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Thing is, while all those global- or continental-scale flooding events did happen, there's only speculation that they are coupled to oral traditions. And strong

Thing is, while all those global- or continental-scale flooding events did happen, there's only speculation that they are coupled to oral traditions. And stronger speculation that they are linked to more regional floods, eg, from flood-prone Mesopotamia. We can look at the Great Flood of Gun to see how mythology incorporates more localized floods - sea level rise wouldn't cause flooding of the Yellow River and the Yangtze valleys some 4,000 years ago. As the paper I cited says: > While there are a few claims of considerably greater antiquity that are difficult to dismiss—the Klamath memory of the 7630-year-old eruption of Mt Mazama (Deur 2002) is one—most of these are inevitably based on sparse information from which credible arguments are difficult to construct. Most scientists hold a sceptical view of such ‘deep’ oral histories (Henige2009; Owsley and Jantz 2001), a position that is prudent, although there are some who regard it as unduly cautious (Echo-Hawk 2000) then listing much more concrete examples of how local myths can be tied to global sea level rise, for example: > Some of these stories recall that the Aboriginal name of Fitzroy Island is gabaɽor ‘lower arm’ of a former main-land promontory that became partly submerged. Another recalls the name of a place halfway between Fitzroy Island and King Beach that is now submerged; its name was Mudaga (the Indindji word for the pencil pine, Athrotaxis cupressoides) after the trees growing there along with an explanation for why these stories might have persisted: > the only plausible explanation for the Indindji people of coastal Queensland continuing to tell the story of Mudaga ... for thousands of years after it was no longer visible, is if that story were part of an explicitly taught package of stories inherited through land-owning Indindji patrilines. For the existence of Mudaga, even submerged, constitutes evidence of knowing one’s country, and thus establishing one’s relationship with that country. Without such ritualised framing, the transmission of such stories across perhaps over 100 generations would seem to be implausibly vulnerable to chance link-breaking The connection between the Gilgamesh floods and global sea-level rise, or the Black Sea, etc., has no comparable evidence.

ncmncm 5y ago
Of course there will never be definitive evidence connecting sea level rise to universal flood mythology. It comes down, in the end, to plausibility: people everywhere have always been subject to existential catastrophe, including flood, conflagration, desertification, famine, pandemic, invasion, eviction, genocide, cyclone, earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption, bolide strike -- need I go on? Yet, only one of these shows up as formative in all places and nearly all peoples. There are other ways to interpret universality. One is that a progenitor people carried an origin story with them, over tens of millennia, as they spread out to cover the planet. The universal interpretation of the Pleiades as seven sisters (one now lost) can be explained no other way. The simpler explanation for prominence of flood myths over all others regardless of proximity to recent flooding events is universal experience, in place, continued over millennia. The end of generation-on-generation flooding that immediately preceded the rise of sedentary agriculture and civilization must have been as profoundly affecting as the flood's previous relentless progress. There must have been, after 12 millennia, a deeply ingrained expectation that the sea would continue rising indefinitely, the world perhaps ending with the sea finally submerging all land. Building with an expectation not to be soon evicted by water must have seemed audaciously sacrilegious, in many places, for many generations after. Association of high ground with the gods' favor must have been cemented early. Peoples accustomed to higher ground would have, instead, continual experience of invasion by people displaced, again finally trailing off. So, is the null hypothesis that universal flood myths are local memories, with those citing universal older experience having something to prove? Or should the older origin be the baseline, with citations of scattered recent events seeding disconnected, coincidentally matching myths obliged to find support? The choice is fatuous. Each may be true, in different places. A recent flood event can easily loom larger in memory than legend. Absent a recent flood or tsunami, the universal experience remains.
- eesmith 5y ago
  > Yet, only one of these shows up as formative in all places and nearly all peoples. Most peoples in Africa don't have a flood myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths#Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths#Africa . Nor is there a Japanese myth. And the Norse flood myth may be from Christian influence. Any theory of a progenitor people must explain why some it persisted in some cultures but not others. > The universal interpretation of the Pleiades as seven sisters (one now lost) can be explained no other way. ??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matariki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matariki - Matariki is the Māori name for the cluster of stars known to Western astronomers as the Pleiades in the constellation Taurus. Matariki is a shortened version of Ngā mata o te ariki o Tāwhirimātea, or "the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E1%B9%9Bttik%C4%81 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E1%B9%9Bttik%C4%81 - "The star cluster Kṛttikā ... corresponds to the open star cluster called Pleiades in western astronomy ... In Indian astronomy and Jyotiṣa (Hindu astrology) the name literally translates to "the cutters". ... The six Krittikas who raised the Hindu God Kartikeya are Śiva, Sambhūti, Prīti, Sannati, Anasūya and Kṣamā." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades - "In Japan, the cluster is mentioned under the name Mutsuraboshi ("six stars") in the 8th-century Kojiki" > The simpler explanation for prominence of flood myths over all others regardless of proximity to recent flooding events is universal experience, in place, continued over millennia. There are gods in a lot of mythologies too. > There must have been, after 12 millennia, a deeply ingrained expectation that the sea would continue rising indefinitely Yet most of those flood stories have the waters rise then fall, and for a short period -- or before humans ever existed. And in the Great Flood of Gun-Yu, humans end up controlling the flood - a far cry from a universal mythos of ever-rising waters. > is the null hypothesis that universal flood myths are local memories The null hypothesis is that there is no universal flood myth.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > The null hypothesis is that there is no universal flood myth The null hypothesis is that it is indeterminate whether there is a universal flood myth. Any determinant statement is a non-null hypothesis.

ncmncm 5y ago

Of course there will never be definitive evidence connecting sea level rise to universal flood mythology. It comes down, in the end, to plausibility: people everywhere have always been subject to existential catastrophe, including flood, conflagration, desertification, famine, pandemic, invasion, eviction, genocide, cyclone, earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption, bolide strike -- need I go on? Yet, only one of these shows up as formative in all places and nearly all peoples. There are other ways to interpret universality. One is that a progenitor people carried an origin story with them, over tens of millennia, as they spread out to cover the planet. The universal interpretation of the Pleiades as seven sisters (one now lost) can be explained no other way. The simpler explanation for prominence of flood myths over all others regardless of proximity to recent flooding events is universal experience, in place, continued over millennia. The end of generation-on-generation flooding that immediately preceded the rise of sedentary agriculture and civilization must have been as profoundly affecting as the flood's previous relentless progress. There must have been, after 12 millennia, a deeply ingrained expectation that the sea would continue rising indefinitely, the world perhaps ending with the sea finally submerging all land. Building with an expectation not to be soon evicted by water must have seemed audaciously sacrilegious, in many places, for many generations after. Association of high ground with the gods' favor must have been cemented early. Peoples accustomed to higher ground would have, instead, continual experience of invasion by people displaced, again finally trailing off. So, is the null hypothesis that universal flood myths are local memories, with those citing universal older experience having something to prove? Or should the older origin be the baseline, with citations of scattered recent events seeding disconnected, coincidentally matching myths obliged to find support? The choice is fatuous. Each may be true, in different places. A recent flood event can easily loom larger in memory than legend. Absent a recent flood or tsunami, the universal experience remains.

eesmith 5y ago
> Yet, only one of these shows up as formative in all places and nearly all peoples. Most peoples in Africa don't have a flood myth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths#Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths#Africa . Nor is there a Japanese myth. And the Norse flood myth may be from Christian influence. Any theory of a progenitor people must explain why some it persisted in some cultures but not others. > The universal interpretation of the Pleiades as seven sisters (one now lost) can be explained no other way. ??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matariki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matariki - Matariki is the Māori name for the cluster of stars known to Western astronomers as the Pleiades in the constellation Taurus. Matariki is a shortened version of Ngā mata o te ariki o Tāwhirimātea, or "the eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E1%B9%9Bttik%C4%81 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%E1%B9%9Bttik%C4%81 - "The star cluster Kṛttikā ... corresponds to the open star cluster called Pleiades in western astronomy ... In Indian astronomy and Jyotiṣa (Hindu astrology) the name literally translates to "the cutters". ... The six Krittikas who raised the Hindu God Kartikeya are Śiva, Sambhūti, Prīti, Sannati, Anasūya and Kṣamā." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades - "In Japan, the cluster is mentioned under the name Mutsuraboshi ("six stars") in the 8th-century Kojiki" > The simpler explanation for prominence of flood myths over all others regardless of proximity to recent flooding events is universal experience, in place, continued over millennia. There are gods in a lot of mythologies too. > There must have been, after 12 millennia, a deeply ingrained expectation that the sea would continue rising indefinitely Yet most of those flood stories have the waters rise then fall, and for a short period -- or before humans ever existed. And in the Great Flood of Gun-Yu, humans end up controlling the flood - a far cry from a universal mythos of ever-rising waters. > is the null hypothesis that universal flood myths are local memories The null hypothesis is that there is no universal flood myth.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > The null hypothesis is that there is no universal flood myth The null hypothesis is that it is indeterminate whether there is a universal flood myth. Any determinant statement is a non-null hypothesis.