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I guess it was not any one thing that made me suspicious of the accepted model.

Strangely enough it was the Gilgamesh epic that started me thinking and the fact that flood myths abound in almost all cultures. Now I give no credence to the biblical flood as it is an obvious re telling of other myths badly edited into one, but the idea that so many peoples had a myth concerning this interested me. At the time it occurred to me, could it not be possible that these peoples had a cultural memory of the end of the last Ice age? I remember having coffee with one of the graduates in my department and discussing this subject (I was an undergraduate at the time), he took the common held theory that these myths are localized and do not point to a global event (this is the accepted academic line or it was at the time). Now it is reasonable to suggest that this is the case for the Gilgamesh story, pointing to a localized flood between the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates), but I wondered if it was the case with all the myths and could it be possible that civilization is much older than we believe, and further more could there be the remains of settlements off the coast? I was laughed at for this idea and told it was fringe. Today in the Red Sea area and off the west coast of northern India there are indeed such settlements to be found.

I am far from the only person to have thought that the flood myths could be related to the rapid rise in sea level at the end of the last Ice Age but at the time I was doing my study (The 1990's) this was seen by most academics as a fringe idea.

Among other problems I noticed was the compartmentalization of cultures, for some reason we tend to suspend many of them in a vacuum as if they existed on their own with no contact with other much more distant ones at the time. This could not be further from the truth as we know for sure most were trading with each other and as such cultural ideas were spread around. A good example are Indian story's ending up in Europe. Nicotine and Cocaine in Egyptian Mummies as mentioned before is also rather interesting.

There is a long list indeed but I feel that many in the academic world are slowly moving to the idea that the roots of civilization are much older than once thought to be.

<blockquote data-quote="stonehart" data-source="post: 149652" data-attributes="member: 2160">I guess it was not any one thing that made me suspicious of the accepted model.&nbsp;Strangely enough it was the Gilgamesh epic that started me thinking and the fact that flood myths abound in almost all cultures. Now I give no credence to the biblical flood as it is an obvious re telling of other myths badly edited into one, but the idea that so many peoples had a myth concerning this interested me. At the time it occurred to me, could it not be possible that these peoples had a cultural memory of the end of the last Ice age? I remember having coffee with one of the graduates in my department and discussing this subject (I was an undergraduate at the time), he took the common held theory that these myths are localized and do not point to a global event (this is the accepted academic line or it was at the time). Now it is reasonable to suggest that this is the case for the Gilgamesh story, pointing to a localized flood between the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates), but I wondered if it was the case with all the myths and could it be possible that civilization is much older than we believe, and further more could there be the remains of settlements off the coast? I was laughed at for this idea and told it was fringe. Today in the Red Sea area and off the west coast of northern India there are indeed such settlements to be found.&nbsp;I am far from the only person to have thought that the flood myths could be related to the rapid rise in sea level at the end of the last Ice Age but at the time I was doing my study (The 1990&#039;s) this was seen by most academics as a fringe idea.&nbsp;Among other problems I noticed was the compartmentalization of cultures, for some reason we tend to suspend many of them in a vacuum as if they existed on their own with no contact with other much more distant ones at the time. This could not be further from the truth as we know for sure most were trading with each other and as such cultural ideas were spread around. A good example are Indian story&#039;s ending up in Europe. Nicotine and Cocaine in Egyptian Mummies as mentioned before is also rather interesting.&nbsp;&nbsp;There is a long list indeed but I feel that many in the academic world are slowly moving to the idea that the roots of civilization are much older than once thought to be.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="stonehart, post: 149652, member: 2160"] I guess it was not any one thing that made me suspicious of the accepted model. Strangely enough it was the Gilgamesh epic that started me thinking and the fact that flood myths abound in almost all cultures. Now I give no credence to the biblical flood as it is an obvious re telling of other myths badly edited into one, but the idea that so many peoples had a myth concerning this interested me. At the time it occurred to me, could it not be possible that these peoples had a cultural memory of the end of the last Ice age? I remember having coffee with one of the graduates in my department and discussing this subject (I was an undergraduate at the time), he took the common held theory that these myths are localized and do not point to a global event (this is the accepted academic line or it was at the time). Now it is reasonable to suggest that this is the case for the Gilgamesh story, pointing to a localized flood between the two rivers (Tigris and Euphrates), but I wondered if it was the case with all the myths and could it be possible that civilization is much older than we believe, and further more could there be the remains of settlements off the coast? I was laughed at for this idea and told it was fringe. Today in the Red Sea area and off the west coast of northern India there are indeed such settlements to be found. I am far from the only person to have thought that the flood myths could be related to the rapid rise in sea level at the end of the last Ice Age but at the time I was doing my study (The 1990's) this was seen by most academics as a fringe idea. Among other problems I noticed was the compartmentalization of cultures, for some reason we tend to suspend many of them in a vacuum as if they existed on their own with no contact with other much more distant ones at the time. This could not be further from the truth as we know for sure most were trading with each other and as such cultural ideas were spread around. A good example are Indian story's ending up in Europe. Nicotine and Cocaine in Egyptian Mummies as mentioned before is also rather interesting. There is a long list indeed but I feel that many in the academic world are slowly moving to the idea that the roots of civilization are much older than once thought to be. [/QUOTE]

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