This is sort of a sequel to a piece about the ancient Mediterranean megaflood that did really well on here last month - so, with my fingers crossed it's not too obnoxiously self-promotional of me to do it, I thought I'd give this one a punt as well.<p>Also, thank you to those who left comments saying you didn't like that former piece's introduction. I agree with you! It was rambling and a bit self-indulgent and I should have just got on with the story. This one does that (I think). Cheers.
I think it’s pretty clear that sophisticated societies existed long before recorded history. They may not have had the tools of working with metal, but they definitely had sophisticated philosophical views and moral frameworks. I would bet this goes back even 30-50 thousand years. This idea that humanity sprang up out of nothing in Sumerian/Babylon is very contrived. There was an ice age ten thousand years ago, the cessation of which caused the floods, which destroyed large swaths of human “civilization”
It's pretty fascinating to comprehend how different Europe's land mass is from a couple thousand years ago. Imagining the current world with shore lines as different as that is pretty hard to Fathom.<p>It puts the climate change narrative in perspective a bit. In someways, the change we are experiencing isn't as unprecedented as some people perceive. In other ways, if we are going to be on a highly accelerated version of something like the event in the story than we are going to be in for a hell of a ride.
Reminds me about the theory about how the Persian Gulf was the origin of the first civilisations and the origin of the myth of paradise. As the water rose people was displaced and eventually ended up forming ur.
Turns out it was about 2.5m. Off by factor 10. And only a wild theory for the disappearance of Doggerland.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storegga_Slide</a>
The BBC program "In our time" did an episode on Doggerland some years back <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006707" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006707</a>
Time Team did an episode/dig about this, and another sbout doggerland in general.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTvOcm5dgDI" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTvOcm5dgDI</a>
There is an interesting Youtube video by AlternateHistoryHub on exactly this topic ("What if Britain Wasn't An Island?"), so if you're interested in a bit of theorizing about what could've been or might've been, I recommend it: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoKkvDbJpE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssoKkvDbJpE</a>
> <i>since there’s no evidence that Mesolithic people were seafarers, who knows if there were people living there?</i><p>Whyyyyyy?<p>To hedge your bets with "no evidence" that these people managed to navigate shallow sea waters to a nearby island, which they <i>had inhabited for thousands of years and knew like the back of their hand</i>, seems… unnecessary? Disrespectful?<p>I mean, we already know Mesolithic "hunter gatherers" managed absolutely mind-boggling feats of both art and engineering. More is becoming known every year, and it consistently amazes us in the direction of "No way!"<p>Building a boat / canoe for island-hopping over well-mapped marshes and shallow seas is the least of it.<p>If speculate on "no evidence" we must, my bet goes 100% in the opposite direction: The gradual increase in sea levels prompted new inventions and spectacular constructions, now lost to time. As far as speculations go, it seems a safer bet than "couldn't paddle".