CaptainBeowulf wrote:What I have wondered about is Plato's story about the lost route to another continent on the other side of the Atlantic. As I said before, it sounds like the route the Vikings took: Shetlands/Orkneys, Iceland, Greenland, Labrador. If the sea level was a lot lower, the islands might have been a lot bigger, and some other undersea mounts would have been islands. So maybe there would have been a much more complete island route to follow. However, if the ice came down that far, and there was an ice coast to follow, it might have been quite dangerous. If there was a lot of ice breaking off of the coast the whole time, it could have wrecked ships. On the other hand, if they were just in small ships (about the same size as the later Viking ships), maybe it's relatively easy to maneuver around chunks of ice.
Sorry, can't buy it. Plato came out of the sheltered Eastern Mediterranean core of Antiquarian civilization. IMO his inspirations originate in that area.
6000BC, same general time frame as the proposed Black Sea flooding. Possibly people were displaced from around the Indian Ocean Coast, including the Gulf of Arabia and the Red Sea, around the same time as others were displaced from the Black Sea. More reason for the intensity of flood myths in the area.
Innnnteresting. I have seen the shores of the Ice Age Proto-Persian Gulf cited as a possible location for Biblical "Eden."
One of the problems with the Ice-maps, is that they generally do not show at all or well the lower ice age sea levels.
I think it was about 400ft or so AFAIR. I'll have to check.
The other greatly misunderstood factor is the continental plates. The continents do move, but VERY slowly compared to human history. The sea floor also moves, in fact according to current theory replaces itself about every 280 million years. The spreading zones providing new material to that eaten in the subduction zones. The mid ocean ridge spreading zone is a single 42,000 mile plantary feature oft overlooked.
I think that 6000-10,000BC the continental plates were almost in the same positions as today. Not a significant difference - although a lot of earthquakes between then and now. Like the ones that hit Byzantium around the early medieval period (500-700AD).
The coastlines are really significant. As someone else noted, people like to build next to water. Even today, most of our major cities are either on ocean or sea coastlines, or along rivers. Flooding of 300-400 feet/100-150m would have displaced most of the global population.
Plato has the Egyptians tell Solon that civilization has risen and fallen many times before, and that the Greeks don't know about it because every time it falls, people lose writing - and so lose all history. He has the Egyptians claim that they've retained writing for many thousands of years, and so have records of previous cycles. Again, this could be based on Thera, the fall of Cretian civilization, and the "Greek dark age." Or, it could simply be a logical idea to come up with and put in the Egyptians' mouths. Again, though, I wonder if there really was a lot more to the story...
