.com Review
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The Deluge of Noah has long been one of the points of
tension between geology and Christianity. Scientific
diluvianism--the theory that the earth's history was shaped by a
universal flood--collapsed in the early 19th century, well before
Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/0517123207/${0} ). Since that time, scientists
and historians have assumed that the flood story derived from
local events in Mesopotamia.
In 1997, geologists Walter Pitman and William Ryan proposed the
first truly novel interpretation of the flood in over 150 years.
Their studies of sediments in the Black Sea convinced them that
the body had been a freshwater lake until about 5600 B.C. When
the rising waters of the Mediterranean broke through the
Bosporus, "ten cubic miles of water poured through each day, two
hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls."
With great intellectual daring, Pitman and Ryan have moved
outside of their academic niche to suggest that this event had
enormous consequences for human history. They marshal evidence
from archeology, mythology, linguistics, and agriculture to
describe a flood-driven diaspora of early farmers. Subsets of
these people became (variously) proto-Indo-Europeans, Sumerians,
Beaker People, Vincas, Tocharians--the founders of the early
cultures of Europe and western Asia. --Mary Ellen Curtin
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From Publishers Weekly
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Archeologists have long sought to prove that the great
flood described in Genesis and in the Babylonian epic of
Gilgamesh was a historic event. Columbia University geologists
Ryan and Pitman weigh in with a highly conjectural theory that
seems as good as any other, if no better. Around 5600 B.C., they
maintain, Noah's flood occurred when rising Mediterranean waters
roared through the narrow Bosporus Strait, transforming the Black
Sea, then a freshwater lake, into a bloated saltwater body.
Taking a cue from Australian prehistorian Gordon Childe, who
posited that Europe's first farmers came from Asia, the authors
contend that the Black Sea at the time of the alleged flood was a
fertile oasis, a cultural magnet where diverse peoples?farmers,
animal breeders, artisans?exchanged techniques and possibly
genes. They point to the sudden appearance in Europe, shortly
after 5600 B.C., of "outsider" tribes, advanced farmers who, the
theory goes, were fleeing the flooded Black Sea region. Other
flood refugees, in this scenario, migrated to Russia's steppes,
Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Middle East, preserving memory of
the catastrophe in mythic and oral traditions later enshrined on
clay s and ultimately in the Bible. Ryan and Pitman base
their theory partly on radiocarbon dating of marine sediments
that they collected in 1993 during a Black Sea expedition and
partly on Ice Age climatic patterns, modern linguists' quest for
a proto-Indo-European mother tongue and genetic studies of
population migrations over the millennia. Their complicated
detective tale is intriguing, but much more solid evidence would
be required to convince skeptics. Illustrated with drawings by
Anastasia Sotiropoulos and s by William Haxby. Agent, Roger
Jellinek.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From Library Journal
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The lure of reconciling history and myth with scientific
fact lies behind this book. Two Columbia University geologists
describe mythological traditions related to great flood stories,
arguing that approximately 7500 years ago a great flood inundated
the Black Sea and scattered the local peoples, who started
settlements elsewhere. These dispersed groups took their
agricultural skills to new homes, where archaeological evidence
has demonstrated the growth of agriculture and civilization. This
story focuses more on geology and scientific discovery than on
the human experience of a great flood. Although archaeologists
were consulted, the hypothesis is supported most strongly with
geological studies and would have been more convincing had an
archaeologist been a coauthor. That aside, this is a well-written
tale that deserves an audience. Recommended for general audiences
and libraries.
-?Joyce L. Ogburn, Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From Scientific American
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The tale of a massive, devastating flood appears not only
in the Bible but also in other ancient writings, often in similar
terms, suggesting that it records a real and singularly memorable
event. Ryan and Pitman, who are senior scientists at Columbia
University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, think the event
might have been a huge and prolonged cascade of water from the
Mediterranean that broke through a natural dam in the Bosporus
Strait and plunged into what was then a freshwater lake and is
now the Black Sea. They present both geologic and archaeological
evidence for the flood, dating it at about 5600 B.C. "The
Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three
hundred days," they write. The cascade inundated 60,000 square
miles of land, forcing the people living in the region to
disperse. The book explores the question of who those people were
and where they went; it also examines the tradition of oral
storytelling that could have passed the flood story from
generation to generation.
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From Kirkus Reviews
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In a rare marriage of science and myth, two geologists draw
on their worldwide oceanographic expeditions in search of
evidence of the biblical flood. The authors first trace attempts
to establish the historicity of the flood back to the work of
archaeologists and scientists in the 1820s and '30s. Then,
looking at the physical evidence, according to Ryan and Pitman
(both geology professors at Columbia University), indicates that
the cataclysm actually occurred 7,600 years ago; it consisted of
the Mediterranean rising in Marmara and cing through the
natural dam of the Bosporus, raising the Black Sea 280 feet in 12
months. The archaeological evidence, according to the authors, is
that the resulting dispersion of the populace led to the spread
of farming skills, languages, and cultures to new settlements in
southern Europe, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Asia. The
archaeological record is supported by studies that reveal
genetic connections between modern peoples of these regions and
remains found around the flood region. But Ryan and Pitman dont
draw only on science, they study as well the flood stories of
various cultures, from Sumer to India, contending that they
remain remarkably similar despite local coloring and storytellers
embellishments. These tales tell of the destruction of the world
as it was then known, but they universally also offer hope of
salvation, regeneration, and divine forgiveness. The authors
offer clear explanations of the scientific techniques involved in
gathering evidence of the flood, and couch it in a historical
narrative that preserves for readers the sense of discovery and
wonder experienced by scientists through the 19th and 20th
centuries (somewhat oddly, in keeping with this narrative, they
relate their own research in the third person). An impressive
marshalling of geophysical and archaeological evidence to
reconstruct the truth behind an ancient myth. (illustrations and
s) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights
reserved.
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Review
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...an interesting and provocative story.... a detective
story that rollicks along, sweeping up everything in its path...
-- The New York Times Book Review, Richard Ellis
Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D. President, Institute for Exploration
William Ryan and Walter Pitman's Noah's Flood is a fascinating
and compelling scientific detective story. A must-read! It will
definitely launch many expeditions seeking to prove it right or
wrong. -- Review
The flood is a fascinating story, all the better for being told
by working scientists. What comes across clearly is the thrill of
discovery.... Ryan and Pitman's book is a mind-expanding read.
The mixture of disciplines and ways of doing science is
exhilarating and paints a realistic picture of the way research
works. -- New Scientist, Sue er
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About the Author
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William B. F. Ryan and Walter C. Pitman are senior
scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia
University. Pitman is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union,
and both authors have received the Shepard Medal for exemplary
research in marine geology.
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