9 ms·
Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements existed for tens of millenia, while modern cities only existed for 2½ millenia. Between Abu Hereya (10'800 BC) and Tall el
by kuschku 5y ago
Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements existed for tens of millenia, while modern cities only existed for 2½ millenia.
Between Abu Hereya (10'800 BC) and Tall el-Hammam (1'650 BC) there was a 9'000 year gap.
Of course you’re going to get more cosmic events if you wait a longer time.
EDIT: The article discusses the potential impact at Tall el-Hammam in 1'650 BC, which also covered Jericho. A second impact at Abu Hereya in 10'800 BC is only mentioned, but not discussed in detail.
- raducu 5y agoDoes that mean there were two airbursts and not just one in the same place 9000 years apart? Not disputing that, but my interpretation would be that there was just one airburst that covered both cities.
- kuschku 5y agoJericho and Tall el-Hammam were destroyed in the same airburst, in the same place (~22km distance, ~same time). Abu Hereya (several hundred kilometers away, 9000 years earlier) was also discussed in the article, and is a separate impact.
- yosito 5y agoJericho? Isn't that the city with the biblical story of God knocking down the walls from the inside out? I wonder if there's a connection.
- yxhuvud 5y agoThe more obvious connection is with Sodom & Gomorra being destroyed by divine wrath. Evidence of high temperatures and increased salinity..
- dr_zoidberg 5y agoThe linked study mentions the possibility of Tall el-Hammam being Sodom, but they specifically say thats a whole line of study in itself and they won't go into details in the paper.
- yxhuvud 5y agoYes, they did avoid derailing the study very nicely.
- 13of40 5y agoHaving driven through Sodom, which is situated on the dead end of the dead sea, next to the apocalyptic salt factory they have there, it boggles my mind that you would be able to measure "increased salinity". What I'm saying is the dirt itself is half salt.
- BurningFrog 5y agoThat's what you'd expect after an "increased salinity" event.
- dhosek 5y ago"Apocalyptic salt factory" in Sodom creates an image in my mind of a factory whose salt comes from the pillars of salt left behind by all the people leaving Sodom but stopping to look back.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Arech 5y agoIt worth actually to follow links to Abu Hureyra paper [1] to learn that this event is considered not as a solitary impact, but just one in a series of events across four continents. Abu Hureyra's paper also reference paper [2] with a telling name "Evidence for deposition of 10 million tonnes of impact spherules across four continents 12,800 y ago". Here's a fragment of conclusion from that paper: "The geographical extent of the (Younger Drias) YD impact is limited by the range of sites available for study to date and is presumably much larger, because we have found consistent, supporting evidence over an increasingly wide area. The nature of the impactor remains unclear, although we suggest that the most likely hypothesis is that of multiple airbursts/impacts by a large comet or asteroid that fragmented in solar orbit, as is common for nearly all comets. The YD impact at 12.8 ka is coincidental with major environmental events, including abrupt cooling at the YD onset, major extinction of some end-Pleistocene megafauna, disappearance of Clovis cultural traditions, widespread biomass burning, and often, the deposition of dark, carbon-rich sediments (black mat). It is reasonable to hypothesize a relationship between these events and the YDB impact, although much work remains to understand the causal mechanisms." [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60867-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-60867-w [2] https://www.pnas.org/content/110/23/E2088 https://www.pnas.org/content/110/23/E2088
- pvg 5y agoWe don't really have evidence of settlements lasting tens of millennia. Plus, there weren't that many people about. The estimates of human population just 10k BCE are about that of LA County - 10 million-ish.
- rini17 5y agoEven if that were true, what is your point? Where did these 10m people live if not in settlements?
- pvg 5y agoThey didn't live in permanent settlements, no, never mind ones that lasted tens of thousands of years. That is my point.
- rini17 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_continuously_inhabited_cities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_continuously_in... lists several cities already established (with walls) around 3000 BC. Why they would not be inhabitated millenia before? Just because we don't have written records?
- pvg 5y agoMostly because they hadn't invented agriculture, a less-than-10k-years-old development.
- kuschku 5y agoThe city of Abu Herey was destroyed 10'800 BC, almost three millenia before the timeframe you just stated for the first cities.
- pvg 5y agoDo you mean this site? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Abu_Hureyra https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_Abu_Hureyra It's a unique site of possible early long-term hunter-gatherer settlement right in the middle of one of the regions in which agriculture was first developed. It also happens to be one of the first agricultural sites! The pre-agricultural populations we're talking about are a few hundred people, which feels a little short of a city.
- javajosh 5y agoThis is reverse survivorship bias. There were probably bolides a'plenty, it's just they took down some trees, killed some animals, and interrupted a villagers sleep. There would be no record of such an event.
- gatronicus 5y agoWe should be able to find the impact geological records and build a probability model.
- javajosh 5y agoDid even Tunguska have a geological impact? And also, since 75% of the Earth is covered in water, it stands to reason that 75% of bolides exploded over an ocean, with literally no impact we could meaningfully measure. My point is that human cities are "bolide sensors" and unevenly distributed in time and space, so the "measurements" are necessarily fewer than what occurs in nature.
- staplung 5y agoBest definition of a city ever: “bolide sensor”. Love it
- jacquesm 5y agotrees flattened in a radial pattern might show up in the geological record somehow.
- gota 5y agoUnlikely after several years, let alone several thousands, right?
- bell-cot 5y agoIt would require coordinated excavation over how many square miles, to spot the radial pattern? (Assuming, as gota points out, that the fallen trees were somehow preserved.) Then there's bolides over desert, savanna, tundra, ice sheets, etc.