39. Encyclopaedia Bhtannica, Micropaedia, vol. 12, 127
40. Or at least so claim its enthusiasts
41. Robert Kunzig, Mapping the Deep, 1, Sort of Books, London, 2000
42. In Goa and Lakshadweep
43. See full discussion in parts 2 and 3
44. G. A. Milne, J. L. Davis, J. X. Mitrovica, H.-G. Scherneck et al., ‘Space-geodetic constraints on glacial isostatic adjustment in Fennoscandia’, Science, 291, 2001, 2, 381–5. G. A. Milne, J. X. Mitrovica, J. L. Davis, ‘Near-Field Hydro-Isostasy: The Implementation of a Revised Sea-Level Equation’, Geophysical Journal International, 139, pub. 1, 1999, 464–83. G. A. Milne, J. X. Mitrovica, ‘Postglacial Sea-Level Change on a Rotating Earth’, Geophysical Journal International, 133, 1998, 1–19. G. A. Milne, J. X. Mitrovica, A. M. Forte, ‘The sensitivity of GIA predictions to a low viscosity layer at the base of the upper mantle’, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 154, 1998, 265–78. G. A. Milne, J. X. Mitrovica, D. P. Schrag, ‘Estimating past continental ice volume from sea-level data’, Quaternary Science Review, in press, 2001
45. Sharif’s rough guess was very close. The coordinates, per GPS to within 50 metres, are latitude 11 degrees 11.200 north and longitude 79 degrees 54.192 east
2 / The Riddle of the Antediluvian Cities
1. Samuel Noah Kramer, History Begins at Sumer, 148ff, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991
2. Ibid., 148
3. The account is in the Book of Genesis, chapters 6–9
4. Kramer, op. cit., 148
5. Ibid., 148
6. Ibid., 149
7. Ibid., 149
8. Ibid., 149; William Hallo, ‘Antediliuvian Cities’, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, vol. 23, 1970, 61
9. I have discussed these texts at length in earlier publications
10. Cited in Kramer, op. cit., 149–51
11. Ibid., 151
12. Ibid., 151
13. Ibid., 151
14. Ibid., 152
15. Ibid., 152
16. Ibid., 152
17. Ibid., 152–3
18. Ibid., 153
19. Ibid., 148
20. See discussion in Gerald P. Verbrugghe and John M. Wickersham (eds.), Berossos and Manetho, 15ff, University of Michigan Press, 1999
21. Samuel Noel Kramer, The Sumerians, 39–40, University of Chicago Press, 1963
22. Ibid., 39
23. Ibid., 39–40
24. Ibid., 40
25. Ibid., 42
26. Time-Life, The Age of the God Kings, 10–11, Time-Life Books, 1989
27. See www.grahamhancock.com, Forum, ‘The Quantas Mystery’
28. Leonard Woolley, Ur of the Chaldees, 21, Pelican Books, 1940
29. Ibid., 21
30. Ibid., 21, 24
31. Ibid., 24
32. Oppenheimer re Flandrian transgression
33. Kurt Lambeck, ‘Shoreline Reconstructions for the Persian Gulf Since the Last Glacial Maximum’, Earth, and Planetary Science Letters, 142, 1996, 43–57
34. Ibid., 47
35. Oppenheimer, Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, 57, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1998
36. Ibid., 46. See also Julius Zarins, ‘The Early Settlement of Southern Mesopotamia’, 57, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 112, 1, 1992
37. Oppenheimer, op. cit., 46
38. Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, 4, Penguin Books, London, 1992, citing C. E. Larsen, ‘The Mesopotamian Delta Region: A Reconsideration of Lees and Falcon’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 95, 1975, 43–57. P. Kassler, ‘The structural and geomorphic evolution of the Persian Gulf’, in B. H. Preuser, The Persian Gulf, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1973, 11–32. W. Nutzel, ‘The formation of the Arabian Gulf from 14,000 BC’, Sumer, 31, 1975, 101–11
39. Kramer, The Sumerians, 2 and 31
40. Ibid., 30 and 31
41. Ibid., 31
42. Ibid., 31
43. Roux, op. cit., 60
44. Ibid., 60
45. Ibid., 48, 60. Roux identifies the first stages of construction at Eridu with Ubaid I pottery, a style that he dates to 7000 years before the present
46. Ibid., 108
47. Ibid., 112
48. Zarins, ‘The Early Settlement of Southern Mesopotamia’
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., 57
51. Ibid., 60
52. Roux, op. cit., 111
53. Kramer, The Sumerians, 26
54. Roux, op. cit., 109, 112
55. Hallo, op. cit., 61
56. Verbrugghe and Wickersham, op. cit.
57. Ibid., 49
58. Ibid., 49
59. Ibid., 49, footnote 19
60. Ibid., 49–50
61. Ibid., 50
62. Roux, op. cit. See maps, Southern Mesopotamia
63. Hallo, op. cit., 61
64. Edmond Sollberger, The Babylonian Legend of the Flood, British Museum Publications, London, 1984, 17
65. The Epic of Gilgamesh, Penguin, London, 1972; Stephanie Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia, Oxford University Press, 1990
66. E.g. see Verbrugghe and Wickersham, op. cit., 3–91
67. Hallo, op. cit., 63
68. Ibid., 63
69. Roux, op. cit., 33, 48
70. Ibid., 37–38
71. Ibid., 44–5
72. Ibid., 49
73. Ibid., 51
74. Ibid., 53
75. L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza et al., The History and Geography of Human Genes, 215, Princeton University Press, 1994
76. Roux, op. cit., 54
77. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol. 12, 98
78. Roux, op. cit., 69
79. Cavalli-Sforza et al., op. cit., 215
80. Roux, op. cit., 48, 69
81. Roux, op. cit., 82–3: ‘In all respects the Uruk culture appears as the development of conditions that existed during the Ubaid period
82. Roux, op. cit., 48, 76–7. There is an intervening sub-phase of the Uruk period known as the Jemdat Nasr period after the type-site between Baghdad and Babylon. Roux, op. cit., 76: ‘Between the cultural elements of that period [Jemdat Nasr] and those of the Uruk period there is no fundamental difference.’
83. Ibid., 48
84. Ibid., 66
85. Ibid., 66
86. Ibid., 80
87. Ibid., 80
88. Ibid., 80–81
89. Ibid., 80
90. Ibid., 80
91. Cavalli-Sforza et al., op. cit., 215
92. Roux, op. cit., 82
93. Benno Lansberger, ‘Three Essays on the Sumerians II: The Beginnings of Civilization in Mesopotamia’, in Benno Lansberger, Three Essays on the Sumerians, Udena Publications, Los Angeles, 174; Verbrugghe and Wickersham, op. cit., 17 and 44; Stephanie Dalley, op. cit., 182–3, 328; Jeremy Black and Anthony Green (eds.), Gods, Demons and Symbols of Mesopotamia, 41, 82–2, 163–4, British Museum Press, London, 1992
94. Verbrugghe and Wickersham, op. cit., 43
95. Ibid., 44
96. Benno Landsberger, op. cit., Essay 2
97. Ibid., Essay 3
98. Ibid., Essay 2
99. Ibid., Essay 2
100. Ibid., Essay 2
101. Lambeck, op. cit., 43–53
102. Ibid., 43
103. Roux, op. cit., 48, 60
104. Lambeck, op. cit., 55
105. Ibid., 55
106. Ibid., 56
107. See for example discussion in William Ryan and Walter Pitman, Noah’s Flood, 178–9, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1998
108. Roux, op. cit., 4
109. Ibid., 4
110. Lambeck, op. cit., 54
111. Ibid., 54
112. Ibid., 54
113. Ofer Bar-Yoseph, ‘The Impact of Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Climatic Changes on Humans in Southwest Asia’, in Lawrence Guy Straus et al., Humans at the End of the Ice Age, 68, Plenum Press, New York and London, 1996
114. Ibid., 68
> 115. Lambeck, op. cit., 54
116. See discussion in Verbrugghe and Wickersham, op. cit.
117. See Kramer, History Begins at Sumer
3 / Meltdown
1. Elise Van Campo puts the beginning of his ‘LGM interval’ at 22,000 carbon-14 years ago (approximately equivalent to 25,500 to 21,500 years ago], based on his Arabian sea-core data: Quaternary Research, 26, 1987, 376. Jonathan Adams gives 17,000–15,000 carbon-14 years ago as the period of most extreme glacial conditions in several areas of Eurasia. This corresponds to a period of 20,300 to 18,000 calendar years ago. J. Adams, Eurasia During the Last 150,000 Years, on-line literature review at http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercEURASIA.html
2. Cesare Emiliani, Planet Earth, 543, Cambridge University Press, 1995
3. Glenn Milne, Dept of Geology, University of Durham
4. China: 9.6 million sq. kms; Europe 10.3 million sq. kms; Canada 9.9 million sq. kms
5. Lawrence Guy Straus et al., Humans at the End of the Ice Age, 175, Plenum Press, New York and London, 1996
6. Ibid., 175
7. Ibid., 175
8. Ibid., 177 and 188–9, emphasis added.
9. Richard Rudgley, Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age, 100, Century, London, 1998
10. Ibid., 100
11. Ibid., 100
12. N. C. Fleming, ‘Archaeological evidence for vertical movement of the continental shelf during the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age periods’: ‘Of the 500 known submarine sites worldwide containing in situ remains of buildings, structures, harbour works, quarries, or lithic artefacts, approximately 100 are older than 3 ka BP, that is, in European archaeological terminology, Bronze Age or older.’ To assess the preponderance of interest in shipwrecks over the search for ancient structures see the British Museum Encyclopaedia of Underwater and Maritime Archaeology, British Museum Press, 1997
13. Thomas J. Crowley and Gerald R. North, Palaeoclimatology, 48, Oxford University Press, 1991
14. Ibid., 48
15. R. C. L. Wilson, S. A. Drury and J. L. Chapman, The Great Ice Age, 14, The Open University, London, 2000
16. Ibid., 15
17. Ibid., 15
18. Ibid., 14
19. Ibid., 16
20. Oppenheimer, Eden in the East: The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia, 43, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1998
21. Ibid., 41
22. Wilson et al., op. cit., 17
23. Ibid., 14–17
24. Ibid., 16
25. Plato, Timaeus and Critias, 38, Penguin Books, London, 1977
26. Vitacheslav Koudriavtsev, Atlantis: Ice Age Civilization, Institute of Metahistory, Moscow, 1997. Koudriavtsev’s work may be accessed on the Internet at www.imh.ru
27. Cesare Emiliani, The Scientific Companion, 251 and 257, Wiley Popular Science, 1995
28. Cesare Emiliani held a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he pioneered the isotopic analysis of deep-sea sediments as a way to study the Earth’s past climates. He then moved to the University of Miami, where he continued his isotopic studies and led several expeditions at sea. He was the recipient of the Vega medal from Sweden and the Agassiz medal from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States
29. Emiliani, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 41, 1978, 159, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam
30. Robert Schoch, Voices of the Rocks, 147–8, Harmony Books, New York, 1999
31. Ibid., 148
32. Paul LaViolette, Earth Under Fire, 183, Starburst Publications, New York, 1997
33. E.g. scenario: population is tempted to migrate to coasts, or to low-lying valleys near coasts, by improved conditions; several thousand years of stability and prosperity; all eggs placed in the one basket of the coastal cities; flooding suddenly resumes and engulfs the cities; there are only a few survivors, etc.
34. Emiliani, Planet Earth, 543
35. Ibid., 540
36. Emiliani, The Scientific Companion, 251, 257
37. Taped interview with John Shaw, conduced by John Grigsby, research assistant to GH, 1999
38. Nature, vol. 389, 2 October 1997, 473
39. Ibid., 473
40. Ibid., 474
41. Ibid., 474
42. Ibid., 474
43. Ibid., 474–5
44. Arch C. Johnston, ‘A Wave in the Earth’, Science, vol. 274, 1 November 1996, 735
45. Oppenheimer, op. cit., 40
46. Johnston, op. cit.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ronald Arvidsson, ‘Fennoscandian Earthquakes: Whole Crustal Rupturing Related to Post-Glacial Rebound’, Science, vol. 274, 1 November 1996
50. Ibid.
51. Johnston, op. cit., 735 (emphasis added)
52. Re measures of seismic magnitude: the comparative figures for the Parvie quake were given in ML units in the source document. ML units are on the Local Magnitude scale, which is the basis for establishing an earthquake’s level on the famous Richter scale. ML measures the amplitude of a wave as it appears on a seismograph that has been set up in a particular location, so it is essentially a measure of the extent to which a certain bit of ground moves vertically in an earthquake. The Richter scale is logarithmic, so the magnitude goes up exponentially (by a factor of 10) with each step up the scale. An earthquake measuring 6.0ML has 10 times greater magnitude than an earthquake measuring 5.0ML, and 100 times greater magnitude than one measuring 4.0ML. NB, the units of the Richter Scale are M rather than ML, because the magnitude we’re dealing with is no longer local but should be the same everywhere.
53. Johnston, op. cit.
54. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol. 10, 55
55. Guardian, London, 18 January 1995
56. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol. 10, 55
57. Johnston, op. cit.
58. Arvidsson, op. cit.
59. Wilson et al., op. cit., 19 and 28
60. Straus et al., op. cit., 129–30
61. Schild in ibid., 129–30
62. Schoch., op. cit., 147–8
63. Plato, op. cit., 38
64. Ibid., 35–6
65. Emiliani, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 159
66. Isaac and Janet Asimov, Frontiers II, 110–11, New York, 1993, cited in Charles Ginenthal, ‘The Extinction of the Mammoth’, 266, The Veilkovskian, vol. 3, nos. 2 and 3, New York, 1997
67. Encyclopaedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol. 4, 235; LaViolette, op. cit., 203–4: ‘Drumlin fields are found widely distributed in both North America and Europe. In North America conspicuous fields are present in regions that once lay at the edge of the ice-sheet, such as those found in central-western New York (about 10,000 drumlins), east central Wisconsin (about 5000 drumlins), south central New England (about 3000 drumlins), south-western Nova Scotia (2300 drumlins). Other fields are believed to be present in intervening districts but to have escaped detection …’
68. John Grigsby, interview with John Shaw
69. Ibid.
70. Shaw, ‘Drumlins, subglacial meltwater floods, and ocean responses’, Geology, vol. 17, September 1989, 853–6
71. Ginenthal, op. cit., 267; John Shaw and Donald Kvill, ‘A Glacio-Fluvial Origin for Drumlins in the Livingston Lake Area, Saskatchewan’, Canadian Journal of Earth Science, vol. 21, 1984, 1442
72. Shaw, op. cit., 855
73. John Shaw, A Meltwater Model for the Laurentide Subglacial Landscapes, Geomorphology Sans Frontiers, 181, John Wiley and Sons, 1996
74. John Grigsby, interview with John Shaw
75. John Shaw, ‘A Qualitative View of Sub-Ice-Sheet Landscape Evolution’, Progress in Physical Geography, 18.2, 1994, 166
76. Ibid., 164
77. Shaw, ‘Drumlins, subglacial meltwater floods, and ocean responses’, 854
78. Shaw and Kvill, op. cit., 1455
79. John Shaw, ‘Sedimentary Evidence Favouring the Formation of Rogen Landscapes by Outburst Floods’, http://www.sentex.net
tcc/rogen/main.html, 4
80. Shaw and Kvill, op. cit., 1455
81. Paul Blanchon and John Shaw, ‘Reef drowning during the last deglaciation: Evidence for catastrophic sea-level rise and ice-sheet collapse’, Geology, vol. 23, no. 1, January 1995, 6. See also Wilson et al., op. cit., 113–21
82. Blanchon and Shaw, op. cit., 4
83. Shaw, ‘Sedimentary Evidence Favouring the Formation of Rogen Landscapes by Outburst Floods’, 4
84. Fletcher and Sherman, ‘Submerged Shorelines …’, Journal of Coastal Research, special issue no. 17, 147
85. Ibid., 147 (emphasis added]
86. Scott Fields, ‘Metafloods at the end of the Ice Age’, cited in Charles Ginenthal, op. cit., 267
87. Reported in Fletcher and Sherman, op. cit., 148
88. Wilson et al., op. cit., 113–15
89. Ginenthal, op. cit., 265
90. Blanchon and Shaw, op. cit., 6
91. Wilson et al., op. cit., 117
92. Ibid., 117
93. Ibid., 117
94. Ibid., 117
95. Crowley and North, op. cit., 61–2
96. Blanchon and Shaw, op. cit., 7
97. Fletcher and Sherman, op. cit., 147
98. Crowley and North, op. cit., 64
99. Fletcher and Sherman, op. cit., 147
100. Ibid., 147–8
101. Ibid., 148. Approximately the same dating for the catastrophic draining of Lakes Agassis and Ojibway through the Hudson Strait is given in D. C. Barber et al., ‘Forcing of the cold event of 8200 years ago …’, Nature, vol. 400, July 1999, 344ff
102. David Keys, ‘Lethal Floods Ravaged Stone Age Britain’, Independent, London, 15 October 2000
103. Oppenheimer, op. cit., 35
104. There was, for example, a 25 metre rise in sea-level, followed by a similar fall, during a period estimated at less than 2000 years centred on 8000 years ago. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, 1995, 1568
105. Oppenheimer, op. cit., 40
106. LaViolette, op. cit., 225
107. Ibid., 206
108. Ibid., 199–200; 202–3
PART TWO: India(1)
4 / Forgotten Cities, Ancient Texts and an Indian Atlantis
1. Jonathan Mark Kennoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, 70, American Institute of Pakistan Studies, Oxford, 1998
2. Introduced in 1972, the written script for the Somali language is based on the Latin alphabet, with modifications