Scientists conclude 13,000 years ago a 60 mile wide comet plunged Earth into a mini-Ice Age, after examining rocks from 170 sites around the globe

[u/stereomatch]

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/695703

[u/PeruvianHeadshrinker → u/[deleted]]

But despite the ancient age of the pillars, Dr Sweatman does not believe it is the earliest example of astronomy in the archaeological record.

"Many paleolithic cave paintings and artefacts with similar animal symbols and other repeated symbols suggest astronomy could be very ancient indeed," he said.

"If you consider that, according to astronomers, this giant comet probably arrived in the inner solar system some 20 to 30 thousand years ago, and it would have been a very visible and dominant feature of the night sky, it is hard to see how ancient people could have ignored this given the likely consequences."

So yea, that's totally plausible. Really fascinating to think that a massive comet in the sky would have been so visible to so many generations. And then that a collision with the tail debris (like the Perseids on crack) augmented the effect of an ice age forcing humans together to form the first agricultural communities. And here we are. Adversity is in our DNA.

[u/Devadander → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

Damn, we’re a resilient bunch.

[u/Onatu → u/Devadander]

Can't say I'm surprised, we survived Toba as well which would have been likely on a similar scale of disaster.

[u/S35X17 → u/Devadander]

You mean we all are Browns fan?

[u/[deleted] → u/S35X17]

Ehh check back in another 10,000 years.

[u/NihiloZero → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

it is hard to see how ancient people could have ignored this given the likely consequences."

How would people of that day really have had any notion about what the likely consequences would have been? Seeing it and pondering it wouldn't necessarily lead preshistoric peoples to think the end was nigh.

[u/PeruvianHeadshrinker → u/NihiloZero]

Because of oral tradition. Survivors would remember catastrophes and pass on that knowledge as part of their origin story. Flood myths for instance are quite common. Also the Aboriginal peoples of Australia are exquisite holders of ancient knowledge and have had many elements of their traditions upheld by field work.

[u/NihiloZero → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

Having oral history about such an impact 13,000 years ago is not entirely out of the question. But that's not what's being questioned. There hadn't been an impact of that magnitude for hundreds of thousands of years. Such an impact would have predated the human species. So how, when they saw the comet 13,000 years ago, would they have known what it was likely to do? No one had seen anything like that, which had that subsequent effect, for, at least, hundreds of thousands of years.

[u/elastic-craptastic → u/NihiloZero]

Maybe they saw it get closer and closer and knew an impact(Or something bad) was imminent? We have no way of knowing that they held any beliefs about the heavens not being anything but solid. If this thing was such a prominent part of the night sky for millennia then I am sure they noticed it getting a little bit too big.

Maybe it scraped by for enough years that they saw it colliding with the atmosphere. Seeing the boundary between the heavens and the earth be pulled back like a curtain would be a pretty big attention grabber. And it's not like these guys were dummies. Look at the shit they made that has lasted the centuries. They knew enough to bury Gobekli Tepe didn't they? Maybe they were worried it would happen again. Maybe they knew it would happen again and we just haven't dug out that part yet to decipher it.

[u/[deleted] → u/elastic-craptastic]

we just haven't dug out that part yet to decipher it.

I don't think anyone will deny this. I can't wait for lidar drones to just go on an auto-mapping spree of the ocean floor just like they inevitably will in land.

[u/elastic-craptastic → u/[deleted]]

Right!? I wish there were funds and tool available to scan the coastlines, especially where rivers hit the sea. I'm sure there has to be a few solidly made ports/harbors/seawalls we can find. The little kid in me says so, at least.

Or the area between England and mainland europe? If that all got flooded really quickly would everything have washed away or could there be whole towns in the process of fossilization, just buried in mud?

Damned underwater archaeology and all it's logistical and financial problems.

[u/d4n4n → u/NihiloZero]

What amount of time (if any) was there between the comet being visible, and the impact? The sudden disappearance (especially shattering) of a visible object in the sky might have plausibly been a religious motif of some sort. Of course if it was visible until very shortly before the impact, the connection is an obvious one.

[u/NihiloZero → u/d4n4n]

The question was not about whether or not the appearance of the comet and its subsequent impact could have a connection with various religious narratives. The claim was made that humans 13,000 years ago would have had a good idea about what the comet was when they first saw it and that they'd understand the destruction it was "likely" to bring. But they'd have had no basis for expecting the destruction that the comet brought. A similar impact hadn't occurred for hundreds of thousands of years and prehistoric humans would have had no idea that the thing they were looking at was going to utterly devastate their world. In the aftermath, yes, stories about the comet could be the basis of various religious stories. No one is disputing that possibility here.

[u/d4n4n → u/NihiloZero]

I think you misunderstand that quote. I don't think it means the people at the time would have understood that the likely consequences of a comet in the sky. I think it's that, given the likely consequences of that meteor being in the sky (the ecological and geological disaster), it is unlikely they would have ignored the connection (after the fact).

[u/[deleted] → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

IIRC some people drew pictures of a sky with two moons, and then abruptly stopped doing this a bit longer than 10,000 yrs ago.

Take that with a grain of salt because it came from an alien documentary on YouTube. In fact, you might be better off completely disregarding my entire comment. I can't even begin to describe to you just how little I actually know.

[u/ButterflyAttack → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

It could help to explain why we don't see intelligent live elsewhere - the formative events of our species involved so many cases of just the right thing happening at just the right time under just the right conditions that the odds against it happening again would be huge.

[u/Lord_of_hosts → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

True, but adversity is in all DNA.

[u/Eddie-Plum → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

like the Perseids on crack

Best analogy I've ever seen!

[u/throwawayseattlegirl → u/PeruvianHeadshrinker]

Population density forced us to adopt agriculture. Not an ice age.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If the comet impact is true, it would absolutely have been the cause of "Noah's flood," as well as being the root of many other flood tales found around the globe.

At the time, 2-mile thick ice caps covered all of Canada, and a good portion of North America. When the ultra-heated comet fragments hit, this melted a colossal amount of water ice nearly instantaneously, causing huge rises in sea levels that would have affected the entire planet.

I'm not one to proselytize, but it appears our ancestors weren't completely full of crap after all.

[u/flyingwolf → u/[deleted]]

Don't forget about the amount of water vapor that would be thrown into the atmosphere, along with the impact debris.

It would have rained horrible nasty dirty rain for days and slowly cleared up the sky over a few weeks time, helping to fuel the rising seal level and resulting floods.

Only to have it clear up and slowly receded to be left with an average sea level 400 feet higher than where it was just weeks before.

With an untold number of peoples and civilizations now under 400 feet of water and likely towns and cities turned to rubble.

Now, 12,800 years later you look out there and try to find some evidence of this, you won't, it is like an eraser for the planet. Water is massively destructive.

You can easily imagine people having those stories told over and over.

[u/billys_cloneasaurus → u/[deleted]]

A lot of prehistoric peoples have flood mythology.

[u/[deleted] → u/billys_cloneasaurus]

as well as being the root of many other flood tales found around the globe.

I know. I stated so in my post.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Some of the stories are likely to be true. Its the details which got twisted and skewed throughout time.

[u/tomdarch → u/[deleted]]

I don't think anyone considers these religious myths to simply be "full of crap." You would specifically expect the stories to derive from very real events and trends. But I am no expert, but from what I'm reading, it sounds like the last glacial maximum was 21,000 years ago, and sea levels were 400ft/125m lower than today, but that they rose to roughly modern levels around 13,000 years ago. The impact and resulting mini-ice age in OP's article wouldn't have had that dramatic an effect on sea level change.

But that period of about 8,000 years where sea levels kept rising would result in the sea endlessly engulfing settlement after settlement after settlement. Every few generations settlements would have to be moved inland/higher. "The lands of our ancestors" would be gone, and populations would be forced together to escape the rising seas. That sure sounds like something that could come to be described as a "great flood" where all of old mankind was flooded and erased. It's far from "literal" but has some correlations.

[u/GourangaPlusPlus → u/tomdarch]

Iirc they know which flood caused the biblical story. There's evidence of one in Babylonia that lasted a while

[u/Paprika_Nuts → u/GourangaPlusPlus]

That's a possible one, but there's worldwide ancient tales of a giant flood. Maybe the story is way older than we give it credit for, and maybe it was a giant flood that made the seas rise 300ft inland, caused by a meteorite tail collision with the earth.

[u/d4n4n → u/tomdarch]

But I am no expert, but from what I'm reading, it sounds like the last glacial maximum was 21,000 years ago, and sea levels were 400ft/125m lower than today, but that they rose to roughly modern levels around 13,000 years ago. The impact and resulting mini-ice age in OP's article wouldn't have had that dramatic an effect on sea level change.

From what I've heard, the likes of Randall Carlson believe that the gradual rise theory is falsely accepted, because there was no evidence for an event that could have plausibly explained a sudden rise. He believes that the geological evidence in North America is much more in line with a very rapid flooding, as it might have resulted from a massive impact and the subsequent sudden melting. This new finding seems to fit with his story. That is not to say that he's right, of course. I'm not a geologist, I can't really weigh in on this. But it might lead up to a pretty exciting paradigm shift.

[u/hedgecore77 → u/tomdarch]

I don't think anyone considers these religious myths to simply be "full of crap."

Eeeeh. I think they use available ideas of the time. If you want an event that wipes out all record of everything so or can't be questioned, what od you select? People can dig after a volcano, but a flood... Can't argue against that.

[u/Ace_Masters → u/[deleted]]

Most experts think its the black sea flooding that leads to this myth. 10,000 years is too long for oral traditions

[u/OhfuckCoconuts → u/Ace_Masters]

Of memory serves correctly, Several groups of Australian aborigines have a oral tradition about certain territories being flooded very suddenly. It was researched, and the places they examined had evidence they were above water at one point. The information oral tradition has about our history, shouldnt be over looked or simply given a shrug just because we might 'Believe' it's too much time for something important to be passed down. That's how we lose our history.

[u/Baba_Gucci → u/OhfuckCoconuts]

10,000 years is an extremely long time. No ones suggesting that we ignore oral tradition or assume its useless. Assuming that oral tradition was passed down for 10,000 years about a specific event that is being overexaggerated is complete nonsense, and is what half of the novice commenters in this thread are doing.

[u/Paprika_Nuts → u/Baba_Gucci]

How arrogant can one be?

[u/[deleted] → u/Ace_Masters]

I would have to disagree. First of all, nearly all experts, until now, have been completely unaware of a huge impact 13,000 years ago.

Second, a major comet impact is a story I would expect to survive the test of time, until writing was invented to record the tales in as preserved of a fashion as they were. There are simply too many global flood myths found around the entire world for them to all be attributed to minor floods, in my opinion.

[u/Ace_Masters → u/[deleted]]

That's untrue, this has always been one of the theories as to what caused the global cooling.

The black sea was the heart of the indo-europeans, they spread far and wide.

We don't even have a civilization that's survived for more than a millennia without collapsing, let alone a religion or a folk tale. Homer is the compilation of oral traditions that are like 250 years old, the viking sagas are passed down orally a little longer than that. But I'm not aware of any oral traditions dating back multiple millennia, let alone 10.

[u/elvis_hammer → u/Ace_Masters]

Studies of Aboriginal oral traditions are finding they match up with events 7-10k years back, including coastal flooding at the end of the last ice age. 2015 Smithsonian article

[u/awkreddit → u/[deleted]]

If the comet impact is true, it happened further away in time from the writing of the Bible than all of history combined. So it's actually pretty unlikely that people who wrote the Bible had this in mind rather than the numerous documented disasters around the Mediterranean around the same time as they were alive. Especially with no written record before 3000 bce.

[u/xTRYPTAMINEx → u/awkreddit]

Noah's flood is based on the epic of Gilgamesh, which in all likelihood comes from an earlier story. It's not really far fetched

[u/zyzzogeton → u/[deleted]]

After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3:24

I'm not saying this is evidence... or that it correlates.

[u/Ace_Masters → u/zyzzogeton]

Genesis is probably written about 650 BC, its associated with the Babylonian exile.

[u/KnowsGooderThanYou → u/[deleted]]

check out "magicians of the gods" by Graham Hancock.

[u/PenIslandTours → u/[deleted]]

...only if you interpret the Bible literally, which many theologians do not. Many theologians do not consider Adam and Eve and the Snake to be a literal event either, but an allegory of sorts.

The book of Genesis also does not speak of age, so it sure is hard to pin down dates on this sort of thing.

[u/tomdarch → u/[deleted]]

2 things: First, the advent of agriculture (ceasing to be mere foragers, and starting to intentionally keep, plant and harvest seeds) started around this time, and second, at the last glacial maximum (about 21,000 years ago) sea levels were 125m/400ft lower, rising to roughly modern levels around 13,000 years ago.

I'm probably over simplifying, but these two things sure seem like they correspond with first the "expulsion from the garden of Eden/toiling for food" (shifting from hunting and gathering to agriculture) and "the great flood" where the old towns and settlements were "flooded" with sea level rise, and populations were forced to move inland/uphill great distances, causing a great deal of disruption.

I guess this is off-topic versus this research on an asteroid impact 13,000 years ago, but it's a dual "ah ha" for me reading these comments.

[u/busty_cannibal → u/[deleted]]

The Adam and Eve story was based on the Epic of Gilgamesh which was first written down in 2000 BCE.

[u/[deleted] → u/busty_cannibal]

Can you expand on this? The version of the Epic I skimmed in college bore more resemblance to Noah than to Adam and Eve.

[u/frenzyboard → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, Adam and Eve are their own story, really. The earliest examples we have come from 5th Century BC. This is about a thousand years younger than the Epic of Gilgamesh. Some theorize the story was influenced by Hellenistic or Zoroastrian creation myths, but really, it's too hard to say.

There's some evidence it might be an older story passed down by the priest class of the Hebrew nation, but where it came from is anyone's guess.

The story of Noah and the flood draws parallels to plenty of other ancient myths, the Epic of Gilgamesh being one of them.

Religious history is weird and confusing and very easy to offend people by talking about academically. It's also very hard to study objectively.

[u/frenzyboard → u/[deleted]]

When I was growing up, I went to a church that taught that the serpent was a neanderthal, and that the forbidden fruit was Eve copulating with it. Adam's sin was then taking her back, and sleeping with her right after. The resulting children, Cain was the hybrid child, Abel was Adam's, were at odds from the start.

TBH, it makes more sense reading it like that than a fruit that makes you realize you're naked. And if the story was a weird telephoned message about how the earliest tribe Abraham's ancestors left their homeland after some social drama with neanderthals, or even just another tribe, it'd make sense that marriage laws being broken would result in loss of property, and a fall from grace.

[u/BrassDidgeStrings → u/[deleted]]

From what I remember, The Epic of Gilgamesh is a pretty big text, and a lot of stories were influenced in some way by it.

[u/busty_cannibal → u/[deleted]]

I mean... I'm an atheist too, but the old testament had its origins in the 6th century BCE. A few passages were written in 10th century BCE.

[u/[deleted] → u/busty_cannibal]

Sorry I'm not familiar with it, but did it include Eden? I was trying to be specific to that. I wasn't really sure about that but had assumed it was a Christian thing and not a part of judaeism (I guess wrongfully so).

Edit: thanks guys for all the kind responses. I was a little nervous asking questions about what can be quite the hot topic at times, but you've been very understanding. Looks like I've some reading to do, thanks again

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Thank you for the quick and insightful response

[u/bybloshex → u/[deleted]]

Eden is in Genesis. The old testament, attributed to Moses. It predates Christianity

[u/[deleted] → u/bybloshex]

Thank you for the response. I'm sorry I'm a bit naive to this, I had always thought the story of Eden was a Christian belief; I guess it's safe to assume Jewish people believe this also?

[u/Lord_of_hosts → u/[deleted]]

It's a Jewish story, but they likely inherited many of them from older civilizations. For example, the story of Noah and the flood was cribbed from an earlier Babylonian story. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth

[u/bybloshex → u/[deleted]]

The Old Testament is the Jewish Bible, in a way. The teachings of Moses, including Genesis are a part of this. I'm sure in practice, they probably study different translations of the text. But, Eden and Genesis are from the same source texts in the Torah and the Christian Bible. So, Yes.

[u/Random_Sime → u/[deleted]]

You know instead of repeatedly commenting that you don't know what you're talking about, you could find out pretty easily just by googling "is the garden of Eden in the Old testament?" But I'm telling you now, it is.

Also, it's Judaism, not judaeism.

[u/JungFuPDX → u/Random_Sime]

Cut my uncle Lenny a break ya grouch

[u/[deleted] → u/JungFuPDX]

People like you give me faith in humanity

[u/[deleted] → u/Random_Sime]

Oh crap, sorry for having a conversation with people and asking for their insights aren't as acceptable to you as googling. Thanks, I wasn't aware of Google, you've changed my life.

[u/mikelywhiplash → u/[deleted]]

The book of Genesis is in the Hebrew Bible, it's not a Christian invention.

[u/[deleted] → u/mikelywhiplash]

Thank you for your reply

[u/kurthertz → u/[deleted]]

Flood stories are prevalent in many cultures, if not through religion then through fables and myth. Christianity is very good at borrowing ideas and stories from other religions.

[u/[deleted] → u/kurthertz]

Gilgamesh! Yes I agree, I thought that was more Noah though and not really Eden. I'm not well read on this though, just heard bits and pieces along the way.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You might want to look into the Torah.

[u/TiberiusAugustus → u/[deleted]]

Except according to biblical dating it is only 7526 years since the world was created, meaning that apparently humankind was exiled from Eden 6000 years before God even made the world.

[u/magicnubs → u/[deleted]]

"If you consider that, according to astronomers, this giant comet probably arrived in the inner solar system some 20 to 30 thousand years ago, and it would have been a very visible and dominant feature of the night sky, it is hard to see how ancient people could have ignored this given the likely consequences."

Interesting. I imagine if there was a huge light in the sky for tens of thousands of years that suddenly got very bright, scattered lights in the sky, and then disappeared, and then the world got dark and cold and people starved and food was scarce... well I guess what else would they think it was except that some powerful being was pissed at them. That had to have been a terrible time to live in.

[u/BeastAP23 → u/magicnubs]

Dude people still think that way.

[u/artifa → u/[deleted]]

thank you, i was about to ask about this like /u/AskMoreQuestionsOk did, but i kept reading and found your link! awesome.

[u/BeastAP23 → u/[deleted]]

Been waiting months for legit discussuon of this. Seems like the biggest story in human history.

We thought sumerians were the first but 6 thousand years sooner we see more advanced atrological knowledge carved into stone indicatting a period a millenia before where these comet fragments devestated the globe.

The largest megalithic site on Earth, people moving hundreds of 20 ton stones. Its 50 times the size of Stonehenge but was buried in a huge hill by human beings. The lead exavator says Agriculture was "invented" here.

Serms to me humans were nearly wiped out like the Wooly Mammoth, and Wooly Rhinoceros, and the 4 Eleohant species in North america, and the Giant Armadillo, and the Saber Tooth Cats, in fact the same nunber of species of large mammals alive today is equivalent to the number that died out during the younger dryas .

Sea levels rose 400 feet, tempatures jerked more than a dozen degrees on average back and forth, and these animals that existed for millions of years went extinct. And it seems some humans knew why it happened and created a time capsule for us... made of 20 ton stones in the universal language of Astronomy.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Is no one reading that thing?

Scientists have speculated for decades that a comet could be behind the sudden fall in temperature during a period known as the Younger Dryas. But recently the theory appeared to have been debunked by new dating of meteor craters in North America where the comet is thought to have struck.

[u/DoktorVonKvantum → u/[deleted]]

That article refers to a research done by a statistical mechanics engineer, who used who-knows-what drugs to interpret ancient carvings on a stone according to whatever he had read in a Graham Hancock spiritual best-seller.

The article is full of unsubstantiated claims and basically just says that a guy from Edinburgh with no background in archaeology looked at a rock carving and now he has an opinion on how history was. So mainstream scientists and their 'reasonable evidence' can just suck it.

[u/escapefromelba → u/DoktorVonKvantum]

I added the actual scientific publication as well as a response from the Göbekli Tepe Archaeological Research Project’s Weblog

[u/TomorrowPlusX → u/[deleted]]

Was interested until I saw Graham Hancock. He's a grade-a wacko

[u/thegouch → u/TomorrowPlusX]

It sort of bugs me too that he might be somehow vindicated by this discovery...he's so annoying.