Originally posted by SLAYER69
Aegean Sea
The current coastline dates back to about 4000 BC. Before that time, at the peak of the last ice age (c. 16,000 BC) sea levels everywhere were 130
metres lower, and there were large well-watered coastal plains instead of much of the northern Aegean. When they were first occupied, the present-day
islands including Milos with its important obsidian production were probably still connected to the mainland. The present coastal arrangement appeared
c. 7000 BC, with post-ice age sea levels continuing to rise for another 3000 years after that.[1]
In reference to your earlier post too, I too find it amazing that the discoveries made in Anatolia are not discussed in the mainstream. The sites are
amazing and the finds, in terms of art and 'representations' remarkable. Catal Hoyuk was first excavated in 1961, Gobeklitepe in 1965 and yet they
are still largely unknown outside of archaeological circles.
These settlements originate from the period of the glacial melt. Sites found between the black sea and the caucaus also point to a movement upland,
the black sea culture, which would have up to then been an inland fresh water lake, would have been destroyed when the Bosphurus breached and admitted
warm sea waters.
Approximately 11,600 years ago the Earth experienced a sudden increase in temperatures, over about 50 years, that led to the glacial retreat. Hancock
and Bauval have demonstrated how the Sphinx shows evidence of exposure to regular rainfall over a significant period of time, and to regular, seasonal
flooding. The warming event however marks the point at which that regions climate changed from temperate to dessification. The sphinx clearly must
have been present therefore prior to the this climate change. Once you accept that, it is common sense to realise that other stone building
civilisations may have been effected by this series of events.
The Jomon people of the Sunda Shelf, in what is now the waters around Japan are known to have had a civilisation during the Ice Age, and that this was
severly disrupted by the rise in sea levels which forced them to move to the higher ground which now forms the Japanese Islands.
Additionally, in the Northern Hemisphere, human migratory routes were reopened, and those who had remained in the North were able to move south to
pastures green, and in regions where whole glaciers were ripping apart the landscape as they melted and came free from the land, there may have been
some necessity to move. Groups of people removed from each other for centuries began to come into contact with each other again. Many of the myths
once absorbed into this whole landscape of events and activities makes a great deal of sense. Bible included.
The sites in Anatolia were to my mind, settled by peoples who were retreating from rising flood waters, they were most likely made up of coastal and
lake dwellers, and probably had had to abandon other established settlements. Catal Hoyuk and Gobekliptepe seem to have been abandoned around the
same time as the Hittite empire emerged.
I've gone way off-topic, but to bring it into context, it is clear from the near east that civilisation was disrupted by the rise in sea levels and
climate change. Given the rapid recovery that ocurred in the near East and the subsequent cultural explosion, that is mirrored in Asia, it makes
perfect sense that sites like this must exist along coastlines and particularly around archapelagos. The reason that it doesn't seem to be discussed
in the mainstream is because it does help to expound upon our understanding of what is myth and what is history.