Eve") alive at that time, there were at least thousands of females, and those females were all reproducing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
This image explains it pretty well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MatrilinealAncestor.PNG
-Bill
The dry land is an established fact, right? AFAIK, most scientists agree that sea levels were much lower 10-20k years ago due to the ice age. There was a land bridge in Alaska, and the San Francisco bay didn't exist. You could walk to the Farralone islands which are now something like 14 miles out in the ocean.
Given that these lands existed, it seems likely that humans lived on them.
FWIW, I always picture a primitive man with a fire. Another guy comes along and says, "hey, put out that fire. You're warming up the planet. If you don't stop that, it'll be the Farralone islands instead of the Farralone hills, and the whole planet will be destroyed".
and spam and spam
Well, all the Y chromosomes trace back to a single male, too. The only problem for the Adam-Eve myth is that they lived 150,000 years apart, so likely they were not married.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Not that I necessarily believe in that, but two of the 4 rivers near the Garden of Eden were supposedly the Tigris and Euphrates, and the other 2, as far as I know, have not entirely been explained, though there are some theories.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
of Atlanta!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Here's a link to the abstract just to nip all this 3rd and 4th hand speculation about flood myths and Atlantis: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/657397
It's great for bringing public attention but not so great for highlighting the actual science behind the pop sci article.
So is this the origin of the flood myth?
The folks who once lived in what is now the Black Sea would probably want to share the credit for that one. They seem to have had a similar flood event.
FWIW some geologists who compared the old testament to satellite images found some evidence suggesting that the rivers identifying the location of eden are consistent with rivers (current and ancient) converging on a location now in the Persian Gulf.
Sounds like the Persian Gulf is just like your girlfriend!
I don't even know what that means.
Old guys like young broads, even 150,000 year old guys.
Didn't you people see Ice Age - The Meltdown ?!?!?
Maybe he is. But what about the water in space? (Genesis 1:2, 1:6, 1:7) The first thing to do would be to make a phone call to the International Space Station and ask if there's water in space. If not, then the God drowned everyone-tale fails, no matter how many sunken civilizations you come across.
I could draw a cartoon and call it proof too, it doesn't mean that it's accurate.
Even evolutionary "science" (i.e. the religion of evolution) claims that all mankind is descended from a single "Mitochondrial Eve"
I'm curious as to what religion you might be, since you apparently don't believe in evolution or creation. Probably one of those really wacky ones... Scientology maybe?
Well, all the Y chromosomes trace back to a single male, too. The only problem for the Adam-Eve myth is that they lived 150,000 years apart, so likely they were not married.
That is actually not a problem. According to the Bible, everyone alive today is descended from Noah. According to the Biblical flood story, all male genetic material would come from Noah, but not all female genetic material would come from his wife. According to the Biblical account, Noah survived the flood along with his sons and their wives. Noah's sons were married before the flood. So, according to the Biblical account, while the most recent common source of all female human genetic material is Eve, the most recent common source of male human genetic material is more recent.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
It sounds like some "real" archaeologists might owe Graham Hancock an apology. He's been saying for years that entire civilizations were swallowed up and lost at the end of the last ice age:
http://www.grahamhancock.com/archive/underworld/
I take his theories with a really large grain of salt, but it seems the basic idea isn't so crazy anymore.
Necron69
You cannot prove a "father of us all" through DNA because of the nature of the male chromosomes
Actually, you can, via Y chromosome. And it is far more recent than the mitochondrial Eve (~60,000 years instead of ~300,000 years).
So is this the origin of the flood myth?
Or another attempt at lending credence to the myth, by people of a faith where it's central?
It is unscientific to dismiss a theory because it lends credence to religious beliefs. Do you realize that the current cosmological theory for the origin of the universe, the "big bang" theory, was initially dismissed by the "leading scientists" of the day because (1) it was developed by a roman catholic priest and (2) it seemed too close to the "creation myth of genesis". The term "big bang" was coined by these "leading scientists" to mock the theory.
Secondly, many myths and legends have a bit of truth behind them. Sometimes based on a multigenerational telling of historical events and sometimes as an attempt to explain things beyond a culture's scientific understanding. A real scientist tries to interpret myths and legends, not ignore or dismiss them.
No matter how you try to spin it, the mitochondrial DNA of modern humans trace back to "ONE" female.
To say we all descend from ONE woman does not mean she was the ONLY woman on earth at the time.
Look at it this way: all my brothers, sisters, and cousins descend from my grandmother. But we have TWO grandmothers. Capisce?
Except that it's hard to reconcile the story with the fact that Noah and the "Eve" figure lived over a hundred thousand years apart.
The Noah story is a myth. The Flood story is a myth. The Adam and Eve story is a myth. It's pointless to try to force fit science to myth, or myth to science.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I could draw a cartoon and call it proof too, it doesn't mean that it's accurate.
It's not the drawing, but the logic behind it.
Evolution is all about the survival of the fittest (i.e. the best adapter). If Eve's descendants had even a minute advantage, that would in not too many generations make it more likely than not that everyone were descended from Eve.
That doesn't mean that mitochondrial Eve was the only woman who had children, nor that we aren't descended from her contemporary females along any of the billions of lines with paternal elements.
The picture makes sense because it makes sense, not because someone drew it.
I'm sorry, but the picture the Abrahamic religions draw of Eve doesn't make that sense, and requires faith instead of logic.
I'm afraid you misunderstand what 'mitochondrial Eve' entails.
It simply means that all living humans have some mitochondrial DNA in common, which they all inherited from a single female ancestor.
It does not mean there was only one female ancestor.
That common ancestor lived at the same time with other females (and males), some of which passed on their mitochondrial DNA to people living today, just not to all of them.
Sorry, but you slightly misunderstand "Mitochondrial Eve". It doesn't prove that we can all trace our bloodline back to one female, but rather that along the ancestral line that has only females in it's component, all the ancestors at one point in time had identical (or almost identical) mitochondria. This could be a small group of closely related women as well as one woman. And it's quite possible that no other gene of that particular set of women survived to present day.
It's very close to what you interpret it as saying, but I think different. And significantly different.
Remember that the mitochondrial line has only two special features:
1) the genes mutate rapidly, and
2) it is only inherited along the female line. (I.e., sons don't pass on mitochondrial genes.)
The interesting thing is, if you count all genetic lines, then every person alive today is descended from every person alive at around the time of Julius Caesar (give or take a century) who has any remaining descendants. That's a lot shorter time line. (Personally, I find that one hard to swallow. But all it takes is one shipwrecked sailor and an otherwise isolated gene-pool becomes quickly merged.) (And note the caveat "who has any remaining descendants". A lot of lines were shuffled out of existence in recombination, even ignoring those who didn't leave any grandchildren.)
(Then, as mentioned, there are the studies of the y-chromosome. But that doesn't mutate as rapidly, so it provides a less satisfactory clock.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
>Until I hear about a few geologists supporting this, I read this as Yet Another attempt at trying to legitimize the Abrahamic religion flood myth. That the man behind this was educated at the Southern Methodist University makes it, in my opinion, more likely that there's a bias here.
You realize you are engaging in the same bias practiced by those who dismissed the big bang theory because it was formulated by a roman catholic priest and seemed too close to the story of genesis? I am not vouching for this guy from SMU, just offering something for you to consider when you learn that a scientist has faith. Newton comes to mind too.
Also what is wrong with myth? They are sometimes a pre-literate pre-scientific civilization's attempt to pass along observations from one generation to the next. A real scientist would try to interpret the myth, not dismiss it.
Not quite. Mitochondrial Eve is a last common matrilineal ancestor, but that is NOT the same as saying that we are all descended from her, and her alone, in the way the biblical story goes, with the children of Eve interbreeding, and so on. What does mean is that if you trace any matrilineal line of descent, it goes back to her. If you trace a mixed line, it may (and some mixed lines definitely will) lead back to a different woman living at the same time.
That is pure bullcrap. The time scales increased because our understanding of various geological processes increased, not to mention our understanding of various decay rates. But the age of the Earth being pegged at about 4.5 billion years has been accepted for decades now.
But please, don't let the facts get in the way of your paranoid anti-science rantings.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Archaeologists study Geology intensely, and any team of size will include a Geologist.
Also Southern Methodist is a great place for archæology, home to Lewis Binford among others. The Methodist church isnt fundamentalist and doesnt have a problem with science.
So you were offbase on every point.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/10/navy-rankles-iranians-persian-gulf-change/
It has been said that if you blasted Jerusalem into dust, the Jews, Muslims and Christians would fight over the hole. In fact, if you removed the other two groups, the Jews/Muslims/Christians would fight among themselves over the sacred hole in the ground.
I was wondering where we left it. Now that we found it, can we be civilized again?
There's a strong belief that global warming will actually bring on a new ice age. Kiss Canada goodbye. On a serious note what will this do to country borders? It's bad enough that suddenly former international borders will extend out hundreds of miles but imagine what will happen to the English Channel. 10,000 years ago, give or take a few thousand years, the channel was a grassy plain. Once it's above water where is the border between France and England? As peaceful as things are now I can see a war coming. It's at least hundreds of years off and odds are thousands but it will happen one day. Ice Ages are a fact of life and it's doubtful global warming will stop them it may actually make them worse.
None of you are asking the important question. Which is, of course, whether I should be going underwater off the far southern coast of Kalimdor, and looking for places to dig.
According to the Biblical account, people were planted as seeds by their father in their mother's womb, no genetics required. Oh, and you could make a cow have a striped calf by making it lie down next to straight wooden rods. So... whatever. Bible, schmible.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
Did anybody do the math? 16 Lake Superiors were supposed to raise global sea levels by - what? 10m maybe? Can't imagine that was enough water for a flood.
I can't believe you're that dense that you think "Mitochondrial Eve" means she was the "mother of us all."
Here's a hint: M.Eve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor, which means there must be other common matrilineal ancestors prior to her.
The timescales were invented by proponents of evolution long before any dating methods were developed. Those dating methods were conveniently calibrated to support those previously made up timescales.
Any time evidence popped up either here or on the moon which contradicted those timescales, the inconsistency was quickly covered up and the numbers were fudged to make it all fit again.
Is that fantasy world all comfy and safe?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Sometimes, it can be fun though. We have the science of star trek, why not the science of the holy books? :)
That is pure bullcrap. The time scales increased because our understanding of various geological processes increased, not to mention our understanding of various decay rates. But the age of the Earth being pegged at about 4.5 billion years has been accepted for decades now.
But please, don't let the facts get in the way of your paranoid anti-science rantings.
4.5 billion years is the same number that was coined long before dating techniques were developed.
Scientists claim that the reason why they cannot find any material in the crust anywhere near that age is because they claim that entire crust liquified several times since the formation of the earth. So this number of 4.5 billion years has no physical evidence to back it up yet you take it as gospel truth because a scientist (shaman) says so.
Don't you find all of this a little bit suspicious?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
The timescales were invented by proponents of evolution long before any dating methods were developed. Those dating methods were conveniently calibrated to support those previously made up timescales.
Any time evidence popped up either here or on the moon which contradicted those timescales, the inconsistency was quickly covered up and the numbers were fudged to make it all fit again.
Is that fantasy world all comfy and safe?
How do you like the fantasy of the earth being 4.5 billion years old? Scientists claim that no evidence of that age exists because there were allegedly several times when the entire crust turned molten. How convenient. So we are all expected to believe in a number that was invented by someone over a century ago just because they are scientists (shamans).
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Where did you get that wacko conspiracy theory from, the discovery institute? People were arguing that the Earth was anywhere from 75,000 to a billion years old as early as the 1700's. They used calculations based on observations of erosion and strata, these dating method were first used by Descartes in the early 1600's, three years BEFORE Ussher counted up all the begats and came up with the infamous 4004 BC date. By the time Darwin published the origin of species it was widely accepted by the geologists that the Earth was at least a billion years old.
In other word the old Earth theory preceded the theory of evolution by at least a century.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
How do you like the fantasy of the earth being 4.5 billion years old? Scientists claim that no evidence of that age exists because there were allegedly several times when the entire crust turned molten. How convenient. So we are all expected to believe in a number that was invented by someone over a century ago just because they are scientists (shamans).
There's a fine article about how we know the age of the earth over at Wikipedia, in the unlikely event you want to learn facts that contradict your fantasies.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I figure the opposite. If the guys on the space station say the water is still all up there in space, then the flood myth is wrong.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
As somebody who was there when it happened. I told them it was coming. I said, "Hey, keep driving around those large chariots and eventually this whole place is going to flood." A friend of mine said he was going to build a boat. Took him 100 years. He probably could have done it faster if he had stimulus money. But, hey, times were tough back then.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Sometimes, it can be fun though. We have the science of star trek, why not the science of the holy books? :)
"And God said TECHNOBABBLE, and there was light."
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
4.5 billion years is the same number that was coined long before dating techniques were developed.
Actually that date is rather recent. In the 19th Century Lord Kelvin determined that the earth was a mere hundred million years old. (Way off because he based it on cooling, and he didn't know about radioactive heating.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Lets get the numbers straight
Homo sapiens left Africa 50000 or 100000 years ago
The land mass disappeared 7500 years ago
The slashdot abstract is very badly written.
The date is based upon meteorites. So no, it's no suspicious, and you're still just a pseudo-skeptic. The dates of the oldest extant crusts are still a sufficient fraction of the age of the planet to make using extra-terrestrial evidence a reasonable way to answer the question.
Oh yes, and your still just a pseudo-skeptic.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
What do you mean "civilization"? Are there cities down there? Art? Ocarinas? What? Without artifacts, without context, without methodology, just discovering YA Alleged Antediluvian pile of flint chips (75,000 ybp corresponds to the human bottleneck, while 8,000 ybp is twice as old as the oldest Egyptian civilization. The time scales in TFA are preposterous. Not out of realm of possibility. Out of realm of provability.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
about Iran?
It is your option to shit on reason, but if you do it, could you please refrain from using a nick that besmirches Aristoteles in the process? Thanks a lot.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Give it up. You can't argue with those. They are nuts from a scientific standpoint, and heretics from just about every theological standpoint outside their own echo chamber. You can't reasonably talk with people who willingly lie, cheat and distort every fact to fit their "theory".
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Well, there is clear geological evidence that global sea level was lower by ~180m or so during the last Ice Age, and that sea level rose relatively rapidly between ~10000 and 8000 years ago to close to present-day levels as the continental ice sheets melted. The modern-day Persian Gulf is everywhere less than that, and most of it much less (~half of it is <50m, and I'm not sure any of it is >100m). Although a tectonically active area, the terrain hasn't shifted that much over such a geologically short period, so you can very confidently predict that during the last Ice Age it was exposed land, and that it drowned as global sea level rose. I found this paper by Stoffers and Ross (1979), which is about the Gulf of Oman and inferring what is happening "upstream" in the Persian Gulf from the sedimentation there, but you need access. This paper by Lambeck (1996) [pdf] is accessible. It lays out the geological case pretty well. But what's really needed is to go from archaeological speculation to actually finding sites on the sea floor. What they should do is swath bathymetry across the area, although it would probably be a bit of a mess to sort through all the modern ships, pipelines, and other structures produced from more recent activity.
Anyway, from a geological perspective, no, it isn't a crazy idea. But as far as I know archaeologists have done little to actually LOOK on the sea floor of the Persian Gulf.
Cool, there will be a new $5 DLC for Civilization V.
Most tales about YHWH aren't painting a picture of a nice guy. It's not that unreasonable to even half-seriously suggest that YHWH was an alien; too many of his actions and orders are pretty inhuman by anyone's measure, but fit a heartless robot just fine.
Yeah, because when you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfellas
Old guys like young broads, even 150,000 year old guys.
But it was the other way around. Mitochondrial Eve was born about 150000 years before Y-chromosomal Adam. Maybe he was into extreme necrophilia, or liked them really really wrinkly...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
We have the science of star trek, why not the science of the holy books?
Then we end up with "A proof that heaven is hotter than hell" (Applied Optics, II, A14, 1972) which uses data given quite explicitly in the Book of Isaiah and the Book of Revelations to show the temperature is about 444C in hell and at least 525C in heaven.
This was followed by "A refutation of the proof that heaven is hotter than hell" (J. Irreproducible Results, 25(4)17-18, 1979), which uses Leviticus and some assumptions on the pressure of the damned, modeled as a finite volume of ideal gas to increase the estimated the temperature of hell.
However, the latter utterly ignores the assertion in Isaiah that hell is expanding (rate unspecified), which undermines its entire argument. And so on. Attempting to build any scientific interpretation based on stone-age mythology leads only to contradiction and absurdity. An amusing pastime in its own way, but producing results destined to be utterly misconstrued by the ignorant faithful.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Yeah I know, don't feed the trolls, but sometimes I can't help myself because they are so cute.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
See, that there is dumbass. How, pray tell, do you get from basically a Hewbrew language to the clicks of the Kallahari bushmen? How do you get the Chinese drift?
How long does it take a language to change? Now, how long was it since the flood? Not very long according to the fairytale.
I was just thinking what a shame it is that the ancient city of Babylon used to exist in what is today Iraq. I mean there is a place that would be interesting to visit (well not anymore)...