A Forgotten World

[Beagle]

http://beyondtheblog.wordpress.com/2007 ... n-world-2/

The only way that man could have dispersed as he did would have involved a very early use of boats, thousands of years before we presently accept such technology existed. But would such technology have required a highly advanced man?
Not at all. Simple observation would have shown him that a log floats on water. Allow a couple of centuries of head scratching and he would have realised that if he sat on it, he would float too. Add a couple of millenia of innovation and he’d have begun to gouge it out.

A blog by Anthony North. I confess - I like this sort of thing. Not that there is any evidence of it's truth, but because of it's logic.

It makes me think.

Thinking is good.

[MichelleH]

Thinking is good.

I'll second that motion. Next to actually reading something of substance(if reading at all), thinking is an art that is all but lost these days.....

(Geez, I'm beginning to sound as cynical as Min and my husband..... , just kidding I still have a wee bit of hope!)

[Minimalist]

Not that there is any evidence of it's truth, but because of it's logic.

There is circumstancial evidence though, Beags. Contrary to popular belief a conviction is usually obtained on the basis of circumstancial evidence.

If you walk through a forest and see a tree lying on the ground you do not have to have seen it fall to know that it did fall. Likewise, the existence on humans on islands has a limited number of possible causes.

1- They evolved there from nothing. (Not likely)

2- They sailed there from somewhere else.

3- They flew there.

4- At some point in the past the ocean froze and they walked over.

5- Sea level got so low that a land bridge was exposed.

In a hierarchy of probability I put my money on boats.

[Beagle]

I have no doubt about boats. I haven't changed my mind in that regard.

What I found fascinating in that article, Min, was a hypothetical "fisheries industry" that may have existed almost world wide prior to the huge sea level rise and the beginning of the agriculture industry.

While that kind of culture might not rise to the level of a civilization, it would connect so many dots in many future cultures around the world. And after the sea level rise, the evidence would be invisible, the sea covering the villages, temples, and harbors.

The Taino in recent history had dugout canoes that could hold 140 people in their travels around Cuba, Bahamas, and Bimini. A Spanish galleon held 180 people! A dugout canoe that large could not be simply beached, it needed a harbor. This in recent history.

Anyway, that's what got me thinking. Maybe not a lost civilization, but an intercontinental fishing culture.

[rich]

Sounds like you’re starting to describe the “Sea People”!

Hmm - maybe that explains why I see these images in the world maps:

Gaea, Tiamat, Medusa (with a serpent snaking out of her hair and just below France) and Greenland as a hat or helmet or headpiece of some sort, Atlas in his classic form with the thumb of one hand where the serpent for Medusa was, and Prometheus in this:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... ymetry.jpg

Zeus with Athena being born out of his head with her shouting in this:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... vation.jpg

And in the complete one you can see all of them including North America as the eagle of Zeus ripping out the liver (South America) of Prometheus, and the Mediterranean Sea and other waterways eastward as the chains that bound Prometheus to the Caucasus Mountain range:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... vation.jpg

They say a lot of the ancient myths borrow from older ones. Maybe they had a map in the fishing culture and somehow it got passed down.

Nah - I probably have a highly over active imagination.

[dannan14]

hmmm, i think maybe NA looks more like a gryphon than an eagle, but close enough

[spacecase0]

the very very old maps that I have seen are more accurate than the just somewhat old maps, I would not be surprised at all if they had maps that gave them these images.

I think that some evidence and the use of logic is fair, other scientists use this method all the time.

archaeologists seem to want absolute proof, I have wondered about this,
why not just figure that there is a 95% chance that there was a worldwide seafaring people in ancient times.

I am very interested in what the world was like in ancient times, and it looks like we will never be absolutely sure, and
I wonder why no one has collected all the oldest knowledge and evidence, and use logic to give us the most likely picture of the world that was.
I would read that book if it were out there.

[dannan14]

In high school i read a book that really fueled my thirst for learning about ancient civs. It was already old by the time i read it, but i still found it fascinating. It was called '4000 years ago today'. i don't remember the author.

It focused mostly on the Mediterranean and the Middle East, but it still painted a vibrant picture of the cultures it detailed. It may still be available in a library.

i'd be interested in an updated version if a modern day author wanted to take up the task. But i've been saying that for 20 years now hehe.

[Forum Monk]

I think that some evidence and the use of logic is fair, other scientists use this method all the time.

archaeologists seem to want absolute proof, I have wondered about this,
why not just figure that there is a 95% chance that there was a worldwide seafaring people in ancient times.

We have all been taught that ancient mariner's believed the earth was flat and feared sailing off the edge. But as you state - wouldn't a little simple thinking and applied logic fully discredit such a teaching about the ancients? There is no way I believe an ancient sailor thought he might sail off the edge: a) the visible edge is only a few miles away (an easy round trip) and b) there is no massive flow of water toward the visible edge.

Early mariner's may have been uneducated but they weren't stupid.

[Ishtar]

Simple observation would have shown him that a log floats on water. Allow a couple of centuries of head scratching and he would have realised that if he sat on it, he would float too. Add a couple of millenia of innovation and he’d have begun to gouge it out.

A couple of centuries of head scratching? Why do people persist in thinking that early man was really dumb just because he didn't have MacDonalds? It would have taken him a couple of seconds, if that - in other words, as long as it would take any of us to figure it out.

It's as easy as falling off a log! (sorry)

[kbs2244]

I remember as a grade school kid seeing a movie about Columbus.
In a scene where he was trying to recruit sailors for his first voyage, and assuming they thought the Earth was flat and they would fall off the edge if they went too far. He passed out oranges to them and explained he thought the Earth was round like the oranges.
The sailors said they already knew this. The astonished Columbus asked how they knew this. They replied that their wives told them they always saw the tops of their masts before the rest of the ship came into view when they were returning home. And they noticed the same thing themselves. The mountain tops showed up before the beaches.

[Beagle]

Sounds like you’re starting to describe the “Sea People”!

Hmm - maybe that explains why I see these images in the world maps:

Gaea, Tiamat, Medusa (with a serpent snaking out of her hair and just below France) and Greenland as a hat or helmet or headpiece of some sort, Atlas in his classic form with the thumb of one hand where the serpent for Medusa was, and Prometheus in this:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... ymetry.jpg

Zeus with Athena being born out of his head with her shouting in this:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... vation.jpg

And in the complete one you can see all of them including North America as the eagle of Zeus ripping out the liver (South America) of Prometheus, and the Mediterranean Sea and other waterways eastward as the chains that bound Prometheus to the Caucasus Mountain range:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image ... vation.jpg

They say a lot of the ancient myths borrow from older ones. Maybe they had a map in the fishing culture and somehow it got passed down.

Nah - I probably have a highly over active imagination.

Hi Rich, I enjoyed your map links here. The Pacific Ocean landmass above water looks about right to me. This ,of course, during the lowered sea levels of the LGM. The Atlantic landmass is a bit more dicey. Your map shows the Atlantic Ridge above water. The ridge is so deep that the lowered sea levels alone would not account for it being above water. There is some speculation that the pressure of the Greenland ice cap bearing down caused an upwelling in the weak crust of the ridge. To get it that high would take a tremendous amount of pressure. The resulting isostatic rebound would then sink the ridge again.

So far, there is no evidence for this having ever happened. But there seems little doubt that there was much more landmass to the Azores during the LGM. That in itself is pretty interesting.

[rich]

Glad you liked 'em. Actually I first started thinking about the Atlantic looking like Gaea back when a customer needed to get some satellite image pictures some years back when I was working at a helpdesk. Once I saw the image I thought "Wow - Mother Earth has a real nice body!"

But then I thought about it and remembered when you got close enough to see Medusa's head you were turned to stone - hmm - frozen?

Course I could always say "I found King Kong!"

[rich]

By the way, Beags - not my maps - they're from wikipedia commons. They're actually topographic maps of the ocean floor - that's why you see the ridge so clearly. Question is - if that is what the ancients mapped - how did they do it? Depth soundings? They had to be really good for that.
Especially if that is Medusa because you can actually see the split in the ocean floor where her head would have been cut off by Perseus. Of course - that's if that's what is there.

[Beagle]

By the way, Beags - not my maps - they're from wikipedia commons. They're actually topographic maps of the ocean floor - that's why you see the ridge so clearly. Question is - if that is what the ancients mapped - how did they do it? Depth soundings? They had to be really good for that.
Especially if that is Medusa because you can actually see the split in the ocean floor where her head would have been cut off by Perseus. Of course - that's if that's what is there.

Yep, I know Rich. Here is the original source for the maps.
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/2minrelief.html
They're owned and patented by the US Gov't. There is no evidence at all that the "ancients" were aware of the mid-Atlantic ridge. In fact, that seems pretty impossible to me. I think it was discovered in the early 20th century when they laid the Trans-Atlantic cable.

In any case, they show that a lot of land that is currently submerged was once above water, and may have enabled fishermen in travelling long distances. It's an entertaining thought.