A startling revelation occurs when we examine the intersections between several disciplines of modern science and some of Humankind's oldest legends and myths. It seems there is a message, which has been sent to us by the people of the distant past- an answer to surviving the upcoming crises that threaten our very existence. This is my interpretation of that message: it is not competition that advances and protects civilization (although competition can surely enhance it), but it is cooperation.
While Humans are not the only species that uses cooperation as a survival mechanism, we are the only ones who use cooperation to create complex cultural constructs that dynamically evolve over time-- and we must be aware of the kind of culture that we create. I suggest that the myths- but especially the creation myths- of all world religions have this one central message encoded within them - as well as a kind of oral history of the world - and I have picked a few to share with you in this article, as well as their correlation to actual events in Humankind's prehistory.
In the Beginning
We know that Homo sapiens did not invent the first wood and stone tools. The first tools originated in remote moments as far back as two million years ago, most likely by our ancient ancestors Homo ergaster or Homo erectus. Toolmaking was taught to each successive generation (just as modern chimps have been observed doing) not just for survival, but often for convenience. We, like our chimp cousins and our ancient progenitors, seek to better our present circumstances through the invention and construction of handy tools.
One of the most fantastic inventions credited to the Human race is language. Although it turns out several other species on Earth use vocal signals and body language to convey meaning, Homo sapiens are thought to be the only ones who do this to relate highly complex ideas. There exists no definitive evidence supporting or refuting claims that language with a high level of abstraction were developed by any of our early relatives like Homo heidelbergensis. However it is likely, given their methods of hunting and shelter building, that both Homo heidelbergensis and our hominin cousins, Homo neanderthalensis, used fairly complex verbal language.
Emerging from hazy depths of prehistoric consciousness there is a wealth of information that was faithfully memorized and relayed from one generation to the next. Some ideas were merely mechanical, for instance, how to build simple shelters and tools of wood and stone, while others may have included highly abstracted stories of gods and men, the creation of the world and the meaning of life.
Over most of Human history, oral traditions have transmitted the bulk of our knowledge from generation to generation. Then, at some unknown moment in the past, Humans applied yet another innovation to the tool called language: writing. This has enabled us to communicate across vast distances of time and space and is often cited as the spark that created civilization as we know it.
In these oral traditions and writings, there are over five hundred creation myths across the world in which animals and/or mankind emerge from a watery abyss. Most insist that the world was completely covered in water until the first speck of dirt emerged from the surface, sometimes including an animal or spirit who either raises the mud from the waters, or causes the waters to retreat from the land.
While it may seem like an obvious recounting of scientific facts- to those of us who have studied geology and the theory of evolution- these ideas were not discovered by ancient peoples through scientific investigation. Some original source had experienced this "creation" and had relayed the idea to their offspring. But where and when did these ideas originate, if there was indeed some experiential basis?
Throughout the last few million years, Earth has been prone to consistent cycles of drastic natural climate changes- fluctuations of global average temperature of 5-7 degrees Celsius- which casts the Earth into periodic Ice Ages lasting over 80,000 years (temperature fluctuations at high latitudes are seen to be significantly wider; 7-12 degrees C). During this time, while much of the Earth's water is frozen in glaciers, sea levels are known to be over 390 feet lower than they are at present, extending coastlines outward miles and miles farther than they are today, suggesting that shorelines were right at the edge of the continental shelves.
We are taught in school about the Bering Land Bridge which connected Asia to North America during the last Ice Age- this is the theoretical route taken by the ancestors of the First Nations of North America as they migrated, over 15,000 years Before Present (BP). There are similar structures around the world which emerge from the water during these global Ice Ages, including land bridges that may have allowed the inhabitants of southern Asia to merely walk to some parts of what are now the island nations of Indonesia and Malaysia, or from mainland Europe to what is now called England.
That's not all. The amount of water trapped in polar glaciation of these Ice Ages is so extreme that the weight of the ice compresses the Earth. This causes the entire planet to bulge at the equator, pushing landmasses in the area higher and higher. Geologists claim that since the glaciers began melting at the beginning of the current Interglacial Period (called the Holocene Era, beginning about 20,000 years BP), land in the Northern Hemisphere has risen around 180 meters (600ft) and is continuing to rise today, while the "equatorial bulge" has decreased significantly.
Our planet is wildly changeable, and it's hard to imagine exactly what the landmasses looked like during the periods of heavy glaciation. Were the landmasses above sea level 20,000 years ago once inhabited? We may never know- given the difficulty of underwater archaeology- and that is what fascinates me the most. We'll come back to this.
Survivors of Global Cataclysm - The Scientific Observations
Looking deeper into our Human prehistory, we come across solid information indicating incredible hardships. Geneticists estimate that there was an event about 75,000 years BP that culled the Human race to less than 10,000 members (some researchers say as few as 2,000). This type of occurrence is known as a "bottleneck event"- in which we were left with genetic variations that are unusually narrow in scope. Most living species on Earth demonstrate much higher genetic variation within their populations than Homo sapiens. The prevailing theory is that it is because most of the Human population was killed off at that time.
The bottleneck event which occurred around 75,000 years BP was the eruption of the Mt. Toba supervolcano, located on the island that is now known as Sumatra, Indonesia. Geological evidence implies that the eruption of Mt. Toba was forty times larger than the largest eruption in recorded history. It is considered to be the second largest explosive eruption of the last 450 million years and the largest volcanic eruption of the last two million years.
The fact that Mt. Toba is known as a "supervolcano" is no hyperbole. The eruption site is called a caldera, not a crater, and is about 30km wide by 100km long. The caldera is now a large lake. The eruption was so gigantic, geologists think it exploded for several days and had an immediate impact on the climate of the entire world. Volcanic ash (pulverized rock) and a cocktail of gases containing sulfur dioxide mixed with water vapor to form massive clouds of sulfuric acid which coated the planet's atmosphere. Clouds of this type have the unfortunate effect of reflecting sunlight back into space and researchers think that this eruption produced acid rains which destroyed a large part of flora and fauna all over the world. Perhaps hardest hit was the area within two or three thousand miles to the west of the eruption: central and southern Asia, the Middle East, eastern Africa, and the subcontinent of India, whose Human population may have dropped to less than six hundred (this estimate is based on interpretation of genetic information). Archaeological evidence suggests that a large population of archaic Humans and other hominins inhabited a region spanning from northern Europe to China. This population appeared to dwindle abruptly following the Mt. Toba eruption.
Paleontologists and geneticists say several other large mammal species experienced specific effects and extinctions due to this eruption: Cheetahs, Bornean Orangutans, East African Chimpanzees, Central Indian Macaques, and the Tiger all recovered from extremely low populations following this event. Also following this cataclysm we find the separation of the gene pools of the Eastern and Western Gorilla, who were virtually indistinguishable prior to this time.
Estimations of the disaster include many conflicting details, but most agree that Mt. Toba caused a "volcanic winter" that lasted for six continuous years and caused global average temperatures to drop several degrees Celsius, for perhaps hundreds or thousands of years.
It was soon after the time of the Mt. Toba eruption, that despite the cold of northern climes, groups of Humans began a massive exodus from Africa- probably to escape the horrifically toxic environmental consequences of this incredible eruption. They did not know equatorial Africa was probably the least affected place at the time, neither did they know that they were heading toward an environment that had led to the elimination (or near extinction) of every other population of hominins.
Apart from the harsh environment produced by Mt. Toba, the world was already experiencing the onset of a new global Ice Age (the bulk of the last few million years has been one Ice Age after another, separated by brief warm spells known as Interglacial Periods). This was to be the next disaster for Humankind and other hominids. During the most recent Ice Age, Neanderthal man met their extinction and the last remaining archaic Homo sapiens became the emerging population of truly anatomically-modern Homo sapiens.
After scores of thousands of years of migrations and adaptations- frequently to very cold climates- Humans faced another ecological disaster: Global Warming. Around 20,000 years BP, the Earth began to rapidly heat, with global average temperatures rising 5-7 degrees C, culminating in the current Interglacial Period. During this time, the environment and the landscape changed drastically all over the world.
Melting glaciers created new rivers and lakes, while causing flooding that lasted for hundreds if not thousands of years at a time. Sea levels at this time rose over 120 meters (~393ft), pushing coastlines back for miles and wiping out land bridges and any possible coastal settlements. This did not happen during one episode or in one place, but repeatedly and in many locations over thousands of years. Dramatic effects would have been witnessed many, many times over all across the world. This is, I believe, the reason there are so many flood myths in traditional creation stories. Our ancestors actually lived through these catastrophic events.
Seventy-five percent of the overall rise occurred in only 5,500 years (between 14,500-9,000yrs. BP). Even in the last 8,000 years- very recently- there were incredible variations of sea level. The following graph shows Western Pacific Sea level changes over the last 22,000 years BP. The present day is located on the left side. We can see that there were several sudden increases of sea level, with several periods of apparent stability.
Many studies containing sea level change graphs and charts from across the globe all have very similar data, including floods of more than 20m (~65ft) at a time. Almost all show sea levels rising 120m (~393ft) or more in the last 20,000 years.
We can actually see from this diagram, that there was an initial rising of sea level- the exact amount not shown- which was higher than the present day shoreline. If we go back to the graph showing sea levels for the past 140,000 years, it seems that at some point around 8,000-6,000 years ago, sea levels were as much as 10m (~32ft) higher than they are today, but then retreated.
The Biblical flood of Noah may correlate to this most recent rise and drop in sea level beginning around 7,500 years ago and the data suggests that compared to most of the previous rises in sea level, it was a relatively minor flood. The timing of this event is probably what made it so historically significant, as anthropologists think this was not long after Human settlements became highly dependent on agriculture. Even relatively minor periodic floods would have utterly destroyed almost the entire food supply of the rapidly expanding population.
After the toxic effects of the Mt. Toba eruption were absorbed by nature, Humankind would have had 20,000-30,000 years to establish new settlements and civilizations before the termination of the last Ice Age and would have been concentrated in places where life was easier. Most of the largest Human migrations are thought to have occurred at this time.
During the latter stages of the most recent Ice Age, lower sea levels and colder temperatures in northern latitudes would have placed most of Humankind's settlements closer to the equator and/or mostly concentrated in little pockets near the ocean or riverbanks where food was plentiful and the climate was mild. I think those who were engaged in exploration of northern latitudes would likely have been "survivalists" and small bands of explorers or nomadic tribes.
When the Ice Age finally ended and the globe began to rapidly heat up, the glaciers melted at an extremely high rate. As this happened, the weight on the poles decreased and the planet actually changed shape fairly rapidly. There would have been major earthquakes and disappearing landmasses- due to rising seas, and also due to the "Geoid Collapse," in which some equatorial land "sunk" into the ocean. For one example, the land bridge from southern Asia through the present-day countries of Indonesia and Malaysia then became a series of islands.
The increased heat of the air would have allowed for immense amounts of moisture to be collected, resulting in seasonal rains and regular deluges where there had previously been very dry conditions. Entire regions of the Earth would undergo a complete transformation as the global average temperature rose almost 6 degrees C in less than 5,000 years.
The survivalists and nomadic tribes along the northern latitudes and highlands would have been among the most advantaged of the Human population at this time- as their environment was becoming milder and they were beginning to experience short "seasons" of warmer temperatures during the summer months. However, as the thaw progressed, these wayfarers in the north and the highlands would have been subjected to more and more extreme climatic shifts- extreme rainstorms, flooding, intermittent earthquakes, and disappearing sea ice.
The survivors of these catastrophic events may have a vivid memory of the period of flooding and the process of change, but not the stable glacial landscape that existed before. Taking this view, stories of the world being created out of a watery abyss are entirely consistent with the scientific account.
We must face the possibility that some of the more advanced/most densely populated ancient Human settlements from this prehistoric period have been washed away by these rising tides and are now under more than 120m (~393ft) of ocean water, miles away from present-day shorelines and buried under thousands of years of sand and sediment.
Survivors of Global Cataclysm - Ancient Oral Records and Scripture
Between 11,000-11,500 years BP, sea levels rose about 30 meters (~100 feet). Curiously, this corresponds to exactly the time when, according to Plato's version of the story, "Atlantis" is said to have disappeared into the sea. The story of Atlantis, in extremely broad strokes, goes like this:
About 9,000 years before Plato, there stood an extremely advanced civilization, on an island (or series of islands), that had mastered all forms of magic/technology. But they had become careless and rather conceited in their superiority.
In some versions of the story, their hubris angers the gods and they are destroyed. In other versions, their great power grows beyond their control; the people grow ignorant of their magic/technology's true nature and they destroy themselves by inadvertently setting into motion a virtual self-destruct sequence. In either case, it is said that due to their unacceptable behavior this paradise and pinnacle of civilization was swallowed by the sea, never to be seen again.
This follows a fairly long list of references from Classical Antiquity to an earlier Golden Age, in which there existed a perfect Utopia. Plato and many of his contemporaries considered themselves vastly inferior to this previous civilization- no more than a shadow of its former glory.
It is likely that places like Atlantis are at least in some part based on fact- there would have been many settlements that were swallowed by the sea by rising tides or had sunk due to earthquakes. In terms of the idealized memory of these places- for now, let's just say that there is a basic Human need to put a positive spin on people and places that are gone forever.
Many cultures have stories that do not recount the beginning as a flood at all, but as a lush paradise where food grew everywhere and life was incredibly easy. Human beings had been simply deposited in this "Heaven on Earth" by the gods. The cuneiform engravings of ancient Babylon, thought to be the some of the oldest writings in the world, tell a story of creation that is very similar to the one found in the pages of Genesis in the Judeo-Christian texts:
At some point, man commits some unforgivable sin and the gods/God expels man from this paradise into a cold, harsh world where the land is barren and mankind is required, for the first time, to work for their foods by farming and hunting.
This sounds a lot like the conditions surrounding the time of the Mt. Toba eruption. In Africa, the soil- indeed the very air itself- had been poisoned,
which is most likely why people left in the migrations described by
geneticists and archaeologists. Food would have been difficult to find no matter where Humans went. On top of the six-year volcanic winter caused by Mt. Toba's eruption, the most recent Ice Age had begun. After leaving Africa through
passages to the north, Humans required much more clothing- portable, personal
shelters from the cold.
When Humankind was "expelled" from the paradise we know as the Garden of Eden, the world was indeed more harsh. Everywhere they went it was harder than the "paradise" they had recounted in oral histories. This could be why the people kept going-- they were trying to get back to this idyllic "Garden" which existed in their social memory- and no place had yet measured up.
The cultures which preserve the story of an "Antediluvian" (before the flood) origin of Humankind report that the civilization before the flood was a thriving, vibrant civilization with a high standard of living. The story of the Tower of Babel, which appears in Hebrew, Assyrian, Babylonian and Sumerian texts, depicts an antediluvian civilization whose amazing achievements make the gods either nervous or jealous.
Unfortunately, as the story typically goes, the antediluvian culture had become "wicked" and was ultimately purged by the gods through the experience of a cataclysmic flood-- this story can also be found in The Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Babylon (found to be based upon stories from the previous civilization of Sumer).
There are few cultures which have stories that are thought to be older than these texts of the ancient Tigris and Euphrates River valley. The creation stories of the Hopi of Arizona, the Vedic texts of ancient India, and traditional Tibetan legends of creation claim to be the oldest creation stories on Earth and share some fantastic correlations.
In these cultures, Humanity has risen -several times- to great heights only to be "humbled" through periodic/cyclic cataclysms. The Hopi legends describe these ages as "Worlds," and state that we have witnessed the destruction of three previous worlds- and are now in the Fourth World. According to The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters (based on oral histories told to him by Hopi Elders in the 1960s), the story goes something like this:
Tokpela, the First World, was created by the gods and people lived in a rich and vibrant culture which understood "the nature of man himself," (The first chapter of this book goes on to describe what sounds almost identical to the Far-Eastern concept of chakras or energy points in the body)- these people experienced no sickness and lived in a virtual paradise... but there were those "of Two Hearts" which allowed evil to exist within them. Gradually, they forgot their connection to the gods, "and used the vibratory centers of their bodies for solely earthly purposes, forgetting that their primary purpose was to carry out the plan of Creation..."
After this, animals became frightened of Humans and the people split up and became different from each other (different races were created). Soon after, the "chosen people" from all over the world (those who had not forgotten their true nature or who had not lost their "inner wisdom") were led to a place where they would be safe, and the First World- with all its "wicked" inhabitants- was destroyed.
An interesting side-note here, which is very important to the Hopi story, is that these "chosen people" went to live underground with the Ant People, who were nearly the size of Humans at the time. They are seen as a model for Humanity, in their industriousness and their example of order and peace within society. It is said that "they obey the plan of Creation."
While the chosen people were underground, the gods destroyed the First World (whose leaders had been known as the Fire Clan), with fire.
The trouble in the Second World, Tokpa, began when people began to barter and trade with one another, instead of simply farming and storing food like the Ant People had taught them. As these people of the Second World grew to have more and more, their hunger for the easy life grew as well. They then began to war with one another and only a few good people sang the praises of the gods.
The gods saved the good people by sequestering them underground with the Ant People, while they destroyed the world yet again-- this time, with ice.
The Third World is the most fascinating to me because in this world, the people made pátuwvota (a shield made of hide) "...and with their creative power made it fly through the air." These became aircraft which were used to mount surprise attacks on competing cities (this bears an incredible similarity to stories from the Vedas of ancient India in which the gods fly around in Vimana -flying temples- and battle each other mid-air). The people all over the Hopi's Third World were soon waging war with each other in this way, and it led to the gods' destruction of that world- this time, by water.
This story gets more and more interesting, as the "chosen people" are instructed by the gods on how to build boats and travel across the seas. They find many islands along the way which look perfect, but are told by the gods that life was too easy there and they would quickly fall back into wickedness. They float along until they come to a land where they are to eventually settle-- North America, the Fourth World (Túwaqachi). They then travel by foot in every direction and explore the boundaries of their new world. The gods tell them not to venture through the "Back Door" which is sometimes called the "White Way" in the north (aka The Bering Land Bridge). This method of overseas travel would have allowed the Hopi to leave Asia
later than people crossing over the Arctic, but to arrive in the lower latitudes of the
Americas much earlier.
The story notes that many people arrive through the "Back Door," including the Navajo, who the Hopi take in and teach. When the Navajo arrive, they at first refuse to eat food cooked in pots, insisting on eating food cooked over open flame instead. They are described as unkempt, wearing rough animal skins and having a more or less haggard look which you would expect of people who had just wandered across an Arctic wasteland (my apologies to any Navajo reading this who object to this particular depiction-- I'm just repeating the "official" Hopi story).
The Hopi see themselves as the original inhabitants of North and South America and claim that every civilization in the Fourth World is an offshoot of their own. The newcomers from the "Back Door" merely have joined them.
I highly recommend reading The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters. The Hopi have a very interesting outlook on life and civilization, and claim to have taken residence on the Three Mesas in northern Arizona specifically because it is not an easy place to live. In their view, it is an easy and convenient life which leads to wickedness and the degeneration of culture. While people are struggling and life is hard, they have no time to become wicked.
The Hopi story is significant not only in scope, but in the description of the double-edged sword of Human culture and civilization. It has the power to save us, to sustain us and to elevate us to great advancements. It even can make our lives luxurious, wherein lies the second edge of the blade; we forget our connection to the Earth and we become lazy, greedy and individualistic when our lives are too easy.
I found this particular creation story interesting because of the three times the world has been destroyed- first by Fire, second by Ice and third by Water. It does seem to have an incredible amount in common with some scientific data. As far as oral histories go, this one is very extensive and has relevance to the scientific model of actual events in paleoclimatology.
Imagine that a population living near enough to Mt. Toba to witness such an event- destruction of the world by fire- had fled toward the east after taking shelter, perhaps in caves (or maybe the destruction of the First World is actually the story of the previous Interglacial Period over 100,000 years ago!). Over time, they would have migrated far toward eastern or northern Asia and experienced a long Ice Age. At the onset of the current Interglacial Period, long after the people had learned to adapt to the cold, the world began to thaw and their homeland sunk beneath the sea, forcing them to travel by boat until reaching the Fourth World.
If we examine the correlation between Tibetan, Indian and Hopi creation stories, it pushes their origin a bit further back in history than most anthropologists are willing to consider. The relationship between Tibet and India is direct and fairly recent, as they both have linguistic connections to ancient Sanskrit. But if the Hopi story of cyclic creation and destruction comes from the same source as these Asian cultures, we are forced to believe that the story originated more than 15,000 years ago, around or before the time that the first Hopi ancestors crossed from Asia to the Americas.
When we turn our attention back to the Middle East, which we consider the "Cradle of Civilization," we find that some of the earliest civilizations seemed to have emerged pretty much complete. Sumer, considered by anthropologists and archaeologists to be one of the first "true" civilizations, appeared almost overnight with fully formed writing systems, law, doctors, religion, astronomy, highly advanced mathematics and architecture, markets, and money.
According to writings found in the ancient cities of Sumer, the Annunaki (a group of godlike creatures upon which it is likely the Greco-Roman pantheon was based) actually were responsible for instructing the Sumerians on how to build the social aspects and physical monuments of their civilization. The Sumerians were contemporaries with ancient Egyptians, who also displayed a sudden emergence of high culture.
Some of the most fantastic structures ever built were thought to be made at this time, during the "earliest" moments of our civilization- Such as the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Is it possible that some of these ancient stories are correct-- that we have achieved great levels of advancement in the past, only to have them washed away by rising seas or other cataclysms? Were these early civilizations built upon the memory and knowledge of previous civilizations which have been forever lost to us? Did these early civilizations immediately build megalithic structures of advanced geometry specifically because they were likely to withstand floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters-- not as monuments to their own kings or cultures, but as a message to the people of the future?
If so, what does that mean to us here and now?
A Culture of Interdependence
Regardless of the specific level of advancement of the previous Human populations, it is important to note that what actually helped us to survive these periodic cataclysms (other than intervention of the gods) was our ability to adapt and to cooperate. Our greatest invention- a tool called language, allows us to convey highly abstracted ideas and attach meaning through the use of symbols. It is certain that we have used these meanings and symbols to make alliances and create a Culture of Interdependence.
In the modern era, we have extended our interdependence far beyond what is reasonable. It is simultaneously our greatest strength and our most crippling weakness. Entire regions of the world are now completely dependent upon each other to provide food or natural resources which sustain our way of life.
Non-industrialized (often referred to as "underdeveloped") nations often depend on industrial nations for food (from industrialized farming), technology and/or financial support, and they trade fuel, cash crops or other raw material resources in exchange for these. The central hub of the interdependence between the non-industrialized and industrialized nations is the global transportation network, which depends on the availability of cheap energy resources.
The modern lifestyle enjoyed by the industrialized world revolves entirely around the constant generation and distribution of electricity. It shuts down completely given any interruption of incoming resources- most cities have only a few days to a week's supply of food & drink or fuel on hand for their incumbent populations.
Most inhabitants of the industrialized world are highly specialized, either in terms of urban survival (street smarts) or in highly advanced and very narrow fields-- few individuals seem to have even a rudimentary concept of how to construct or configure any of the component parts of our modern systems, and even fewer still are adept at survival in the raw wilderness of the natural world, even under "normal" circumstances. Could we survive another global cataclysm? If so, how?
It seems the instructions for survival and for our success in the aftermath are recorded in the myths and legends of the ancient disasters- strict adherence to our spiritual codes. These do not require an allegiance to an ancient belief system. Rather, each culture which presents these myths of creation and destruction notes a similar structure of a sociological nature.
Within advanced civilizations, a polarization occurs: life becomes very easy for some but more difficult for others, who must now navigate a much more complex social structure which is increasingly more exclusive as each member's role becomes more specialized. This social stratification is also responsible for removing a number of social members from directly interacting with the Earth for survival.
The individuals on both sides of this polarization turn to a similar tactic- the advantaged become more lazy, self-centered and greedy, taking advantage of others for material gain and convenience, as the disadvantaged of the society are forced to work harder, becoming more self-focused and individualistic as a function of personal survival in an increasingly hostile and competitive environment.
While Humans are not the only species that uses cooperation as a survival mechanism, we are the only ones who use cooperation to create complex cultural constructs that dynamically evolve over time-- and we must be aware of the kind of culture that we create. I suggest that the myths- but especially the creation myths- of all world religions have this one central message encoded within them - as well as a kind of oral history of the world - and I have picked a few to share with you in this article, as well as their correlation to actual events in Humankind's prehistory.
In the Beginning
We know that Homo sapiens did not invent the first wood and stone tools. The first tools originated in remote moments as far back as two million years ago, most likely by our ancient ancestors Homo ergaster or Homo erectus. Toolmaking was taught to each successive generation (just as modern chimps have been observed doing) not just for survival, but often for convenience. We, like our chimp cousins and our ancient progenitors, seek to better our present circumstances through the invention and construction of handy tools.
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| Homo erectus used tools, but it's unclear what their language capabilities were like. |
Emerging from hazy depths of prehistoric consciousness there is a wealth of information that was faithfully memorized and relayed from one generation to the next. Some ideas were merely mechanical, for instance, how to build simple shelters and tools of wood and stone, while others may have included highly abstracted stories of gods and men, the creation of the world and the meaning of life.
Over most of Human history, oral traditions have transmitted the bulk of our knowledge from generation to generation. Then, at some unknown moment in the past, Humans applied yet another innovation to the tool called language: writing. This has enabled us to communicate across vast distances of time and space and is often cited as the spark that created civilization as we know it.
In these oral traditions and writings, there are over five hundred creation myths across the world in which animals and/or mankind emerge from a watery abyss. Most insist that the world was completely covered in water until the first speck of dirt emerged from the surface, sometimes including an animal or spirit who either raises the mud from the waters, or causes the waters to retreat from the land.
While it may seem like an obvious recounting of scientific facts- to those of us who have studied geology and the theory of evolution- these ideas were not discovered by ancient peoples through scientific investigation. Some original source had experienced this "creation" and had relayed the idea to their offspring. But where and when did these ideas originate, if there was indeed some experiential basis?
Throughout the last few million years, Earth has been prone to consistent cycles of drastic natural climate changes- fluctuations of global average temperature of 5-7 degrees Celsius- which casts the Earth into periodic Ice Ages lasting over 80,000 years (temperature fluctuations at high latitudes are seen to be significantly wider; 7-12 degrees C). During this time, while much of the Earth's water is frozen in glaciers, sea levels are known to be over 390 feet lower than they are at present, extending coastlines outward miles and miles farther than they are today, suggesting that shorelines were right at the edge of the continental shelves.
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| This graph shows sea levels changes in the last 140,000 years |
That's not all. The amount of water trapped in polar glaciation of these Ice Ages is so extreme that the weight of the ice compresses the Earth. This causes the entire planet to bulge at the equator, pushing landmasses in the area higher and higher. Geologists claim that since the glaciers began melting at the beginning of the current Interglacial Period (called the Holocene Era, beginning about 20,000 years BP), land in the Northern Hemisphere has risen around 180 meters (600ft) and is continuing to rise today, while the "equatorial bulge" has decreased significantly.
Our planet is wildly changeable, and it's hard to imagine exactly what the landmasses looked like during the periods of heavy glaciation. Were the landmasses above sea level 20,000 years ago once inhabited? We may never know- given the difficulty of underwater archaeology- and that is what fascinates me the most. We'll come back to this.
Survivors of Global Cataclysm - The Scientific Observations
Looking deeper into our Human prehistory, we come across solid information indicating incredible hardships. Geneticists estimate that there was an event about 75,000 years BP that culled the Human race to less than 10,000 members (some researchers say as few as 2,000). This type of occurrence is known as a "bottleneck event"- in which we were left with genetic variations that are unusually narrow in scope. Most living species on Earth demonstrate much higher genetic variation within their populations than Homo sapiens. The prevailing theory is that it is because most of the Human population was killed off at that time.
The bottleneck event which occurred around 75,000 years BP was the eruption of the Mt. Toba supervolcano, located on the island that is now known as Sumatra, Indonesia. Geological evidence implies that the eruption of Mt. Toba was forty times larger than the largest eruption in recorded history. It is considered to be the second largest explosive eruption of the last 450 million years and the largest volcanic eruption of the last two million years.
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| Lake Toba, Sumatra, Indonesia |
The fact that Mt. Toba is known as a "supervolcano" is no hyperbole. The eruption site is called a caldera, not a crater, and is about 30km wide by 100km long. The caldera is now a large lake. The eruption was so gigantic, geologists think it exploded for several days and had an immediate impact on the climate of the entire world. Volcanic ash (pulverized rock) and a cocktail of gases containing sulfur dioxide mixed with water vapor to form massive clouds of sulfuric acid which coated the planet's atmosphere. Clouds of this type have the unfortunate effect of reflecting sunlight back into space and researchers think that this eruption produced acid rains which destroyed a large part of flora and fauna all over the world. Perhaps hardest hit was the area within two or three thousand miles to the west of the eruption: central and southern Asia, the Middle East, eastern Africa, and the subcontinent of India, whose Human population may have dropped to less than six hundred (this estimate is based on interpretation of genetic information). Archaeological evidence suggests that a large population of archaic Humans and other hominins inhabited a region spanning from northern Europe to China. This population appeared to dwindle abruptly following the Mt. Toba eruption.
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| Imagine a world without the Bornean Orangutan... (No... no, that's too sad) |
Estimations of the disaster include many conflicting details, but most agree that Mt. Toba caused a "volcanic winter" that lasted for six continuous years and caused global average temperatures to drop several degrees Celsius, for perhaps hundreds or thousands of years.
Apart from the harsh environment produced by Mt. Toba, the world was already experiencing the onset of a new global Ice Age (the bulk of the last few million years has been one Ice Age after another, separated by brief warm spells known as Interglacial Periods). This was to be the next disaster for Humankind and other hominids. During the most recent Ice Age, Neanderthal man met their extinction and the last remaining archaic Homo sapiens became the emerging population of truly anatomically-modern Homo sapiens.
After scores of thousands of years of migrations and adaptations- frequently to very cold climates- Humans faced another ecological disaster: Global Warming. Around 20,000 years BP, the Earth began to rapidly heat, with global average temperatures rising 5-7 degrees C, culminating in the current Interglacial Period. During this time, the environment and the landscape changed drastically all over the world.
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| Modern glacial melt in Greenland |
Seventy-five percent of the overall rise occurred in only 5,500 years (between 14,500-9,000yrs. BP). Even in the last 8,000 years- very recently- there were incredible variations of sea level. The following graph shows Western Pacific Sea level changes over the last 22,000 years BP. The present day is located on the left side. We can see that there were several sudden increases of sea level, with several periods of apparent stability.
Many studies containing sea level change graphs and charts from across the globe all have very similar data, including floods of more than 20m (~65ft) at a time. Almost all show sea levels rising 120m (~393ft) or more in the last 20,000 years.
We can actually see from this diagram, that there was an initial rising of sea level- the exact amount not shown- which was higher than the present day shoreline. If we go back to the graph showing sea levels for the past 140,000 years, it seems that at some point around 8,000-6,000 years ago, sea levels were as much as 10m (~32ft) higher than they are today, but then retreated.
The Biblical flood of Noah may correlate to this most recent rise and drop in sea level beginning around 7,500 years ago and the data suggests that compared to most of the previous rises in sea level, it was a relatively minor flood. The timing of this event is probably what made it so historically significant, as anthropologists think this was not long after Human settlements became highly dependent on agriculture. Even relatively minor periodic floods would have utterly destroyed almost the entire food supply of the rapidly expanding population.
Interpretation
After the toxic effects of the Mt. Toba eruption were absorbed by nature, Humankind would have had 20,000-30,000 years to establish new settlements and civilizations before the termination of the last Ice Age and would have been concentrated in places where life was easier. Most of the largest Human migrations are thought to have occurred at this time.
During the latter stages of the most recent Ice Age, lower sea levels and colder temperatures in northern latitudes would have placed most of Humankind's settlements closer to the equator and/or mostly concentrated in little pockets near the ocean or riverbanks where food was plentiful and the climate was mild. I think those who were engaged in exploration of northern latitudes would likely have been "survivalists" and small bands of explorers or nomadic tribes.
When the Ice Age finally ended and the globe began to rapidly heat up, the glaciers melted at an extremely high rate. As this happened, the weight on the poles decreased and the planet actually changed shape fairly rapidly. There would have been major earthquakes and disappearing landmasses- due to rising seas, and also due to the "Geoid Collapse," in which some equatorial land "sunk" into the ocean. For one example, the land bridge from southern Asia through the present-day countries of Indonesia and Malaysia then became a series of islands.
The increased heat of the air would have allowed for immense amounts of moisture to be collected, resulting in seasonal rains and regular deluges where there had previously been very dry conditions. Entire regions of the Earth would undergo a complete transformation as the global average temperature rose almost 6 degrees C in less than 5,000 years.
The survivalists and nomadic tribes along the northern latitudes and highlands would have been among the most advantaged of the Human population at this time- as their environment was becoming milder and they were beginning to experience short "seasons" of warmer temperatures during the summer months. However, as the thaw progressed, these wayfarers in the north and the highlands would have been subjected to more and more extreme climatic shifts- extreme rainstorms, flooding, intermittent earthquakes, and disappearing sea ice.
The survivors of these catastrophic events may have a vivid memory of the period of flooding and the process of change, but not the stable glacial landscape that existed before. Taking this view, stories of the world being created out of a watery abyss are entirely consistent with the scientific account.
We must face the possibility that some of the more advanced/most densely populated ancient Human settlements from this prehistoric period have been washed away by these rising tides and are now under more than 120m (~393ft) of ocean water, miles away from present-day shorelines and buried under thousands of years of sand and sediment.
Survivors of Global Cataclysm - Ancient Oral Records and Scripture
Between 11,000-11,500 years BP, sea levels rose about 30 meters (~100 feet). Curiously, this corresponds to exactly the time when, according to Plato's version of the story, "Atlantis" is said to have disappeared into the sea. The story of Atlantis, in extremely broad strokes, goes like this:
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| A very Hellenic depiction of Atlantis |
In some versions of the story, their hubris angers the gods and they are destroyed. In other versions, their great power grows beyond their control; the people grow ignorant of their magic/technology's true nature and they destroy themselves by inadvertently setting into motion a virtual self-destruct sequence. In either case, it is said that due to their unacceptable behavior this paradise and pinnacle of civilization was swallowed by the sea, never to be seen again.
This follows a fairly long list of references from Classical Antiquity to an earlier Golden Age, in which there existed a perfect Utopia. Plato and many of his contemporaries considered themselves vastly inferior to this previous civilization- no more than a shadow of its former glory.
It is likely that places like Atlantis are at least in some part based on fact- there would have been many settlements that were swallowed by the sea by rising tides or had sunk due to earthquakes. In terms of the idealized memory of these places- for now, let's just say that there is a basic Human need to put a positive spin on people and places that are gone forever.
Many cultures have stories that do not recount the beginning as a flood at all, but as a lush paradise where food grew everywhere and life was incredibly easy. Human beings had been simply deposited in this "Heaven on Earth" by the gods. The cuneiform engravings of ancient Babylon, thought to be the some of the oldest writings in the world, tell a story of creation that is very similar to the one found in the pages of Genesis in the Judeo-Christian texts:
At some point, man commits some unforgivable sin and the gods/God expels man from this paradise into a cold, harsh world where the land is barren and mankind is required, for the first time, to work for their foods by farming and hunting.
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| The first Humans were cast out of Paradise |
When Humankind was "expelled" from the paradise we know as the Garden of Eden, the world was indeed more harsh. Everywhere they went it was harder than the "paradise" they had recounted in oral histories. This could be why the people kept going-- they were trying to get back to this idyllic "Garden" which existed in their social memory- and no place had yet measured up.
The cultures which preserve the story of an "Antediluvian" (before the flood) origin of Humankind report that the civilization before the flood was a thriving, vibrant civilization with a high standard of living. The story of the Tower of Babel, which appears in Hebrew, Assyrian, Babylonian and Sumerian texts, depicts an antediluvian civilization whose amazing achievements make the gods either nervous or jealous.
Unfortunately, as the story typically goes, the antediluvian culture had become "wicked" and was ultimately purged by the gods through the experience of a cataclysmic flood-- this story can also be found in The Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Babylon (found to be based upon stories from the previous civilization of Sumer).
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| An original copy of The Epic of Gilgamesh |
Mostly, the stories of antediluvian cultures in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region are short and vague- although it seems that Plato's account of Atlantis (if taken literally and not allegorically) represents the oral history of an antediluvian culture that had been omitted from most of the written accounts for some reason, or perhaps was just a creative Greco-Roman revision of these earlier Mesopotamian texts.
There are few cultures which have stories that are thought to be older than these texts of the ancient Tigris and Euphrates River valley. The creation stories of the Hopi of Arizona, the Vedic texts of ancient India, and traditional Tibetan legends of creation claim to be the oldest creation stories on Earth and share some fantastic correlations.
In these cultures, Humanity has risen -several times- to great heights only to be "humbled" through periodic/cyclic cataclysms. The Hopi legends describe these ages as "Worlds," and state that we have witnessed the destruction of three previous worlds- and are now in the Fourth World. According to The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters (based on oral histories told to him by Hopi Elders in the 1960s), the story goes something like this:
Tokpela, the First World, was created by the gods and people lived in a rich and vibrant culture which understood "the nature of man himself," (The first chapter of this book goes on to describe what sounds almost identical to the Far-Eastern concept of chakras or energy points in the body)- these people experienced no sickness and lived in a virtual paradise... but there were those "of Two Hearts" which allowed evil to exist within them. Gradually, they forgot their connection to the gods, "and used the vibratory centers of their bodies for solely earthly purposes, forgetting that their primary purpose was to carry out the plan of Creation..."
After this, animals became frightened of Humans and the people split up and became different from each other (different races were created). Soon after, the "chosen people" from all over the world (those who had not forgotten their true nature or who had not lost their "inner wisdom") were led to a place where they would be safe, and the First World- with all its "wicked" inhabitants- was destroyed.
An interesting side-note here, which is very important to the Hopi story, is that these "chosen people" went to live underground with the Ant People, who were nearly the size of Humans at the time. They are seen as a model for Humanity, in their industriousness and their example of order and peace within society. It is said that "they obey the plan of Creation."
While the chosen people were underground, the gods destroyed the First World (whose leaders had been known as the Fire Clan), with fire.
"Sótuknang... rained fire down upon it. He opened up the volcanoes. Fire came from above and below and all around until the earth, the waters, the air, all was one element, fire, and there was nothing left except the people safe inside the womb of the earth. This was the end of Tokapela, the First World." (Waters, pp 14)
The creation myth goes on to tell that their coexistence within the world of the Ant People was so long, and the Ant People so generous- that by the charity of the Ant People, Humans survived even as the Ant People deprived themselves of nourishment- which is why ants today are so small around the waist.
The trouble in the Second World, Tokpa, began when people began to barter and trade with one another, instead of simply farming and storing food like the Ant People had taught them. As these people of the Second World grew to have more and more, their hunger for the easy life grew as well. They then began to war with one another and only a few good people sang the praises of the gods.
The gods saved the good people by sequestering them underground with the Ant People, while they destroyed the world yet again-- this time, with ice.
"[They] had hardly abandoned their stations when the world, with no one to control it, teetered off balance, spun around crazily, then rolled over twice. Mountains plunged into the seas with a great splash, seas and lakes sloshed over the land; and as the world spun through cold and lifeless space it froze into solid ice. This was the end of Tokpa, the Second World." (Waters, pp 16)
The gods kept this world frozen for many years, while Humankind was again cared for by the Ant People. The gods then prepared the Third World. In this new world, Humans were very prosperous and made a great civilization. However, the greatness of the civilization was again rivaled by the wickedness of its people.
The Third World is the most fascinating to me because in this world, the people made pátuwvota (a shield made of hide) "...and with their creative power made it fly through the air." These became aircraft which were used to mount surprise attacks on competing cities (this bears an incredible similarity to stories from the Vedas of ancient India in which the gods fly around in Vimana -flying temples- and battle each other mid-air). The people all over the Hopi's Third World were soon waging war with each other in this way, and it led to the gods' destruction of that world- this time, by water.
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| "Dammit, Joe! We missed the boat. Why, oh, why did we stop for Starbucks?" |
The story notes that many people arrive through the "Back Door," including the Navajo, who the Hopi take in and teach. When the Navajo arrive, they at first refuse to eat food cooked in pots, insisting on eating food cooked over open flame instead. They are described as unkempt, wearing rough animal skins and having a more or less haggard look which you would expect of people who had just wandered across an Arctic wasteland (my apologies to any Navajo reading this who object to this particular depiction-- I'm just repeating the "official" Hopi story).
The Hopi see themselves as the original inhabitants of North and South America and claim that every civilization in the Fourth World is an offshoot of their own. The newcomers from the "Back Door" merely have joined them.
I highly recommend reading The Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters. The Hopi have a very interesting outlook on life and civilization, and claim to have taken residence on the Three Mesas in northern Arizona specifically because it is not an easy place to live. In their view, it is an easy and convenient life which leads to wickedness and the degeneration of culture. While people are struggling and life is hard, they have no time to become wicked.
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| "Hopi Mesa" - Photo by Adam Clark Vroman, ca. 1897 |
The Hopi story is significant not only in scope, but in the description of the double-edged sword of Human culture and civilization. It has the power to save us, to sustain us and to elevate us to great advancements. It even can make our lives luxurious, wherein lies the second edge of the blade; we forget our connection to the Earth and we become lazy, greedy and individualistic when our lives are too easy.
I found this particular creation story interesting because of the three times the world has been destroyed- first by Fire, second by Ice and third by Water. It does seem to have an incredible amount in common with some scientific data. As far as oral histories go, this one is very extensive and has relevance to the scientific model of actual events in paleoclimatology.
Imagine that a population living near enough to Mt. Toba to witness such an event- destruction of the world by fire- had fled toward the east after taking shelter, perhaps in caves (or maybe the destruction of the First World is actually the story of the previous Interglacial Period over 100,000 years ago!). Over time, they would have migrated far toward eastern or northern Asia and experienced a long Ice Age. At the onset of the current Interglacial Period, long after the people had learned to adapt to the cold, the world began to thaw and their homeland sunk beneath the sea, forcing them to travel by boat until reaching the Fourth World.
If we examine the correlation between Tibetan, Indian and Hopi creation stories, it pushes their origin a bit further back in history than most anthropologists are willing to consider. The relationship between Tibet and India is direct and fairly recent, as they both have linguistic connections to ancient Sanskrit. But if the Hopi story of cyclic creation and destruction comes from the same source as these Asian cultures, we are forced to believe that the story originated more than 15,000 years ago, around or before the time that the first Hopi ancestors crossed from Asia to the Americas.
When we turn our attention back to the Middle East, which we consider the "Cradle of Civilization," we find that some of the earliest civilizations seemed to have emerged pretty much complete. Sumer, considered by anthropologists and archaeologists to be one of the first "true" civilizations, appeared almost overnight with fully formed writing systems, law, doctors, religion, astronomy, highly advanced mathematics and architecture, markets, and money.
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| Annunaki, the Sumerian mythological figures (Only some of them had bird-heads, FYI) |
According to writings found in the ancient cities of Sumer, the Annunaki (a group of godlike creatures upon which it is likely the Greco-Roman pantheon was based) actually were responsible for instructing the Sumerians on how to build the social aspects and physical monuments of their civilization. The Sumerians were contemporaries with ancient Egyptians, who also displayed a sudden emergence of high culture.
Some of the most fantastic structures ever built were thought to be made at this time, during the "earliest" moments of our civilization- Such as the Great Pyramid of Giza.
Is it possible that some of these ancient stories are correct-- that we have achieved great levels of advancement in the past, only to have them washed away by rising seas or other cataclysms? Were these early civilizations built upon the memory and knowledge of previous civilizations which have been forever lost to us? Did these early civilizations immediately build megalithic structures of advanced geometry specifically because they were likely to withstand floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters-- not as monuments to their own kings or cultures, but as a message to the people of the future?
If so, what does that mean to us here and now?
A Culture of Interdependence
Regardless of the specific level of advancement of the previous Human populations, it is important to note that what actually helped us to survive these periodic cataclysms (other than intervention of the gods) was our ability to adapt and to cooperate. Our greatest invention- a tool called language, allows us to convey highly abstracted ideas and attach meaning through the use of symbols. It is certain that we have used these meanings and symbols to make alliances and create a Culture of Interdependence.
In the modern era, we have extended our interdependence far beyond what is reasonable. It is simultaneously our greatest strength and our most crippling weakness. Entire regions of the world are now completely dependent upon each other to provide food or natural resources which sustain our way of life.
Non-industrialized (often referred to as "underdeveloped") nations often depend on industrial nations for food (from industrialized farming), technology and/or financial support, and they trade fuel, cash crops or other raw material resources in exchange for these. The central hub of the interdependence between the non-industrialized and industrialized nations is the global transportation network, which depends on the availability of cheap energy resources.
The modern lifestyle enjoyed by the industrialized world revolves entirely around the constant generation and distribution of electricity. It shuts down completely given any interruption of incoming resources- most cities have only a few days to a week's supply of food & drink or fuel on hand for their incumbent populations.
Most inhabitants of the industrialized world are highly specialized, either in terms of urban survival (street smarts) or in highly advanced and very narrow fields-- few individuals seem to have even a rudimentary concept of how to construct or configure any of the component parts of our modern systems, and even fewer still are adept at survival in the raw wilderness of the natural world, even under "normal" circumstances. Could we survive another global cataclysm? If so, how?
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| "Yo- Jesse... can I stay at your house tonight? I got some... uh... plumbing problems..." |
Within advanced civilizations, a polarization occurs: life becomes very easy for some but more difficult for others, who must now navigate a much more complex social structure which is increasingly more exclusive as each member's role becomes more specialized. This social stratification is also responsible for removing a number of social members from directly interacting with the Earth for survival.
The individuals on both sides of this polarization turn to a similar tactic- the advantaged become more lazy, self-centered and greedy, taking advantage of others for material gain and convenience, as the disadvantaged of the society are forced to work harder, becoming more self-focused and individualistic as a function of personal survival in an increasingly hostile and competitive environment.
There is a fundamental "falling away" from the accepted notions of social responsibility and interconnectedness which helped to facilitate the advancement of the culture in the first place. This is the "sin" which is usually cited as what "destines" the civilization for destruction by vengeful gods: the people have "stopped singing their praises," by disregarding the most basic values of brotherhood and their connection to the Earth.
The "chosen people," who are to survive the coming cataclysm, remain "faithful to the gods" by adherence to the core values that every world religion/spiritual discipline promotes: kindness, brotherhood, generosity, honesty, mercy, mutual respect, faithfulness, working for the common well-being of the people, stewardship of the Earth, etc.
In reality, these core values help group members survive cataclysms, as the "faithful" work together for everyone's survival; while the "faithless" more or less trample each other in a self-interested & panic-stricken stampede. Even if the "faithless" survive the initial cataclysm, their behavior is remembered as counterproductive or dangerous to the group's well being and they are not allowed back into the fold for the reconstruction period.
Reconstruction involves (aside from a physical or social rebuilding) a distillation of the civilization's core values and incorporates the struggle for survival (and the triumph of "the way" of the spiritually devout) into the mythos of the culture.
The emergent culture may have either a distorted/incomplete view of the original form of the spiritual discipline, or a more pure and concentrated understanding of its tenets. In either case, the cataclysm/crisis/disaster is held up as a testament to the greatness or "rightness" of its belief system.
Let's face it- if the ground beneath your feet suddenly explodes and everyone else is killed by fire & poisonous gases, or if your entire civilization is swallowed by the sea before your very eyes while you drift away on a boat your crazy uncle constructed on the roof of his house, you are quite likely to consider yourself "blessed" or "favored" by the gods for your ability to escape and start anew. The sheer incomprehensibility of your luck may escape all other explanations.
(see: Survivor Bias)
Where this often takes a wrong turn is in the belief that this specific viewpoint is superior to others, or that the details of a specific dogma are more important than the general sense of working together for the common good of all Humankind.
Anatomically modern Humans are thought to have first emerged around 200,000 years ago. Several other hominin species have met extinction during this very same time period- possibly due to the same events that have nearly wiped out Homo sapiens-- I have outlined only a few of the known disasters of the last 100,000 years.
Whether it's a major climate disaster caused by Humans (or by Nature), or some extra-terrestrial event like a meteor strike, we must expect drastic and sudden change in our environment. It has been the "norm" in our short history on Earth.
On top of that, we now have the power to utterly destroy our Human world all on our own- through any number of anthropogenic ecological disasters, or with the power of nuclear weapons/other weapons of war, through our mismanagement of resources (fuels, food & water, building materials, capital/finances), or by neglecting the treatment of diseases which are entirely curable or manageable with nutrition & modern medicine.
The underlying message from the ancient world is that with a little luck, through cooperation and service to our fellow Humans, we can survive our emergence into the "Fifth World"- and thrive. We can create a new kind of interdependence which is not profit-motivated; a society which is both Ethical and Rational. It is time for the Human race to grow up and really start taking care of each other - and our world. If we do this we will survive, just as our ancestors did, but we will have a more complete story to tell, with a deeper and richer cultural heritage.
The "chosen people," who are to survive the coming cataclysm, remain "faithful to the gods" by adherence to the core values that every world religion/spiritual discipline promotes: kindness, brotherhood, generosity, honesty, mercy, mutual respect, faithfulness, working for the common well-being of the people, stewardship of the Earth, etc.
In reality, these core values help group members survive cataclysms, as the "faithful" work together for everyone's survival; while the "faithless" more or less trample each other in a self-interested & panic-stricken stampede. Even if the "faithless" survive the initial cataclysm, their behavior is remembered as counterproductive or dangerous to the group's well being and they are not allowed back into the fold for the reconstruction period.
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| Treating your fellow man as a brother has practical applications, after all. |
The emergent culture may have either a distorted/incomplete view of the original form of the spiritual discipline, or a more pure and concentrated understanding of its tenets. In either case, the cataclysm/crisis/disaster is held up as a testament to the greatness or "rightness" of its belief system.
Let's face it- if the ground beneath your feet suddenly explodes and everyone else is killed by fire & poisonous gases, or if your entire civilization is swallowed by the sea before your very eyes while you drift away on a boat your crazy uncle constructed on the roof of his house, you are quite likely to consider yourself "blessed" or "favored" by the gods for your ability to escape and start anew. The sheer incomprehensibility of your luck may escape all other explanations.
(see: Survivor Bias)
Where this often takes a wrong turn is in the belief that this specific viewpoint is superior to others, or that the details of a specific dogma are more important than the general sense of working together for the common good of all Humankind.
Anatomically modern Humans are thought to have first emerged around 200,000 years ago. Several other hominin species have met extinction during this very same time period- possibly due to the same events that have nearly wiped out Homo sapiens-- I have outlined only a few of the known disasters of the last 100,000 years.
Whether it's a major climate disaster caused by Humans (or by Nature), or some extra-terrestrial event like a meteor strike, we must expect drastic and sudden change in our environment. It has been the "norm" in our short history on Earth.
On top of that, we now have the power to utterly destroy our Human world all on our own- through any number of anthropogenic ecological disasters, or with the power of nuclear weapons/other weapons of war, through our mismanagement of resources (fuels, food & water, building materials, capital/finances), or by neglecting the treatment of diseases which are entirely curable or manageable with nutrition & modern medicine.
The underlying message from the ancient world is that with a little luck, through cooperation and service to our fellow Humans, we can survive our emergence into the "Fifth World"- and thrive. We can create a new kind of interdependence which is not profit-motivated; a society which is both Ethical and Rational. It is time for the Human race to grow up and really start taking care of each other - and our world. If we do this we will survive, just as our ancestors did, but we will have a more complete story to tell, with a deeper and richer cultural heritage.
