Any evidence for a great flood

[Pete]

There doesn't seem to be a forum here for geology so I'm posting this question here.

 

Is there any geological evidence which supports all the flood myths that exist in so many different cultures? I.e. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(mythology)

 

I see a lot of hypotheses there but no mention of evidence.

 

Pete

Edited September 1, 2008 by Pete

[insane_alien]

well, there was no world wide flood but there have been plenty of large scale floods in human history. particularly at the end of the last iceage.

 

it is likely that the great flood myths came from several of these and just got passed down generation by generation into what we see today.

[D H]

well, there was no world wide flood but there have been plenty of large scale floods in human history. particularly at the end of the last iceage.

Sea levels have risen 400 feet since their minimum 18,000 years ago at the peak of the last ice age. Modern talkative and superstitious humans were certainly around then. In most places the sea level rise would have merely pushed humans living near the shore inward. However, if the sea level rise breached a barrier of some sort the flooding could have been quite severe. Some hypothesize that the Black, Caspian, and Red Seas formed extremely quickly as the rising sea levels opened these seas up to nearby larger bodies of water.

[CaptainPanic]

I have no links, but I believe there was evidence of the black sea being a fresh water lake. Then at some point the Bosporus opened and the sea expanded by 50% in a really short time. That's the biggest flood I've heard about. I guess if you lived there in the old days, it seemed pretty much like a global flood.

 

But evidence I have not myself. Perhaps searching about this particular event can help?

[insane_alien]

the mediterranean sea has dried up several times in its history along with a huge re flooding. i'm not sure if the last one was in human times though.

 

but it its the closest thing to a world wide flood i can think of.

[JohnB]

Pete, short answer. No, there is no evidence for a world wide deluge.

 

However. The fact that it exists in every culture implies to me that something happened. It has been a topic of occasional interest to me.

 

The "Black Sea" and similar theories are severly lacking as a source for the legends as they would only apply to the European peoples. Certainly not the source for South American, Australian, Indian and Chinese legends.

 

AFAIK the only culture without a "Great Flood" myth is the Japanese, but they have the legend of a time without a sun for an entire month while the Gods fought amoungst themselves.

 

I think it is possible that a series of cataclysmic events may have occurred that gave rise to these legends.

 

To give a simplistic analogy. Remember the Boxing Day tsunamis that hit the Indian Ocean a few years ago? It hit India, Africa and Indonesia.

 

Imagine a stronger quake giving bigger surges happening say, 8,000 years ago. What would we have today? Legends from widely separated places of a time when the sea rose and covered "All the Land", each account from the locals POV.

 

Maybe the post glacial rebound caused a string of faults and quakes around the world, setting off volcanoes and tsunamis in the process. As the waves, clouds and shocks went around the globe they affected every tribe and gave rise to the legends?

[insane_alien]

Well, we don't know that the legends sprung up at the same time or even had the same cause.

 

tsunamis likely accounted for all the coastal legends and there are several other major floods similar ot that on other continents from when glaciers were melting.

 

some probablly came from exceptional weather as well. and you have to remember that the legends will be spread between cultures when the interact for trading or whatever so it didn't have to happen everywhere.

[Sayonara]

However. The fact that it exists in every culture implies to me that something happened. It has been a topic of occasional interest to me.

 

Alternatively, it simply points out the phase in human history in which a large but ultimately localised flood, stretching as far as the naked eye could see, constituted "the world" being covered in water.

 

As i_a says, we don't know the synchronicity of the myths. If they all matched up, now that sure would be interesting.

[iNow]

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG201.html

 

1. Flood myths are widespread, but they are not all the same myth. They differ in many important aspects, including

• reasons for the flood. (Most do not give a reason.)
  
  
• who survived. (Almost none have only a family of eight surviving.)
  
  
• what they took with them. (Very few saved samples of all life.)
  
  
• how they survived. (In about half the myths, people escaped to high ground; some flood myths have no survivors.)
  
  
• what they did afterwards. (Few feature any kind of sacrifice after the flood.)

 

If the world's flood myths arose from a common source, then we would expect evidence of common descent. An analysis of their similarities and differences should show either a branching tree such as the evolutionary tree of life, or, if the original biblical myth was preserved unchanged, the differences should be greater the further one gets from Babylon. Neither pattern matches the evidence. Flood myths are best explained by repeated independent origins with some local spread and some spread by missionaries. The biblical flood myth in particular has close parallels only to other myths from the same region, with which it probably shares a common source, and to versions spread to other cultures by missionaries (Isaak 2002).

 

 

2. Flood myths are likely common because floods are common; the commonness of the myth in no way implies a global flood. Myths about snakes are even more common than myths about floods, but that does not mean there was once one snake surrounding the entire earth.

 

 

 

Regarding the Maio tribes in China (The Miao flood myth is very like the story of Noah)...

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG202_1.html

Other flood myths collected from the Miao differ greatly from Traux's version and yet are consistent in their details: A brother and sister survive the flood in a wooden drum or boat. The Lord of the Sky causes the water to drain. In the absence of other survivors, the brother wants to marry the sister. The sister resists but is persuaded when tests show it is the will of heaven. Their child is limbless and egg-like; when cut into pieces, the pieces become new people. In some versions, different pieces become different ethnic groups or clans. (Geddes 1976, 22-24; Johnson and Yang 1992, 115-117). This myth follows the same pattern which is common throughout Southeast Asia (Dang Nghiem Van 1993).

 

 

 

And this one, The Chinese Hihking flood myth is very like the story of Noah:

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CG/CG202_2.html

This flood story apparently comes from the United States, not China. We have traced it back to Nelson's The Deluge Story in Stone (1931, 181-182). Nelson says that, according to the Hihking, Fuhi "escaped the waters of a deluge, and reappeared as the first man at the reproduction of a renovated world, accompanied by his wife, his three sons and three daughters." There is no mention of a boat. The temple illustration is a separate account which Nelson attributes to Gutzlaff, presumably Karl Gützlaff, a Lutheran missionary in China around 1825. Gutzlaff reports it as a picture of Noah, not Fuhi. There are no further references to allow either account to be checked.

 

Nelson's "Hihking" most likely refers to the Shan hai ching, or Classic of Mountains and Seas. However, the flood myth described therein is very different from Nelson's account. The Shan hai ching story says that when a great flood came, Kun ("Hugefish") stole breathing-soil (the matter of creation) from the great god to dam the waters, but he did not wait for the great god to command him to use it, so the great god ordered Kun killed. Kun was later restored to life and gave birth to Yu who, at the great god's command, completed Kun's work of damming the flood waters (Birrell 1999, 195-196; Walls and Walls 1984, 94-100). The differences between the two accounts are so profound that we can only speculate how Nelson came by his version. Presumably, he relied on a second- or third-hand version which was conflated with the biblical flood in memories and retellings. Perhaps Fuhi (Fu Hsi, Fu Xi, or other transliterations) became substituted for Yu because both are considered founders of aspects of civilization.

 

It is possible that the Hihking refers to another work, but we can find no other that is more plausible. The I Ching is a possibility as Fu Hsi is credited with its authorship, but it contains no flood account at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also, CH400-CH599: Flood here: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

 

and here: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-flood.html

Edited September 3, 2008 by iNow

[JohnB]

Alternatively, it simply points out the phase in human history in which a large but ultimately localised flood, stretching as far as the naked eye could see, constituted "the world" being covered in water.

Sayo, I think this is an extremely unlikely explanation given the spread of the myth. As we see it all over the world, if this idea was correct then the various peoples carried it with them from the time before the races spread and covered the globe. This would place the dating from at least 50,000 years ago.

 

Also from inows first quote, it can be seen that the myths are different enough to almost certainly preclude common ancestry.

 

Something that seems to distort peoples perception is that most seem to have a very Christian centric view. The biblical flood story is not the progenitor of the others. It is nothing more than one legend among many. Nor is it original, but cribs bits from the much older Babylonian and Sumerian versions. TBH, we can actually ignore the biblical account for that reason.

 

Some of these stories come from areas quite familiar with "normal" floods. Sumer for example has deposits of silt from 4-6 feet thick, showing that phenomenal floods were known to these people. They simply rebuilt and civilisation continued.

and you have to remember that the legends will be spread between cultures when the interact for trading or whatever so it didn't have to happen everywhere.

The current theory is Isolationism, not Diffusionism. Under that theory contact allowing the spread of legends between cultures during the pre historic period is impossible. You need to postulate pre Columbian contact between the old and new world for a start. (Mind you, the recent autopsy of Ramses II showed both Nicotine and Cocaine in his system and the only place these could have come from is South America. This may imply contact before the 13thC B.C.)

 

One thing to remember is that the seas did not rise up and cover the whole world, just the "whole world" from the POV of a Neolithic tribe. (say within about 2 days walk)

 

Could a single event cause such widespread stories? Yes, easily. A meteor shower with 4 or 5 ocean impacts would fit the bill quite nicely. Similarly, because we don't know that the stories are in fact about the same event there could be multiple causes.

 

European and Middle Eastern legends may stem from the Mt. Etna landslide some 8,000 ybp.

 

African, Indian and Western Australian legends might stem from the mid Indian Ocean impact some 4,800 ybp. (For those with Google earth, search for "Fenambosy Chevron". If we look at this NYT article, note the picture at the top. The hill on the right is not a hill, but the 600 ft high pile of junk left behind by the wave. I've found a similar set of chevrons at 14⁰58'S and 145⁰13'E in north Queensland. The Tsunami passed clean over the 27 km wide peninsula.

 

Because of the physical evidence I submit that while the various flood legends may or may not stem from a single "event", they are most certainly not exaggerations but are at the bottom, accounts of real cataclysms that wiped out areas of the planet.

 

A final thought. The Fenambosy chevron is only 3 miles from the sea as the crow flies, but the wave that deposited it travelled more than 30 miles over land to reach the site and create a hill 600 ft high. Sleep tight.

[Sayonara]

Sayo, I think this is an extremely unlikely explanation given the spread of the myth. As we see it all over the world, if this idea was correct then the various peoples carried it with them from the time before the races spread and covered the globe.

Why does that have to be the case?

 

Many historical human societies have been similar enough to generate the same kinds of myths about common and essentially identical events occurring in different locations. There is no reason to suspect that stories about floods all refer to the same specific flood, unless you pre-suppose that two things are accurate:

 

1) That this was a global flood,

2) That the stories originated with people who could have qualified that such a flood was global.

 

Do you think that either of those suppositions are likely in any way whatsoever?

[insane_alien]

Floods happen across the globe. It makes sense that mythology would sprout up around them especially if there was a period of abnormal amounts of flooding. I propose that the flood myths are common because flooding is common. Through exageration and the odd major flood it has ingrained itself into many cultures, especially as cultures spread because of a common thread.

 

i'm pretty sure that if there was a scenario similar to hurricane katrina back a few hundred years when it was just tribes of natives then they would pass the tale of the flood that covered the world down the generations.

[Phi for All]

The biblical account of the flood claims it's a global event, and covered the earth to a height of 8 meters above the mountains (Genesis 7:20). To believe this, you need to allow God to break His own physical laws, quadrupling? the amount of water on Earth for a period of forty days, then making the excess drain away somewhere.

 

Without resorting to omnipotence, the global flood from the Bible is not possible.

[insane_alien]

The biblical account of the flood claims it's a global event, and covered the earth to a height of 8 meters above the mountains (Genesis 7:20). To believe this, you need to allow God to break His own physical laws, quadrupling? the amount of water on Earth for a period of forty days, then making the excess drain away somewhere.

 

Without resorting to omnipotence, the global flood from the Bible is not possible.

 

yes but we are considering the multiple different flood myths around the world. not all of them involve (a) god.

[CaptainPanic]

People have spread pretty much around the globe during the last 10000 years. Most guesses about these catastrophes put the date around that time as well... Therefore I conclude that it might not be necessary that a flood actually happened everywhere. The story might have traveled with the people.

 

Furthermore, I do agree that there is no evidence that the world as a whole flooded (or that the continents sank). Assuming that many places spread around the world suffered from floods, there is no evidence that this happened on the same days... And for the myths to survive, there is no need for that either. After all, myths are not history.

 

Both points also go for other myths like dragons (monster stories are also pretty wide spread).

[JohnB]

Perhaps I'm not explaining myself properly.

 

Each of the flood myths speak of the disaster affecting the "entire world". Personally I view this as mean the "whole world" from their particular POV. IOW each legend tells of a local event that was disastrous for that particular region.

 

CaptainPanic, the various races were spread long before 10,000 ybp. So for there to be a common ancestor for the legend, the event would have to have occurred prior to the spread of humanity. I can't believe that a legend would last 40,000+ years. It just seems very unlikely.

Floods happen across the globe. It makes sense that mythology would sprout up around them especially if there was a period of abnormal amounts of flooding. I propose that the flood myths are common because flooding is common. Through exageration and the odd major flood it has ingrained itself into many cultures, especially as cultures spread because of a common thread.

Then why are there no widespread legends of fires? These would have been at least as numerous and just as terrifying for ancient peoples.

 

The point ignored here is that vitually all the legends, while they include rain refer to the greatest danger coming from the oceans. "The seas rose up" type of thing.

 

I think tsunamis fit the bill best. The question that follows is "Where there a number of tsunamis at different times, or a series at roughly the same time?"

 

The planet is 70% ocean so a meteor has a 70% probability of a water strike. A large meteor breaking into pieces that allow strikes in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans are more than enough to result in flood legends occurring all over the world.

 

Heck, the one that caused the Fenambosy chevrons would result in flood legends from Australia to the Middle East. What would the surge have been like after funnelling up the Arabian Sea and spilling into the Med? (BTW, that's why I doubt the dating of this strike at 4,800 ybp. There would have been something in the records if it happened then.)

 

Now maybe I"m seeing what i want to see but consider this from the "Epic of Gilgamesh".

Just as dawn began to glow

there arose from the horizon a black cloud.

Adad rumbled inside of it,

before him went Shullat and Hanish,

heralds going over mountain and land.

Erragal pulled out the mooring poles,

forth went Ninurta and made the dikes overflow.

The Anunnaki lifted up the torches,

setting the land ablaze with their flare.

Stunned shock over Adad's deeds overtook the heavens,

and turned to blackness all that had been light.

The... land shattered like a... pot.

All day long the South Wind blew ...,

blowing fast, submerging the mountain in water,

overwhelming the people like an attack.

A vast black cloud, the heralds (shockwaves?) preceeding it, Massive light from the sky (flares). The land shattered and then a wave submerging the mountain and overwhelming the people. Sounds like a water strike and tsunami to me.

 

BTW, the Epic doesn't say the "whole world" was destroyed, but describes the utter destruction of a region. In a disaster so great that

The gods were frightened by the Flood,

and retreated, ascending to the heaven of Anu.

The gods were cowering like dogs, crouching by the outer wall.

Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth,

it even frightened the Gods.

[D H]

I can't believe that a legend would last 40,000+ years. It just seems very unlikely.

What is so unbelievable about a legend lasting 40,000+ years? I can think of one legend/myth that has lasted far longer than that: religion.

 

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_Religion

There are suggestions for the first appearance of religious or spiritual experience in the Lower Paleolithic (significantly earlier than 300,000 years ago, pre-Homo sapiens), but these are controversial and have limited support.

[iNow]

But, DH, that's not a specific legend, but instead a relatively common group behavior. Legends have details and specifics and descriptions about events, whereas religion is (unfortunately) not a "one-time event in history" which is passed down through stories.

 

It's like suggesting that baseball has been around for millenia and then sharing a link that humans and other animals compete with each other to support the assertion.

[JohnB]

One of the problems I find when discussing this topic is that people can get fixated on the biblical account and for some unknown reason give it some sort of primacy. The biblical story is probably the youngest of all the flood myths and is almost certainly cobbled together from older versions. Frankly, a discussion would be easier if the blasted thing had never been written.

 

For most people, the biblical account is the only one they've ever read and they make the unfounded assumption that the others are similar in all respects.

 

There are similarities, true, but mostly concerning the scale of the disaster. Gods may be mentioned as a cause, but usually because they were fighting amoung themselves. Things are rarely directed at the humans, the Gods fought and humans just got caught in the crossfire.

[pioneer]

One point many people miss is there was not satellite imagery of the earth when these myths were made. The world for them was what they knew. For example, during the middle ages, for most Europeans, the western hemisphere or the America's were not part of the world. There was a big waterfall there with sea monsters.

 

That being said, claims of a world flood only had to encompass the fraction of the world they were aware of when these accounts were written. Beyond that there was no world as far as they knew. The question for the biblical account should be is there evidence of a flood in the Mediterranean region, since this would have been their world.

[lucaspa]

Pete, short answer. No, there is no evidence for a world wide deluge.

 

However. The fact that it exists in every culture implies to me that something happened. It has been a topic of occasional interest to me.

 

John, every culture does NOT have a flood story. Richard Andre did a comprehensive collection of myths about the floods. It was Die Flutsagen: Ehnthographisch Btrachtet, 1891. Andre had nearly 90 deluge traditions. Of these, 26 arose from the Babylonian story and 43 were independent. He noted a lack of deluge traditions in Arabia, Japan, northern and central Asia, Africa, and much of Europe. He concluded that not everyone had descended from survivors of a single deluge, otherwise the traditions would all have been much more identical and there would be deluge traditions in every society instead of a minority.

 

There doesn't seem to be a forum here for geology so I'm posting this question here.

 

Is there any geological evidence which supports all the flood myths that exist in so many different cultures?

 

Pete, as several have pointed out, there is evidence in each case for a local flood or several of them. In the MidEast, there is archeological evidence of at least one very severe flood in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley that wiped out a large portion of the current civilization there. That flood may have served as the inspiration for the flood in the Gilgamesh Epic (which later was plagiarized by the Hebrews as Noah's flood).

 

However, there is:

1. No geological evidence of a world-wide flood that cannot be explained by having local floods.

2. Hundreds/thousands of geological features that could not possibly have been laid down by a flood.

 

Flood Geology was the accepted scientific theory up until about 1800. It was thought that a world-wide flood had caused all geological features. By 1820 so many of the geological features had been discovered that it was thought that only the uppermost gravels and morraines had been deposited by a world-wide flood. But evidence found during the 1820s showed that even these could not be due to such an event. A world-wide flood had been shown to be false by 1831. Rev. Adam Sedgwick, head of geology at Cambridge and President of the Royal Geological Society, put the final nail in the coffin of a world-wide flood in that year.

 

What we have now are events -- such as the flooding of the Black Sea -- that are hypothesized to serve as inspirations for the various local legends.

[JohnB]

lucaspa, some of Andres findings are not surprising. One would hardly expect flood legends in central or northern Asia. Also I would surmise his African list to be lacking as there is geological evidence that large tsunamis have indeed hit that region. (Not to mention the severe lack of research into African mythology in 1891.)

 

Europe is also unsurprising as by 1891 there would be few indigenous legends left that hadn't been overpowered by christian legends.

 

The Japanese do not have a flood myth, however they do have legends of a time when the Gods fought resulting in great disaster.

 

I would also be wary of placing too much reliance on an 1891 work as at that rather early time in Anthropology the vast majority of the myths and legends of indiginous peoples were not catalogued. There would have been few collections concerning Asia, North and South America and Australia for example.

 

In contrast UCLA published Folk Literature of South American Indians (Wilbert & Simoneau 1992). This work lists 4,259 myths from 20 cultural groups east of the Andes. Contained within these myths are those classified as "World Calamities".

Flood 171

Cold 7

Great Fire 60

Sky Fall 26

Great Darkness 20

 

An analysis of this work with regard to the possible genesis of these legends from impact, airburst or volcanic causes can be found in Masse 2007 From my reading of the literature (which is rather sparse) little research has been done into the possibility of Holocene disaster level events.

 

The east coast of Queensland shows evidence of large tsunami damage over 770km of it's length. In places the wave penetrated more than 25 km inland, yet there has been zero research in the area. We don't even know when it happened. (I am assuming a single event here because all the damage appears to come from one wave from the South East rather than from different directions.)

 

I submit that until there is better data regarding the dating of these large events it is premature to write off disaster legends as exaggerations of local floods. Strabo speaks very mattor of factly of waves that were so large "that some of the plains were overflowed even as far as twenty stadia"

 

The riverine floods of the Tigris Euphrates region can only be considered as genesis events of Gilgamesh by ignoring the information contained in the legend. The rivers flow from the North to the Arabian Gulf in the South. The Epic of Gilgamesh (as I quoted above) clearly states the water came from the South. ie From the sea.

 

I don't think anybody here is arguing for the concept of a worldwide flood as described in the biblical account. My personal bet is that the majority, if not all flood legends had their genesis in tsunami events. The only question is timing really. Are the legends concurrent? If so then this would point to a short period when for some reason a number of tsunamis were generated around the world. As I said in an earlier post a meteor shower with 3 good water strikes would fit the bill.

 

While obviously not covering "all the world", such events would be certainly large enough to convince those who managed to survive the coastal devastation that the disaster was indeed world wide. It would also be sufficient to cover the "whole world" from the limited, local perspective of those primitive groups.

[Sisyphus]

Perhaps flood myths are so common because floods were so important to early civilizations, which mostly arose around annually flooding rivers like the Nile. Too little flooding, and the ground is infertile. Too much, and everything gets washed away. How could stories about disastrous floods not be widespread?

[lucaspa]

I would also be wary of placing too much reliance on an 1891 work

 

It is sufficient to refute the claim that every culture has a flood story.

 

I submit that until there is better data regarding the dating of these large events it is premature to write off disaster legends as exaggerations of local floods. ... I don't think anybody here is arguing for the concept of a worldwide flood as described in the biblical account. My personal bet is that the majority, if not all flood legends had their genesis in tsunami events.

 

And tsunami events are local floods, are they not? I never said that the source of floodwaters had to be an overflowing river. After all, the filling of the Black Sea or the rise of sea level at the end of the last ice age are not, are they?

 

The riverine floods of the Tigris Euphrates region can only be considered as genesis events of Gilgamesh by ignoring the information contained in the legend. The rivers flow from the North to the Arabian Gulf in the South. The Epic of Gilgamesh (as I quoted above) clearly states the water came from the South. ie From the sea.

 

Yes. And it also talks about storm clouds. Which leads me to speculate that we might be dealing with a meteor strike in the Persian Gulf. The geology would have concentrated the waves moving north and created some really monstrous tsunamis.

 

However, the Noah story is a plagiarism of the Unt-napushtim story. All the elements are there: a giant flood, deity (Marduk or Yahweh) warning one "righteous" man, the building of a boat or raft, and the saving of his family and animals while everyone else drowns.

 

The only question is timing really. Are the legends concurrent?

 

Don't appear to be. And some of the legends are inland where a tsunami would not reach.

 

As I said in an earlier post a meteor shower with 3 good water strikes would fit the bill.

 

While obviously not covering "all the world", such events would be certainly large enough to convince those who managed to survive the coastal devastation that the disaster was indeed world wide.

 

First, you don't need to have a planetwide disaster to satisfy each legend talking about the "world". Remember, people did not have the modern conception of the world that we do. There was no "world wide" as we know it. There was no conception of "planet" 3500 BC or before. And cultures were isolated due to limited transportation. Their "world" was basically the extent of their culture. You said this: "It would also be sufficient to cover the "whole world" from the limited, local perspective of those primitive groups."

 

So why hypothesize three concurrent meteor water strikes?

I don't think you need 3 water strikes because you don't need to have a single event account for all the flood legends. Separate events each affecting a large area (in terms of the knowledge of the people) but a small area of the planet will do just fine.

 

Second, you don't need a meteor strike to cause a tsunami. As the 2005 tsunami demonstrated, an underwater earthquake will do.

 

So a 3 concurrent meteor strikes are not needed to account for the flood legends. The alternative hypothesis of isolated riverine flooding or tsunamis will also account for the data. If you want to hypothesize 3 concurrent water meteor strikes, you would need:

1. To test the dates for all the flood stories/events. You could do this by carbon dating artifacts in the sediment deposited by the tsunamis.

3. Have some independent evidence of these meteor strikes. Look for crators and then date the crators. Based on the position of the tsunamis you know about, such as Australia, you would be able to triangulate and narrow the search. Now, some of the strikes would be in deep water and might not have left a crator, but there should be other physical evidence remaining.

Edited September 15, 2008 by lucaspa

[JohnB]

It is sufficient to refute the claim that every culture has a flood story.

Fair enough. Will you accept "most" then? The legend is present on all populated continents.

Yes. And it also talks about storm clouds. Which leads me to speculate that we might be dealing with a meteor strike in the Persian Gulf. The geology would have concentrated the waves moving north and created some really monstrous tsunamis.

We're actually thinking on the same lines here. A strike in the Persian Gulf would do quite well. My thought was that with a decent strike in the Indian Ocean the wave might also concentrate as it hit the gulf. Such a strike would also (possibly) give rise to legends in India, Indonesia, South Africa and Australia.

 

I don't know that there is enough internal information to conclude accurately whether or not the events were concurrent. On the "No" side is the statistically improbable event of a world wide catastrophe, while on the "Yes" side is that most legends speak of only one great flood event. More data required.

I don't think you need 3 water strikes because you don't need to have a single event account for all the flood legends. Separate events each affecting a large area (in terms of the knowledge of the people) but a small area of the planet will do just fine.

 

Second, you don't need a meteor strike to cause a tsunami. As the 2005 tsunami demonstrated, an underwater earthquake will do.

I totally agree, that is another explanation.

If you want to hypothesize 3 concurrent water meteor strikes, you would need:

1. To test the dates for all the flood stories/events. You could do this by carbon dating artifacts in the sediment deposited by the tsunamis.

3. Have some independent evidence of these meteor strikes. Look for crators and then date the crators. Based on the position of the tsunamis you know about, such as Australia, you would be able to triangulate and narrow the search. Now, some of the strikes would be in deep water and might not have left a crator, but there should be other physical evidence remaining.

Again I agree.

 

If I appeared to be "pushing" the multiple strike idea, I apologise, that was not my intention. (I'm jumping the gun a bit.)

 

My interest in this area are the legends where the destruction came from the sea, pretty much removing riverine floods from the equation. I'm currently looking into the dating of megatsunami events. There is surprisingly little accurate info out there on this topic. If (within the limits of the dating techniques) it appears that there were megatsunamis in different oceans at around the same time, then it may be possible to conclude that many of the flood legends have a common cause. Some sort of world wide event. In that case a multiple strike hypothesis would have better grounding.

 

If however, the dating of the megatsunami remains show no concurrent timings, then the only conclusion is that many flood myths while having a similar cause (Tsunami) are not related and are local accounts of local events.

 

The evidence may show concurrency or indicate a number of events over a period of millenia. Frankly, I don't care which it is, I'd just like to know.

 

I suppose the other factor which makes me wonder is the Younger Dryas period. A very sudden and dramatic climate change some 10-11,000 ybp. This was the most dramatic climatic event in the history of mankind. (And some have attributed it to a strike or series of strikes.) I wonder if there is a connection.

 

Wouldn't it be interesting if it could be shown that the start of the YD event was connected to strikes and that there was evidence of a series of megatsunamis at around the same time? Everything tied up in a neat little Gordian Knot.

 

While maybe not as interesting, it would be nice to know if the evidence showed no connection at all between all these things.

 

Looking into the topic and seeing where the evidence leads is a hobby of mine. So far there is not enough good data for me to put forward any really defensible hypothesis. As far as I'm concerned, the questions of concurrency and cause are wide open.