
Aboriginal storytelling accurately records sea level rises 7,000 years ago - a_w
http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/sep/16/indigenous-australian-storytelling-records-sea-level-rises-over-millenia
======
mmahemoff
Neil Gaiman recently did a SALT seminar about what makes stories last.
[http://longnow.org/seminars/02015/jun/09/how-stories-
last/](http://longnow.org/seminars/02015/jun/09/how-stories-last/)

TLDL - Long-term warnings about phenomena like volcanoes are important for
survival, but once the message spans three generations, it's coming from
people you don't know, so there's a certain Darwinian quality to the elements
of a story that will survive for centuries. This is one reason diverse
cultures end up with similar stories.

~~~
lurcio
...and yet, might we not also consider that oral traditions could serve to
persist knowledge too important to be committed to perishable archives. Even
now in the West.

~~~
geon
I don't know.

In the Heinlein novel Orphans of the Sky, the protagonist is taught to recite
the Holy Scriptures of Newtonian Physics, but the literal meaning is confused
by religious re-interpretation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphans_of_the_Sky)

~~~
clebio
Which is a work of fiction. So it doesn't serve as evidence for actual events.

~~~
geon
> Which is a work of fiction.

So was the speculations of /user?id=lurcio

------
pvg
The paper itself (linked in The Guardian and freely accessible online, to
everyone's credit)

[http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00049182.2015.10...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00049182.2015.1077539)

------
egillie
Flood myths are astoundingly common
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths)

------
btilly
There are many other oral histories that have documented similarly ancient
events. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_memory#Species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_memory#Species)
for a list of some that have been claimed.

~~~
LoSboccacc
yeah I find interesting that many legend and myths all have the sea rise event
in common.

~~~
qnaal
and nothing about lowering, 'cept for like moses or that five chinese brother

~~~
Rooki
If I'm reading Wikipedias article on glacial periods correctly it indicates
that the last time sea levels lowered significantly would have been between
71k and 115k years ago. I wonder if language complex enough to have an oral
tradition existed that far back.

~~~
themgt
Nope, more like 12-8k years ago. Check out the Holocene sea level rise [1].
Jeffrey Rose's Persian Gulf Oasis / Out of Arabia theory is especially
intriguing.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_glacial_retreat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_glacial_retreat)

~~~
Rooki
The parent was talking about sea levels lowering.

------
situationista
Reminds me of the work of the Human Interference Task Force, set up in 1981 to
come up with strategies to provide necessary knowledge about the dangers
related to active nuclear waste across several millennia to future
generations. Françoise Bastide and Paolo Fabbri, two members of the Task
Force, proposed breeding "radiation cats" that would change significantly in
color when they came near radioactive emissions and serve as living indicators
of danger [0]. In order to transport the message, the importance of the cats
would need to be set in the collective awareness through fairy tales and
myths, which the authors considered to be the most effective way to
communicate with future generations.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Interference_Task_Force)

~~~
bonobo
I don't know if the documentary Into Eternity[0] is related to this task
force, but it was the first time I was exposed to the idea of preserving
information for thousands of years. Fascinated stuff. It never ocurred to me
how hard it would be to instruct future generations to stay away of a nuclear
deposit after so much time.

[0]
[http://intoeternity.co.uk/about/index.php](http://intoeternity.co.uk/about/index.php)

~~~
situationista
The band Emperor X even wrote a tune to begin the process of getting the myth
of the Raycats into the public consciousness:

[https://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/10000-year-earworm-to-
di...](https://emperorx.bandcamp.com/album/10000-year-earworm-to-discourage-
settlement-near-nuclear-waste-repositories)

------
sandworm101
It is interesting to here of situations where traditional oral histories line
up with scientific measurement. It's a fun topic. But after a while these
articles give the false impression that oral traditions are somehow
trustworthy. Few ever talk about where the oral history is fundamentally
incorrect. It always seems that the scientific discovery comes first, that the
oral confirmation is just window dressing in the press release. Is the
"extraordinary thing" of confirmation the norm? How many oral histories were
disproved during this research?

These articles also tend to polish out the rough edges. How exactly did this
people fleeing the rising water levels "negotiate" with peoples in the
interior? Was this controlled mediation? Or does the term "negotiate" also
cover outright war between cultures? Perhaps part of the reason these stories
survived was the bloodshed surrounding their creation. I'd like to see the
transcripts.

------
rsync
Isn't it possible that building cities near the coastline is, in the long
view, a bad idea ?

Even without global warming or climate change or whatever, isn't it pretty
dicey to put anything at 0-5 meters above sea level that is meant to last
longer than a generation ?

Major population and infrastructure right on the ocean may be a hallmark of a
fairly young civilization.

~~~
13thLetter
The coastline is full of useful things that humans like, such as a moderate
climate and convenient trade. Even if a hurricane occasionally rolls through
and messes it up, that's a transient inconvenience in the long term and easily
forgotten.

------
tinfoilman
I was of the understanding that a flood about 7k years ago did happen and that
was pretty accepted.

We have the Mayans, bible, and number of flood 'myths' stories. I also believe
that there is rock sediment that also backs up this claim that there was heavy
flooding around this time frame.

However this does not appear to be global flooding because the Egyptian who
have a good documented history never bring it up and I really feel they would
have.

My guess is that this flood was when low level lands got submerged, thinking
the med base here (which I think lines up with the bible of things well) and
low level South America which would line up with the Mayans creation stories.
This would also back up my idea that most of civilizations over time have
built near water and this is why I believe most of the impressive
civilizations will be underwater now as the water levels have been raising.
(personally very excited about some of the stuff we are finding underwater
these days)

The issue is there is so little research on water levels, and most of the
documented stuff is from the coast of the USA rather than a global effort to
document it. Keep hoping that someone will build some drones that can just fly
around and measure this stuff

~~~
dalke
"The issue is there is so little research on water levels"

That's just not true. Here's one of many graphs on water levels on a global
scale: [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Post-
Glacial_Sea_Lev...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Post-
Glacial_Sea_Level.png) . By 7K years ago the major sea level rise was nearly
finished. For example, the Persian Gulf was flooded about 8,000 years ago.

Extensive research has been done in part because of how it's coupled to
projections of future sea level rise:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise)
.

You imply there is insufficient information on global water rise. A quick
search finds this a study on the "Late glacial to post glacial sea levels in
the Western Indian Ocean"
[http://www.researchgate.net/publication/40702427_Late_glacia...](http://www.researchgate.net/publication/40702427_Late_glacial_to_post_glacial_sea_levels_in_the_Western_Indian_Ocean._Mar_Geology)
. It describes some of the many other studies in sea level rise that were done
in places other than the US coasts.

"Keep hoping that someone will build some drones that can just fly around and
measure this stuff"

If you read the paper you'll see the aerial photography is not enough. The
research also included drilling and submersible dives.

~~~
tinfoilman
Hey thanks for the reply

I don't pretend to be an expert but I had done googling before but cannot
locate the information I was looking for. Yes water levels raised ,again I
think that was very common information, but I wanted more of an understanding
what specific areas of the world went under water (as in land that was
submerged). The current body of information that I have read is very generic
where I am much more interested in localized water levels aligned with older
civilizations and this is the information that I do not believe is easily
accessible. I have been on that wiki link a few times but it is very generic.

And I am very aware that photos above would not assist, however I as thinking
more ground penetrating radar enabled drones. Mixed with automated cave
exploring bots could start to provide information from under ground on their
own. Send them off in to a cave and wait for them to map and come back. We are
getting to the stage where we can build these automated exploring bots, I am
just waiting. No more waiting on cavers, we can build bots to map these things
ourselves

~~~
dalke
Since you are not an expert, you should not make blanket claims like "The
issue is there is so little research on water levels". All you can say is that
you don't know what research there is on water levels.

The Wikipedia entry at
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth)
gives some information about "localized water levels aligned with older
civilizations".

One of them concerns the flooding of the Persian Gulf, with a link to
[http://z6.ifrm.com/4802/123/0/p1011060/Persian_Gulf_Oasis.pd...](http://z6.ifrm.com/4802/123/0/p1011060/Persian_Gulf_Oasis.pdf)
which posits that the gulf was an oasis during the Ice Age. If you read the
paper you'll see the commentary on page 870:

> The notion that coastal regions are more attractive than adjacent
> hinterlands because of moderate climates, abundant groundwater, ecological
> diversity and fertility on land, and marine resources; that such regions
> have been critically important as pacemakers of socioeconomic and
> demographic change throughout prehistory; and that their role has been
> largely ignored or misjudged because of sea-level change, has been widely
> canvassed by archaeologists during the past decade both in general terms and
> in relation to the Arabian Peninsula (Bailey 2009; Bailey and Flemming 2008;
> Bailey and Milner 2002; Bailey et al. 2008; Erlandson 2001, 2007; Erlandson
> and Fitzpatick 2006; Westley and Dix 2006; Westley et al. 2010).

which gives several papers you can track down.

On
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_myth)
you'll see mention of 'localized flooding at Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara,
Iraq) and various other Sumerian cities' which is believed to be a 'localised
event caused through the damming of the Kurun through the spread of dunes,
flooding into the Tigris, and simultaneous heavy rainfall in the Nineveh
region, spilling across into the Euphrates. In Israel, there is no such
evidence of a widespread flood.'

If you then wade though the various sites which claim this is evidence of the
Biblical flood, you'll come across sites like
[http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/reflections-on-
the-m...](http://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/reflections-on-the-
mesopotamian-flood/) , which point out that there's a long history of flooding
in the area:

> There was one such appalling disaster for example, in 1954, when an
> exceptionally rainy spring combined with the melting snows of Armenia and
> Kurdistan, so swelled the Tigris River that it submerged the low-lying plain
> for hundreds of miles, and all Baghdad was in imminent danger of
> destruction. ...

> All in all, therefore, it is justifiable to conclude from the present
> evidence, as does Max Mallowan in his recent thoughtful and comprehensive
> article, “Noah’s Flood Reconsidered” (Iraq, vol. XXVI, 1964, pages 62-83)
> that the Mesopotamian Flood-story, and the Old Testament version based on
> it, was inspired by an actual catastrophic but by no means universal
> disaster that took place, not as Woolley claimed, immediately after the
> Ubaid period, but some time about 3000 B.C., and that it left its
> archaeological traces in Kish, Shuruppak, and probably at a good many other
> places yet to be discovered.

So there are a _lot_ of changes in 'localized water levels' in places where
there are ancient civilizations. The question this becomes _what kind_ of
changes are you looking for?

Another well-known example of post-glacial flooding of settled human lands is
Doggerland. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland)
.

Still another is Sundaland. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundaland)
. Quoting from [http://phys.org/news/2008-05-dna-evidence-overturns-
populati...](http://phys.org/news/2008-05-dna-evidence-overturns-population-
migration.html) :

> Dr Oppenheimer’s book, based on multidisciplinary evidence, writes about the
> effects of the drowning of a huge ancient continent called ‘Sundaland’ (that
> extended the Asian landmass as far as Borneo and Java). This happened during
> the period 15,000 to 7,000 years ago following the last Ice Age. He outlines
> how rising sea levels in three massive pulses caused flooding and the
> submergence of the Sunda Continent, creating the Java and South China Seas
> and the thousands of islands that make up Indonesia and the Philippines
> today.

In other words, there's a large amount of literature and research on the
topic, and as easy to access as most other published scientific literature.

You write about caving robots and ground penetrating radar. That would provide
little useful data for the cost. Ground penetrating radar does not work
through water, so cannot find submerged sites. While geophysics is important
for archaeology, ground penetrating radar mostly used to prioritize manual
inspection. And if you read the article about the research in the Indian Ocean
you'll see that isotope analysis of core samples an other techniques were very
important in the research. I think your views on 'automated exploring bots' is
only an expression of techno-optimism.

------
Shorel
Interesting that women are the ones who keep the oral histories.

I guess it has to do with their better linguistic abilities an long term
memory.

------
aaron695
Cold reading.

