Re: Marc V posts THIS in the AAT newsgroup: I KNEW THEY WERE RELATED!!! Atlantis lives!
- From: Marc Verhaegen <m_verhaegen@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 06 May 2007 22:35:46 +0200
My boy, we're not as short-sighted as the savanna believers, we also mention
interesting things that have nothing to do with AAT.
FYI:
AAT = Homo littoral diaspora.
Aquatic Ape Theory is an inaccurate term: it's not about apes, nor about
having been aquatic. AAT states that our ancestors sometime after the
Homo/Pan split relied partly on aquatic resources:
- Homo: AAT, contrary to what many PAs think, has nothing to do with
australopiths,
- littoral: it's about our ancestors having been shoreline dwellers
(coast/lake/river-side),
- diaspora: Homo remains 1.8 Ma are found in places as far as Ain Hanech
(Algeria), Dmanisi (Georgia), Mojokerto (Java) etc.: AAT simply says that
these people got there along shorelines, not over dry plains.
Leading PAs such as Ph.Tobias
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm
& Chr.Stringer http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/003982.html
now agree with a "wet" past & shoreline dispersals
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT
_____________
Op 03-05-2007 14:59, in artikel
1178197179.570650.306600@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, spiznet
<mark@xxxxxxxxxxx> schreef:
End of Minoan civilisation Topic List < Prev Topic | Next Topic
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The wave that destroyed Atlantis
By Harvey Lilley
BBC Timewatch
The legend of Atlantis, the country that disappeared under the sea,
may be
more than just a myth. Research on the Greek island of Crete suggests
Europe's earliest civilisation was destroyed by a giant tsunami.
Until about 3,500 years ago, a spectacular ancient civilisation was
flourishing in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The ancient Minoans were building palaces, paved streets and sewers,
while
most Europeans were still living in primitive huts.
But around 1500BC the people who spawned the myths of the Minotaur and
the
Labyrinth abruptly disappeared. Now the mystery of their cataclysmic
end may
finally have been solved.
A group of scientists have uncovered new evidence that the island of
Crete
was hit by a massive tsunami at the same time that Minoan culture
disappeared.
"The geo-archaeological deposits contain a number of distinct tsunami
signatures," says Dutch-born geologist Professor Hendrik Bruins of the
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.
"Minoan building material, pottery and cups along with food residue
such as
isolated animal bones were mixed up with rounded beach pebbles and sea
shells and microscopic marine fauna.
"The latter can only have been scooped up from the sea-bed by one
mechanism - a powerful tsunami, dumping all these materials together
in a
destructive swoop," says Professor Bruins.
The deposits are up to seven metres above sea level, well above the
normal
reach of storm waves.
"An event of ferocious force hit the coast of Crete and this wasn't
just a
Mediterranean storm," says Professor Bruins.
Big wave
The Minoans were sailors and traders. Most of their towns were along
the
coast, making them especially vulnerable to the effects of a tsunami.
One of their largest settlements was at Palaikastro on the eastern
edge of
the island, one of the sites where Canadian archaeologist Sandy
MacGillivray
has been excavating for 25 years.
Here, he has found other tell-tale signs such as buildings where the
walls
facing the sea are missing but side walls which could have survived a
giant
wave are left intact.
"All of a sudden a lot of the deposits began making sense to us," says
MacGillivary.
"Even though the town of Palaikastro is a port it stretched hundreds
of
metres into the hinterland and is, in places, at least 15 metres above
sea
level. This was a big wave."
But if this evidence is so clear why has it not been discovered before
now?
Tsunami expert Costas Synolakis, from the University of Southern
California,
says that the study of ancient tsunamis is in its infancy and people
have
not, until now, really known what to look for.
Many scientists are still of the view that these waves only blasted
material
away and did not leave much behind in the way of deposits.
But observation of the Asian tsunami of 2004 changed all that.
"If you remember the video footage," says Costas, "some of it showed
tonnes
of debris being carried along by the wave and much of it was deposited
inland."
Volcanic eruption
Costas Synolakis has come to the conclusion that the wave would have
been as
powerful as the one that devastated the coastlines of Thailand and Sri
Lanka
on Boxing day 2004 leading to the loss of over 250,000 lives.
After decades studying the Minoans, MacGillivray is struck by the
scale of
the destruction.
"The Minoans are so confident in their navy that they're living in
unprotected cities all along the coastline. Now, you go to Bande Aceh
[in
Indonesia] and you find that the mortality rate is 80%. If we're
looking at
a similar mortality rate, that's the end of the Minoans."
But what caused the tsunami? The scientists have obtained radiocarbon
dates
for the deposits that show the tsunami could have hit the coast at
exactly
the same time as an eruption of the Santorini volcano, 70 km north of
Crete,
in the middle of the second millennium BC.
Recent scientific work has established that the Santorini eruption was
up to
10 times more powerful than the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. It
caused
massive climatic disruption and the blast was heard over 3000 miles
away.
Costas Synolakis thinks that the collapse of Santorini's giant
volcanic cone
into the sea during the eruption was the mechanism that generated a
wave
large enough to destroy the Minoan coastal towns.
It is not clear if the tsunami could have reached inland to the Minoan
capital at Knossos, but the fallout from the volcano would have
carried
other consequences - massive ash falls and crop failure. With their
ports,
trading fleet and navy destroyed, the Minoans would never have fully
recovered.
The myth of Atlantis, the city state that was lost beneath the sea,
was
first mentioned by Plato over 2000 years ago.
It has had a hold on the popular imagination for centuries.
Perhaps we now have an explanation of its origin - a folk memory of a
real
ancient civilisation swallowed by the sea.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6568053.stm
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