When the Earth Nearly Died

This thread is about a book and a theory.
If this is an inappropriate place to start this thread,please assign it to the correct forum.

This number comes up many times.
11,500 years ago.
Why?
This is in reference to history,the beginning of many cultures around the world.
Why is it the the modern homo sapiens have been in existence for at least 200,000 years,but ,yet,we only know of the last 12,000 years as far as a "civilized" culture.
And from many of these cultures,we hear of a great deluge,a flood.We hear of a great destruction and a rebirth of man.
Before I delve into the book ,let's look at some facts.

The Younger Dryas is one of the most well-known examples of abrupt change. About 14,500 years ago, the Earth's climate began to shift from a cold glacial world to a warmer interglacial state. Partway through this transition, temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere suddenly returned to near-glacial conditions (Figure 6). This near-glacial period is called the Younger Dryas, named after a flower (Dryas octopetala) that grows in cold conditions and became common in Europe during this time. The end of the Younger Dryas, about 11,500 years ago, was particularly abrupt. In Greenland, temperatures rose 10° C (18° F) in a decade (Figure 6

The Younger Dryas period and the end of it 11,500 years ago.
www.ncdc.noaa.gov...

Scientists say they have found the trigger of a sharp cooling 13,000 years ago that plunged Europe into a mini ice age.

www.reuters.com...

New scientific findings suggest that a large comet may have exploded over North America 12,900 years ago, explaining riddles that scientists have wrestled with for decades, including an abrupt cooling of much of the planet and the extinction of large mammals.

www.physorg.com...

So,let's take a look at this book and it's research and claims.

The tradition of a Golden Age existing in the distant past, and of a fall from grace into barbarism due to catastrophes of apocalyptic proportions, is enshrined in the memories and ancient writings of many peoples. These notions are, however, conventionally regarded as pure invention. The existence of a surprising amount of factual evidence which suggests that these accounts are actually based on a series of events really experienced by humankind, is generally either ignored or treated with great caution by established scholarship, largely because attempts to explain how this Golden Age came to an end have hitherto been unconvincing or uncomfortably threatening to orthodox interpretations of history. The real history of humanity is, however, far more dramatic and interesting than the conventional version implies. When the Earth Nearly Died offers an exciting and challenging new interpretation of the information currently available to us.

Among the fundamental geophysical effects experienced by Earth were a massive fracturing of the crust, a realignment of Earth's axis, elevation of new mountains, and widespread rearrangement of land and sea. These changes were accompanied by an appalling global conflagration, a gigantic flood, and what has been described as 'collapsed sky' conditions. A bombardment by debris from the disintegrated satellite of the destroyed planet added to the worldwide chaos.

Much of Earth's animal and plant life was annihilated by these frightful events. Remains were often buried hundreds of feet below and within vast new deposits which smothered huge areas, both on land and under the sea. Elsewhere they lay piled in caves, choked rock fissures, or were massed into veritable hills. Some havens and refuges did exist, offering shelter to various faunal and floral species from flood or fire - then to have to endure the appalling conditions which followed. These included intense cold, occasioned by chronic atmospheric pollution which severely restricted the solar radiation reaching the Earth, loss of vital resources such as shelter, tools and sources of warmth and nourishment. The extent of the damage was so great that the immediate survivors found themselves literally catapulted into what was, in effect, a new world.

www.knowledge.co.uk...

Could this theory explain the many mysteries of ancient history that plague us.
And the biggest question of all,how far did the human race get culturally and technically before it was destroyed?

What are your thoughts of this?

I'm a firm believer in "The Great Forgetting". I think that the scientific community in general don't give enough credit to our ancestors, and have the timeline of the evolution of civilization all screwed up.

I sit on the fence over ancient aliens, but I am almost certain the humans had technology and knowledge that in some regards surpass even what we know and have today.

One can only hope that one day we might find definitive evidence of our past, something that will tell the true story of humanity. We've been here a long long time, and it's pretty clear some catastrophe happened imo, that kind of reset everything, sending us... ahem "back to the stone age" so to speak.

Great post OP.

reply to post by kdog1982


Toba Eruption

According to the supporters of the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human population suffered a severe population decrease—only 3,000 to 10,000 individuals survived—followed eventually by rapid population increase, innovation, progress and migration.

reply to post by tinfoilman


Very interesting.
The human population almost died out some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
So,we had ,say 50,000 years to rebuild?
Look at what we have done in the last 150 years,let alone the last 4,000 years.
I would think we had some sharp pencils in the lot that advanced humans way beyond caveman status,don't you think?
Then ,some 12,000 years ago,the slate got wiped clean,and we started from scratch again.

reply to post by Lighterside


I agree completely with you. I do wonder if we are headed for that same thing... a great forgetting by future generations about us. I wonder if we are on our way to the great catastrophe that will send us back to the stone age again. I don't say this as a negative thing. I am a firm believer in the cyclical nature of the universe, and of course that includes us and our "civilization."

Originally posted by Lighterside
I'm a firm believer in "The Great Forgetting". I think that the scientific community in general don't give enough credit to our ancestors, and have the timeline of the evolution of civilization all screwed up.

I sit on the fence over ancient aliens, but I am almost certain the humans had technology and knowledge that in some regards surpass even what we know and have today.

One can only hope that one day we might find definitive evidence of our past, something that will tell the true story of humanity. We've been here a long long time, and it's pretty clear some catastrophe happened imo, that kind of reset everything, sending us... ahem "back to the stone age" so to speak.

Great post OP.

I am with you about ancient aliens.
I think,we as homo sapiens were well capable of understanding the world around us and how to manipulate it to our advantage.
After all,we have been around,wandering the globe far longer then previously thought.

Our species, Homo sapiens, appears to have originated in Eastern Africa around 200,000 years ago and there is strong evidence small populations of H. sapiens were moving north out of Africa and pressing into the near East around 100,000 years ago. This has been called Out of Africa II. Until very recently there appeared to be a gap in this migration for we find the first evidence of Homo sapiens in what is now eastern Europe around 40 to 50,000 years ago and fuzzier dating for migrations eastward into Asia.

www.becominghuman.org...

Then,something happened and we started building monuments and huge shelters to protect future generations.
All around 11,500 years ago.
On top of that,we were given warnings on what is to come.

reply to post by Ellie Sagan


Well hopefully not for some time lol. I do think that our ancestors were a little unprepared for whatever happened, and I don't think that we are very prepared now for global catastrophe. I think the best thing we can do in order to be prepared is find a way to make sure information survives. With our digital age just now forming, I think this is something we can very feasibly accomplish.

On a side note, I think if we were able to meet with the people of these ancient and forgotten civilizations, both sides would be equally amazed at each others knowledge and technologies.

If ever proven to be true, I think it's a great travesty that we lost so much, thus it is very important that we make sure our knowledge is recorded now, in a way that can stand up to the test of time. Crystal hard drives anyone? lol.

reply to post by Ellie Sagan


Ack! double post! I'm too old and forget we don't need to double click everything anymore

(okay, I'm not THAT old)

Is it possible that in the ancient past, humans were advanced enough to go 'beyond time'? If Atlantis was real and truly did exist, perhaps at that time we were so in tune with everything that we understood how time works and were able to crack the code and slow it down? Maybe a span of 20,000 years back then... let's say, from 35,000b.c. to 15,000b.c. was not really 20,000 years at all... but more like 200,000 years?

Any thoughts?

Why is it every where I search,agriculture started approximately 10,000 years ago?
Was it because there was no earlier evidence?
Or maybe they had to resort to growing their own food out of necessity because of a previous global calamity wiped out all naturally abundant food sources.

en.wikipedia.org...

This was the big one the planet almost didn't come back from.

I think it is all coming together for me.
Call me crazy.Call me stupid.
I don't care.
We,as humans,lived peacefully with our natural habitat,in sync with nature and the universe.
Then a great catastrophic event happened globally.
It was THE game changer for the human race.
We began believing that "Gods" caused this.
We recover,passing on the story of what was before,and what brought it all down.
Over time the message gets diluted,twisted.
We start rebuilding,over doing it,like you would after an earthquake,or a tsunami that has hit your town to make sure you will make it through the next one.
Maybe they started a belief system that if we prey and worship these"Gods",that they will spare us and protect us from the next calamity.

Originally posted by kdog1982

Originally posted by Lighterside
I'm a firm believer in "The Great Forgetting". I think that the scientific community in general don't give enough credit to our ancestors, and have the timeline of the evolution of civilization all screwed up.

I sit on the fence over ancient aliens, but I am almost certain the humans had technology and knowledge that in some regards surpass even what we know and have today.

One can only hope that one day we might find definitive evidence of our past, something that will tell the true story of humanity. We've been here a long long time, and it's pretty clear some catastrophe happened imo, that kind of reset everything, sending us... ahem "back to the stone age" so to speak.

Great post OP.

I am with you about ancient aliens.
I think,we as homo sapiens were well capable of understanding the world around us and how to manipulate it to our advantage.
After all,we have been around,wandering the globe far longer then previously thought.

Our species, Homo sapiens, appears to have originated in Eastern Africa around 200,000 years ago and there is strong evidence small populations of H. sapiens were moving north out of Africa and pressing into the near East around 100,000 years ago. This has been called Out of Africa II. Until very recently there appeared to be a gap in this migration for we find the first evidence of Homo sapiens in what is now eastern Europe around 40 to 50,000 years ago and fuzzier dating for migrations eastward into Asia.

www.becominghuman.org...

Then,something happened and we started building monuments and huge shelters to protect future generations.
All around 11,500 years ago.
On top of that,we were given warnings on what is to come.

edit on 13-11-2011 by kdog1982 because: (no reason given)

As to finding the definitive answers to both mans ancient history and the future, may well be a great deal closer than most think it is, and this posting it seems has taken an objective view of another understanding of how all this has come about, by outlining the bigger picture of mans comings and goings, he being so fragile on the scale of nature and its plant culture upon Earth, and that man over time becomes arrogant, with his seemingly own immortality

I think this site points out that while mankind has the firm fixed belief and attitude that there will always be another tomorrow, is some what optimistic on the grand scale of mother nature, and just what, if provoked she can dish out

And given what man sees as accomplishments being his mining of minerals and petroleum and Gas mining and the Totally toxic and ludicrous practice of FRACCING, that not only attacks the surface of Earth for minerals but now driving deep beneath her surface, into the unknown and little understood Strata, that one must agree may hold the very primordial links to its very ongoing existence and affect it primordial stability and or its magnetic s, that we still yet know little or nothing about

Interesting Thread and I shall track its postings and comments with further interest

there is a free e book called earths forbidden secrets by Maxwell Igan on his web site 'the crowhouse.com'a very enlightning read about this tpoic

reply to post by kdog1982


Damn it kdog, its not as if I don't already have a big ole stack of books (to say nothing of a long list of links to online trechnical papers) I'm trying to wade through. Well, add one more to the stack now.

Very good post, my friend and something I (oddly) hadn't heard of. To think that, in the time we've been on the planet, no prior civilization as reached level of advancement on par with what we have today is the of the same mindset that puts the earth at the center of existence.

The long list of ancient stone sites suggest much in and of themselves. I lol'ed at the "easy button" comment, those we're great and very apt.

Here's a fun take.

Man was flourishing enough starting from 200,000 years ago without intervention. I wouldn't say ruling over the planet, but doing well enough. Not so big on agriculture or making permanent structures.

Our system was (and is) being monitored by off-Earth beings. They note a coming seismic event and decide to save groups of inhabitants. Maybe they even "enrich" them.

Now on a new Earth (surface wise at least), our new ancestors live under these "sky gods". Much like a game of telephone, the gods become more legend than facts. These gods continue to visit their pet projects over time to guide them and direct them into certain paths.

Agriculture, astronomy, chemistry, metallurgy...transistors, integrated chips, printed circuits, nanotech...

Thoughts?

reply to post by kdog1982


It is difficult to grow food in an ice age.
The genetics of domesticated plants shows that they were domesticated more than once.
I don't know how they figure that, but if true, it indicates a set-back somewhere along the line.

Originally posted by kdog1982
Why is it every where I search,agriculture started approximately 10,000 years ago?
Was it because there was no earlier evidence?
Or maybe they had to resort to growing their own food out of necessity because of a previous global calamity wiped out all naturally abundant food sources.

In the Northern Hemisphere, in most places you couldn't plant anything because it was the Ice Age. Afterward, sea level rose about 300 feet, so most of the evidence is most likely underwater. There might be some evidence that agriculture started before 10,000 BP, but the climatic shifts probably caused people to abandon those attempts till the climate stabilized.

Originally posted by 1PLA1
reply to post by kdog1982

 

It is difficult to grow food in an ice age.
The genetics of domesticated plants shows that they were domesticated more than once.
I don't know how they figure that, but if true, it indicates a set-back somewhere along the line.

Oops, didn't see this one.

Originally posted by 1PLA1
reply to post by kdog1982

 

It is difficult to grow food in an ice age.
The genetics of domesticated plants shows that they were domesticated more than once.
I don't know how they figure that, but if true, it indicates a set-back somewhere along the line.

I understand that you can't grow crops in the snow and ice,but only a small portion of the globe was affected by the last ice age.

Here is a map of the world from about 18,000 years ago.



And Happybunny,I agree with you on the fact that the sea levels were lower and that much evidence was lost,as you can see from the map above.

This sort of thread is the reason I'm on ATS. Well done, OP.

For me, the biggest conspiracy out there is the ongoing coverup of the true human time line by the archaeological community, and it barely gets a mention anywhere.

The real conspiracies (this one, David Kelly's death) etc, get almost no discussion, while the fake conspiracies are discussed ad nauseum in many forums all over the net, while the real conspiracies staring people in the face don't even rate on many sites.

There are too many references throughout ancient civilizations of similar events. If ancient man had zero communication abilities, why do so many cultures reference the same stories and same timelines?

There are also many artifacts found "out of time" that don't fit with the official model.