Noahs Flood

There are often discussions about the Great Flood of the bible and generally science folk claim that there is absolutely no evidence for such a flood.However I've just finished reading 'Noahs Flood' by William Ryan & Walter Pitman. They are marine biologists who have uncovered evidence for a wide spread flood in the middle east. Now while they do not cite this as proof of noahs flood, nor attempt to. In fact they do the opposite because they conclude that it was this localized flooding which led to the flood 'myths', they do show that around 5600 years ago the Black Sea was inundated with sea water from the mediterranean. They provided evidence of a sudden dispersal of the inhabitants and a relatively short length of 3 centuries of inactivity then a sudden repopulation on previously inhabited sites by a more advanced people.Their hypothesis has been critisised in that some say that the water flow through the Bosporus repeatedly reversed direction over time depending on the water levels of the Aegean Sea and Black Seas.
This apparently contradicts their assertion that the water broke thru the Bosporus.Im interested if anyone else has read it and what they think of the evidence that these researchers found regarding the sudden disapearance of populations and the repopulation by new settlers with more advanced technologies.
Edited by Peg, : No reason given.Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

Thread copied here from the Noahs Flood thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

A minor correction:The date of this localized flood was 5600 BC, not 5600 years ago.There is some good background information at Wiki:Black Sea deluge hypothesis - Wikipedia

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

So, why did you label this topic as "Noah's flood"? Why not Gilgemish's flood, or Melvin's flood? Do you read any newspaper or ever watch the tv news? How many times a year do you hear about a major flood somewhere that kills and displaces thousands of people? Earth is not just a rock orbiting a star. It is a very vibrant and dynamic planet the pulses and throbs with constant changes and upheavals. Any society whose culture does not contain a flood story is very rare and noteworthy.

You can get a fairly detailed article that directly refutes the Ryan & Pitman flood theory here:ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/GSAToday/gt0205.pdfThe title is "Persistent Holocene Outflow from the Black Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean Contradicts Noah’s Flood Hypothesis", and the authors are Aksu, Hiscott, Mudie, Rochon, Kaminski, Abrajano and Yasar.Their basic points are based on core samples of delta deposits at the mouth of the Bosporus Strait in the Marmara Sea, and measurements of salinity and flow in the water column of the Bosporus and the two seas that it connects.This is not an area of science that I'm at all familiar with, but I was able to get the gist of the article. As indicated by the title, the evidence points to a steady outflow of fresh water from the Black Sea into the Marmara and Aegean, going back 10 to 12 k years ago -- long before the 7.5 k.y.a. date proposed by Ryan and Pitman for a catastrophic break of a land barrier that they say blocked the Bosporus.The appearance of salt-water mollusks in the Black Sea at about 7.5 k.y.a. (the main basis for the Ryan/Pitman flood hypothesis) is explained by Aksu et al. as being the result of a "stratified" flow in the Bosporus, such that heavier saline water from the Aegean flows into the Black Sea below the lighter fresh water that flows out from the Black Sea.There's nothing there about presence/absence/movement of people during this period. Given the gradual nature of the water transfer process, any notable cultural phenomena would most likely have had other causes.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Ah, that would be because the title of the book is 'Noahs Flood'

"Ah, that would be because the title of the book is 'Noahs Flood'"Fair point, but I agree with what Answersingenitals (great name) was alluding to, that it's ridiculous that every time evidence of an ancient flood is uncovered creationists jump on it as proof (or possible proof) of Noah's Flood. Nobody denies that there must have been many large floods throughout history, particularly as sea levels rose at the end of the Ice Age.

this is really my point of contentionits seems that there is a large body of evidence that could most definately be used to identify such a flood, yet what happens with that evidence is that its interpreted every other wayit seems very biased to me

That's just creationist nonsense!Here's what's happening.The "global flood" is firmly established by biblical scholars at about 4,350 years ago.Archaeologists (such as I) look in dirt of that approximate age all the time and we find no evidence for any erosional or depositional features that could be attributed to a global flood.Rather, what we see are continuities--in my area I see continuities of Native American cultures, genotypes, occupational sites, fauna and flora, stratigraphy, etc. What I don't see is a break or discontinuity, let alone one that could be attributed to a global flood.There is no "large body of evidence" for a global flood under any rational interpretation.To make such a flood seem possible, creationists have to ignore the vast majority of data and distort the rest. Your "what ifs" are a prime example.

--What if the dating is wrong (no evidence to show that it is, just a "what if").

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--What if all those flood stories refer to Noah's flood (stories from a vast range of time, place, and detail, and all of which had some living people to tell the story; but you keep your belief alive by posing a "what if").

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--What ifs... ad nauseum, with no data to support them.

Peg, you should never attempt to discuss science. You not only have no talent for it but everything you believe points you in the opposite direction. You have been almost universally wrong in your pronouncements about science. I guess that's because you are following religious belief, the very antithesis of science, eh?

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

that might be so and is likely why i do readthe book im refering to is not a creationist book, its two scientists who wrote it, so are you telling me that i should also not believe them?have you read the evidence they found about the lapse in time on archeolgical sites where there was a gap in occupation?some of the people they name as new occupiers of old sites are:
Denilo Havar
Vinca
Linearbankermik or LBK
Butmir
Hamongians
Halafon Page 192 it reads
"All these people appeared in Europe shortly after the flood. All have been described as outsiders: people who migrated from some distance, although this is a point of contention for some archeologists. All seem to have been more culturally advanced then those whom they replaced. Perhaps not so conincidentally, at that time in the middle of the sixth milleninium BC, Europe began a rapid ascent into what Childe and Gimbutas have called a "Golden Age", a transition that in Gimbutas words "has led many scholars in the past to assume that tides of colonization must have burst through the Balkans. they would have come, it was thought, either from Anatolia or from the eastern Mediterranean."

That's all well and good--we have evidence for a localized flood event in that area and you are using that as evidence for a global flood?Sorry, that doesn't wash.Can you deal with the facts I presented? Or are you just going to pretend I never presented them and hope I'll forget that I did so.Fact: Noah's flood is placed by biblical scholars about 4,350 years ago (I can provide a lot of citations if you dispute this).Fact: Archaeological research in North America, including maybe 100 sites I have tested, shows no evidence of a global scale flood about 4,350 years ago.Fact: What the vast majority of sites in North America show, if they contain deposits from that time period, is continuity. Continuity of culture, stratigraphy, fauna and flora, human genome, etc. No gap caused by an immense flood.Deal with these facts please. Don't just try to ignore them, and don't just propose some silly "what if" to try to make them go away. They aren't going away. They are real, and they directly contradict the global flood myth.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

That's beside the point. What you don't seem to understand is that Ryan and Pitman didn't name their book because they believed that the Biblical myth of a global flood is true; they named it because they thought they had found the basis of the myth of Noah, as well as all of the other ancient global flood myths of the Levant. They are not, in any way, asserting that the Biblical myth is historical. They are asserting that the myth of Noah was inspired by a real flood that has been embellished by religious fervor into a preposterous tale.You seem to lose sight of the fact that very little of the Bible is actual history.

thats close enough, bible chronology gives the date of Noahs flood as 2370BCE which is 4379 years ago In order to find evidence of a 'global' flood, surely we'd need every area of earth tested. I wouldnt expect to find a global flood by looking at just north americal. However, there is evidence of great flooding in that region. Im talking about the Hudson Bay and the Great lakes area. Research's have found that it was swept by a mighty current many years ago but has been still ever since. Here is an ArticleI know the dating of this is 8,000 odd years ago, but putting the date aside, a flood of epic preportions was there in north america.
What is interesting is that at the same time, a piece of Australia became cut off from the mainland...we call it Tasmania.That couuld be coincidence, or it could be evidence that the flood was more wide spread then is believed. im sure you know much more about this then I do so i am interested in your view. Do you have any timelines for the people of Nth america?
What do you say about the 'clovis culture' regarding their replacement by several other cultures from the time of the Younger Dryas?
Do you agree that there is an observed change in the archaeological record including numerous extinctions at this time? and if not, why not?

When you read material being presented by scientists, the point isn't to "believe" what they say; the point is to review and comprehend (to the best of your ability) the evidence they present and the conclusions they draw from the evidence. And when the material is more than a decade old, it's worthwhile to check for more recent work, especially stuff that specifically cites that older material, to see whether new evidence has led to different conclusions (which is what happened with the Ryan & Pitman material you cited).If you've learned enough about the given area of research being reported in a given book or article, you can assess whether the evidence was gathered and handled with adequate care to guard against inaccuracy or bias. And even with a lesser amount of knowledge about the specific field, you may be able to assess whether the evidence actually warrants the conclusions.That's hard work. Lots of people don't have the time, interest or education to do it, and for them, it becomes a matter of getting someone else's boiled-down, sound-bite summary of the material, and either accepting it or not. But the point of having a good, well-rounded education is, at least in part, to allow people to get beyond sound-bite-level comprehension, and make good use of their innate skills for critical thinking.

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autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.

Hi Peg, just a small point I think you may have these backwards, or I am not reading your comment correctly:Clovis Culture - Ohio History Central

quote:

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Clovis Culture
9500 B.C. to 8000 B.C.

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The Clovis culture is one of the oldest widely recognized cultures of prehistoric native peoples in North America. The hallmark of the Clovis culture is the Clovis spear point. It is named for Clovis, New Mexico, where it was first recognized as a tool of Ice Age people. Archaeologists have found Clovis points from Alaska to northern Mexico and from California to Maine. They are especially common in Ohio and other eastern states. Radiocarbon dates on Clovis sites across North America indicate these people lived between 9500 to 8000 B.C.

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In the southwestern United States, Clovis points have been found stuck in the ribs of mammoths. In eastern North America, they have been found with mastodon skeletons. It is likely that these hunting and gathering people ate a variety of plants and animals.

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I believe the Clovis people are considered the ancestors to all the more modern NA indian tribes.http://www.agu.org/revgeophys/mayews01/node6.html

quote:

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Most recently the YD has been redated--using precision, subannually resolved, multivariate measurements from the GISP2 core--as an event of 1300+/-70 years duration that terminated abruptly, as evidenced by an 7C rise in temperature and a twofold increase in accumulation rate, at 11.64 kyr BP [ Alley et al., 1993] (Figure 2).

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That's ending ~11,640 years before 1950, or 9,690 BCE, and starting ~10,990 BCEThus the Clovis Culture comes after the Lesser Dryas cold snap. The Clovis Culture is marked by a technological change in the making of spear points and knife blades, much more efficient tools than previously used. One of the theories for the extinctions was the improved ability of the plaeo-indians to kill large animals. Not all mass extinctions are due to floods, and we are witnessing what appears to be mass extinctions on earth due to human population pressure on ecosystems around the world. One of the pieces of evidence is that there was no extinction of people in those periods. Sabertooth tigers, giant sloths, cave bears, dire wolves, and mammoths are all found with evidence of being hunted.The ability to be more efficient hunters resulted in a population explosion as humans spread across the NA continent, and these populations divided into federated tribes that then developed in different ways to adapt their technologies to their ecologies. Ignoring the evidence of dates doesn't help, as one would not expect to find organisms subject to extinction in certain areas due to a flood event to be founr in other locations after a flood event -- there is a mis-match of living organisms before and after. The mis-match is explained by the floods occurring at different times, and when you plot the floods by the organisms before and after and compare them to the scientific dates there is good correlations for the dates.On extinction of human populations that is not explained thoroughly is the dissappearance of the Anassazi indians during drought conditionshttp://www.crystalinks.com/anasazi.htmlBut they came much later (beginning around 1200 B.C., and ending 1150 to 1350 AD) and may have merge with other tribes (either intentionally or by forced slavery).But no evidence of flood in this time.Enjoy.

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