Page 385 - The Tigris Expedition

Five Months for Us, Five Millennia for Mankind
surface of the earth. The sea level has altered, seventy per cent of our
planet is below water and underwater archaeology has barely begun
in coastal areas.
We are accustomed to finding sunken ships with old amphora
and other cargo beneath the sea, but speculation as to the discovery
of other human vestiges on the bottom of the ocean remains a
subject for science fiction writers. Or almost; for flint arrowheads
have been found on the bottom of the North Sea by trawlers, a
reminder that Stone Age man hunted animals on foot in an area
which changing water levels have hidden from easy access by an
archaeologist. Until very recent years everyone derided Wegener’s
theory of continental drift; yet Wegener is today proved right and
his theory generally accepted by geologists just when palaeontolog­
ists have discovered that at least another zero should be added to the
hitherto accepted age of man.
Did the Atlantic basin sink to its present shape and depth before
human times? It is still not known when the last of the Mid-Atlantic
Ridge sank; the date can still fluctuate as much as the age of early
man. But we at least know that there was some major geological
catastrophe in the Atlantic in a period late enough to coincide with
an identifiable stir among all known early civilisations. Its effects
must have been worst on the founders of the island cultures around
Britain, as the disturbance formed a lasting split in the Atlantic
Ocean floor and right across the green countryside of Iceland. A
tree fell into the rift and was imbedded in the lava that emerged; it
has been dated by radio-carbon analysis to approximately 3000 bc.
Allowing for the usual radio-carbon margin of error, about a
century plus or minus, this geological disturbance in the Atlantic of
about 3000 bc coincides with the sudden blooming of civilisation in
the three aforesaid river valleys. But not only there. Archaeology
has disclosed that around 3000 bc a new epoch started even on the
island of Cyprus; then the former occupation of neolithic sites came
to an end, and it has been suspected that the cause may have been
some unidentified natural disaster.3 Correspondingly, 3000 bc has
also been cited by archaeologists as the date marking the end of the
neolithic phase and the beginning of a new cultural period on
Malta.4 Even on Crete archaeologists have found evidence of
widespread dislocation and upheaval throughout the island about
3000 bc, with people taking refuge in eaves and subsequently I
settling on high hills.5
Disastrous flood waves have struck civilised communities more
than once, even in subsequent periods. Much attention has in recent
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