Biblical Flood Kickstarted European Farming

The flood believed to be behind the Noah’s Ark myth kick-started European agriculture, according to new research by the Universities of Exeter and Wollongong, Australia; The results indicate a catastrophic rise in global sea level led to the flooding.

Recent research that was carried out by a team from the Universities of Exeter and Wollongong, Australia states that the flood which is generally believed to be behind the story of Noah’s Ark may have actually provided the impetus for European agriculture. The research paper will be published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews and assesses the impact of the collapse of the North American (Laurentide) Ice Sheet, 8000 years ago. The results of this assessment indicate that a catastrophic rise in global sea level led to the flooding of the Black Sea and that this was the catalyst behind dramatic social change across Europe. When the Laurentide Ice Sheet collapsed vast amount of water was released. This infusion lead to an increase of global sea by up to 1.4 metres and caused the largest North Atlantic freshwater pulse of the last 100,000 years. Prior tot his event there was a ridge across the Bosporus Strait that dammed the Mediterranean and kept the Black Sea as a freshwater lake. As the sea level rose, the Bosporus Strait was breached, and this flooded the Black Sea. This flooding is believed to be behind the various folk myths that led to the biblical Noah’s Ark story. As archaeological records show it was around this time that there was a sudden expansion of farming and pottery production across Europe. This expansion signaled the end of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherer era and the start of the Neolithic. Prior to this study, the link between rising sea levels and such massive social change has previously been unclear. Reconstructions of the Mediterranean and Black Sea shoreline before and after the rise in sea levels were created and the researchers were able to estimate that nearly 73,000 square km of land was lost to the sea over a period of 34 years. When current knowledge of historical population levels is taken into account, this could have led to the displacement of 145,000 people. Communities in southeast Europe were already practicing early farming techniques and pottery production before the Flood. The flood waters forced them to move west, taking their culture into areas inhabited by hunter-gatherer communities. “People living in what is now southeast Europe must have felt as though the whole world had flooded. This could well have been the origin of the Noah’s Ark story. Entire coastal communities must have been displaced, forcing people to migrate in their thousands. As these agricultural communities moved west, they would have taken farming with them across Europe. It was a revolutionary time.” said Professor Chris Turney of the University of Exeter. The rise in global sea levels 8000 years ago is in-line with current estimates for the end of the 21st century. Professor Chris Turney continued: “This research shows how rising sea levels can cause massive social change. 8,000 years on, are we any better placed to deal with rising sea levels? The latest estimates suggest that by AD 2050, millions of people will be displaced each year by rising sea levels. For those people living in coastal communities, the omen isn’t good.”