Creation
nor human breast deny its longings, yearning fellowship,
measured in eons past it's instincts for survival's best.
At once, One with nature, sea and land, beast and man,
when coupled with earth and cosmos' triune celestials,
rich in lore, act and sacrifice, running to mysteries divine;
when coupled with earth and cosmos' triune celestials,
rich in lore, act and sacrifice, running to mysteries divine;
Pregnant with renewal fraught it's heavenly fellowships,
by forces dark and wan; disrupters to the One, the All,
the Creator God we call Redeemer, Lover, Hope.
by forces dark and wan; disrupters to the One, the All,
the Creator God we call Redeemer, Lover, Hope.
R.E. Slater
March 25, 2023
March 25, 2023
IntroductionIn the days before the pages of Genesis were written what really happened? Today I am transitioning from the evolution of man and religion (some 30 articles writ over the past 30 days) towards man's earliest civilizations. Having looked at Adam & Eve, the Serpent and Garden of Eden, it's time to move forward to the Tower of Babel and Noah's Flood.
Today I will cover Noah's Flood story putting geologic history to its remembrance in Hebrew culture. Each article is built upon the last. Each article intends to tell the real story behind the ancient stories of earlier civilizations. Stories which today's religions such as Christianity do not understand when neglecting the evolutionary histories of the earth. Here, I take Christian teachings and expand upon them as I tie in what we currently know of our ancient past. God is not lost in these discussions however I am hoping to lose the "literalness" of biblical teachings on the stories in the bible by the church.
Enjoy.
R.E. Slater
March 25, 2023
Ancient Civilizations:
The Younger Dryas Era
by R.E. Slater
This past week we have covered the prehistory of Africa which included the movement of homo sapien man out of Africa and across the PRE-Glacial Maximal era of NE Africa (Kush, Punt, etc civilizations) to early Egypt (3200 BC), across the Sinai, and along the Fertile Crescent into the Mesopotamian Valley whence Semitic civilizations began and expanded backwards along their migratory routes.
During this time other competing homonids populations were to be found across many of the Continents during the evolutionary development of modern man (homo sapiens). Most prominantly the homo neaderthalensis (EurAsia) and homo desinovian (India) populations... but as you go further east into India and towards Indonesia there were even earlier homonid species extant at the time such as homo heidelbergnesis, perhaps homo erectus, and assuredly homo floresiensis in lower Indonesia.*
The evolutionary genetic morphing of primitive man into the Paleolithic Stone Age during of the Pleistocene era man began around 150,000 BC as early homo sapien populations intermixed with earlier homonid species - producing a species which rivaled all earlier species. "Modern Man" was most likely helped by continuing devastating climatic changes across the earth such as the many Ice Ages as the earth grew cold and warm repeatedly.
The popular Hebrew-Christian story of Noah and the Flood was not a singular event. The Glacial Meltwaters during Late earth's past 100,000 years rose sea levels by as much as 400 feet removing landmass from the continents measured to be as great as Europe+China put together. Which is a lot of landmass which was lost.
Too, the rising of the oceans did not occur all at once but by as little as 0.048" a year... which isn't even a puddle. But doing the math by multiplying 0.048+" x 100,000 years = 4800" / 12" - 400 feet in total.
However, nature isn't quite mathematical. The 2-3 miles of Ice on top of Earth's Crusty Mantel at it Poles and downwards (upwards for the South Pole) comes when it comes. And so there is flooding.
Moreover, there wasn't just one Glacial period but many. Hence, the past 100,000 years were devastating to mammalian life on earth.
And to those Christians reading this please know that the Genesis story of Seven Creation days where one is given to God creating the animals in evolutionary terms had already occurred. And no, we don't get here by making "creation days" into time periods... the Genesis story is a Hebraic Myth utilizing the number seven to describe the "perfection" of God's creation. A creation which was by no means perfect but fraught with deadly survival and cataclysm. The perfection written of was that of a theoretical creational event by a "perfect" God. Hence, "seven" (days) isn't a time period but a quality ascribed of the Creator.
At the end of this post is a great article on what ancient flooding over the past 100,000 years meant to earth's homonid populations. To get there I've provided charts, graphs, and explanations to what you're seeing along with a number of links to a few past articles in our evolutionary series of man's and religion's origins.
However, modern man today managed to survive the climate changes of the earth while earlier homonid species gradually went extinct. And those which hadn't eventually interbred or were killed by homo sapiens in genocidal attacks upon those different from themselves.
At present we are the dominant surviving species in our line of homonids due greatly to earth's "gentling" period in which we formed civilizations. This period has not been long. Approximately from 11,600 BC to 2023 AD giving us 13,600+ years of relative climatic stability. When this changes modern man will have survival challenges not only due to resource and genocidal wars but with the earth's planetary geology as well.
I once mentioned several years back that entropy was the main reason why the earth cooled down so biological life could spawn and evolve. A simple example of this is where those living in hot environments with stone and dirt will grown shade trees and cooling landscapes. Thus and thus, in entropic terms the hot earth required cooling organisms which gave birth to life such as grass and trees, atmospheric rivers of water and wind, and poisonous gases like oxygen which replaced methane seas and atmospheres (thus the first evolutionary die off because of oxygen).
The earth is a complicated thing. It's history is a complex of survival. Stories like Adam and Eve and Noah are imaginings by civilizations which heard stories of life and death and flooding. But the reality is that our past 150,000 years have been a remarkable history of survival upon a Creator who has spoken life into his creation time and again. A Creator who is also Redeemer reclaiming and renewing all which die with life until, at last, it can no longer survive and goes extinct.
Genesis isn't so much a story as a Spirit-felt story in our souls telling us our own stories of survival in a world bound by sin and evil. The love of God does all that God can to meet those evils but God also requires us to love and help utilizing the inner longings of creational evolution to build towards grandness and majesty, fellowship, wholeness, and healing. Let us then so act and do. No wars. No hatreds. No revenge. No discriminations. Love is wholeness and unity and today's newer "ecological" civilizations must bind old ills with God's breaths of life.
Peace,
R.E. Slater
March 25, 2023
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| Pleistocen Ice Age Era 1.8mya-11,600 BC |
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| Successive dispersals of Homo erectus (yellow), H. neanderthalensis (ochre) and H. sapiens (red) |
| Homo |
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Wikipedia - The History of the Genus Homo
Several of the Homo lineages appear to have surviving progeny through introgression into other lines. Genetic evidence indicates an archaic lineage separating from the other human lineages 1.5 million years ago, perhaps H. erectus, may have interbred into the Denisovans about 55,000 years ago. Fossil evidence shows H. erectus s.s. survived at least until 117,000 yrs ago, and the even more basal H. floresiensis survived until 50,000 years ago. A 1.5-million-year H. erectus-like lineage appears to have made its way into modern humans through the Denisovans and specifically into the Papuans and aboriginal Australians. The genomes of non-sub-Saharan African humans show what appear to be numerous independent introgression events involving Neanderthal and in some cases also Denisovans around 45,000 years ago. The genetic structure of some sub-Saharan African groups seems to be indicative of introgression from a west Eurasian population some 3,000 years ago.
Some evidence suggests that Australopithecus sediba could be moved to the genus Homo, or placed in its own genus, due to its position with respect to e.g. H. habilis and H. floresiensis.
Dispersal
See also: Early expansions of hominins out of Africa, Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans, and Early human migrations
By about 1.8 million years ago, H. erectus is present in both East Africa (H. ergaster) and in Western Asia (H. georgicus). The ancestors of Indonesian H. floresiensis may have left Africa even earlier.
Homo erectus and related or derived archaic human species over the next 1.5 million years spread throughout Africa and Eurasia (see: Recent African origin of modern humans). Europe is reached by about 0.5 Mya by Homo heidelbergensis.
Homo neanderthalensis and H. sapiens develop after about 300 kya. Homo naledi is present in Southern Africa by 300 kya.
H. sapiens soon after its first emergence spread throughout Africa, and to Western Asia in several waves, possibly as early as 250 kya, and certainly by 130 kya. In July 2019, anthropologists reported the discovery of 210,000 year old remains of a H. sapiens and 170,000 year old remains of a H. neanderthalensis in Apidima Cave, Peloponnese, Greece, more than 150,000 years older than previous H. sapiens finds in Europe.
Most notable is the Southern Dispersal of H. sapiens around 60 kya, which led to the lasting peopling of Oceania and Eurasia by anatomically modern humans. H. sapiens interbred with archaic humans both in Africa and in Eurasia, in Eurasia notably with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Among extant populations of H. sapiens, the deepest temporal division is found in the San people of Southern Africa, estimated at close to 130,000 years, or possibly more than 300,000 years ago. Temporal division among non-Africans is of the order of 60,000 years in the case of Australo-Melanesians. Division of Europeans and East Asians is of the order of 50,000 years, with repeated and significant admixture events throughout Eurasia during the Holocene.
Archaic human species may have survived until the beginning of the Holocene, although they were mostly extinct or absorbed by the expanding H. sapiens populations by 40 kya (Neanderthal extinction).
List of lineages
See also: List of human evolution fossils
The species status of H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster, H. georgicus, H. antecessor, H. cepranensis, H. rhodesiensis, H. neanderthalensis, Denisova hominin, and H. floresiensis remain under debate. H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis are closely related to each other and have been considered to be subspecies of H. sapiens.
There has historically been a trend to postulate new human species based on as little as an individual fossil. A "minimalist" approach to human taxonomy recognizes at most three species, H. habilis (2.1–1.5 Mya, membership in Homo questionable), H. erectus (1.8–0.1 Mya, including the majority of the age of the genus, and the majority of archaic varieties as subspecies, including H. heidelbergensis as a late or transitional variety) and Homo sapiens (300 kya to present, including H. neanderthalensis and other varieties as subspecies). "Species" does in this context not necessarily mean that hybridization and introgression were impossible at the time. However, it is often used as a convenient term, but it should be taken to mean to be a generic lineage at best, and clusters at worst. In general definitions and methodology of "species" delineation criteria are not generally agreed upon in anthropology or paleontology. Indeed, mammals can typically interbreed for 2 to 3 million years or longer, so all contemporary "species" in the genus Homo would potentially have been able to interbreed at the time, and introgression from beyond the genus Homo can not a priori be ruled out. It has been suggested that H. naledi may have been a hybrid with a late surviving Australipith (taken to mean beyond Homo, ed.), despite the fact that these lineages generally are regarded as long extinct. As discussed above, many introgressions have occurred between lineages, with evidence of introgression after separation of 1.5 million years.
Megafauna are mammals weighing over 40 kilograms. At the end of the last Ice Age, and most intensively during the Younger Dryas, the following numbers of genera of mammalian megafauna went extinct:
- In Subsaharan Africa, 8 of 50 (16%)
- In Asia, 24 of 46 (52%)
- In Europe, 23 of 39 (59%)
- In Australasia, 19 of 27 (71%)
- In North America, 45 of 61 (74%)
- In South America, 58 of 71 (82%)
Source: Wikipedia - Quaternary Extinction Event
* * * * * * * *
Here is a list of this week's discussions as we have looked at the origins of man and religion... or better stated, the evolution of man and religion. If you have not read them yet I would suggest catching up as we are now moving into early civilizations and beliefs of homo sapien populations (popularly known genetically and evolutionarily as "modern man").I will also leave a link to our fuller discussions from the past month where I have been updating my understanding of evolution from a processual viewpoint. In that Index the sections further below in it will be an accumulation of Christian evolutionary on man's origins since I began in 2011.
Without having written those earlier articles I would not be able to speak so broadly across the subject today. Mostly I have wrestled with theological ideas of sin and evil, the kind of God whom God is, and how to interpret the bible in a modern sense and not an ancient sense.
Too, in that Index I only have selected the articles speaking to human evolution and not the evolution of the cosmos or sciences. I'll provide those index links as well down below.
Enjoy.
~~ PS - Remember to read the last article which ties everything here together ~~
Related Indexes
* * * * * * * *
As my time is limited and I like to share good educational sources I would like to recommend Human Origin's many chapters on the evolutionary origins of the man, earth, and the cosmos.
Realize they will not discuss process philosophy or theology as it is still very new nor is it a Christian faith site but nonetheless the education it provides I would feel comfortable in recommending in general. - re slater
Evidence That The Younger Dryas Forged Human PreHistory
February 11, 2019
All human life is entwined with planet earth. You probably don’t think about it, but every aspect of our society depends on the stable, favorable state of the environment.
Today it is easy to think the earth has always looked like it does now. The reality could not be further from the truth. Scientists have revealed that the climate and even continents have undergone dramatic changes. So how did these events mold the human story?
Historians place human prehistory, or the precursor to us, beginning around 10 000BC. We attribute it to some very clever ancestors beginning the agricultural revolution. Never before has a species on earth farmed crops and lived settled sedentary lives. These are the foundations of modern human civilization.
So what caused this one single leap? Was it a marvel of our genius? An example of brain beating nature? We, humans, are so brilliant after all.
But no matter how smart you are, there’s only so much you can do to outrun an earthquake or a volcano. Mother Earth vs. Einstein is no real match in the end if she chooses to play.
Today, science introduces us to Mother Nature’s all-powerful influence over our lives. It is an influence that has always been there. However, only recently, did a particular set of events set the conditions for our modern lives.
What were these circumstances? Human prehistory is the time as the agricultural revolution takes flight, around 11 000 years ago. It coincides, exactly, with the earth’s movement out of the last ice age. So was it an easy transition out of the last glacial maximum?
Recent discoveries suggest it was anything but a smooth ride. It’s a period, today known as the Younger Dryas event. A time on earth of almost unprecedented violent, long-lasting weather conditions. Does it reveal that there is more to prehistory than we have previously thought?
In this article, we will explore how human prehistory and the Younger Dryas event are inextricably related.
When does Prehistory Begin?
Generally, prehistory is seen as the time before humans began to live in organized civilizations. The first evidence appears in the fertile crescent, at roughly 10 000BC, with the agricultural revolution. From there, it’s thought that there was a gradual rise to when modern civilization begins.
The period in history coincides with the climatic event of the Younger Dryas.
What was the Younger Dryas
The Younger Dryas was an earth period that began roughly 12800 years ago and finished 11600 years ago.
These 1200 years mark the transition out of the last great ice age. It was a period where the earth as a very different place. Ice sheets covered most of North America in particular, and also Europe. Sea levels were much, much lower, with a large proportion of landmass exposed.
Then around 19 000 years ago, global warming began, and these vast ice masses began a steady melt.
The problem is that ice ages generally don’t end quickly. Today we still don’t understand how the earth can exit an ice age. The glacial maximum should have taken many years to disappear completely, but then the Younger Dryas period began.
At 12800 years ago, global temperatures rocketed up by as much as 15 degrees Celsius in only a few years. Suddenly, a large portion of the ice sheets melted, and the earth emerged out of the full ice age. Here marks the start of the Younger Dryas.
Human prehistory coincides precisely with the transition out of the last ice age, known as the Younger Dryas. Source
There is no consensus on what caused this rapid rise in global temperatures, and, there’s more to the mystery.
In a geological instant, the earth returned to almost full glacial conditions. Temperatures dropped as low as they had been at the peak of the ice age. This climactic period lasted around 1200 years. Then, once again, temperatures abruptly spiked back up at 11,600 years ago.
It is the date that the Younger Dryas ends and human prehistory begins.
Coincidence? Highly unlikely?
Younger Dryas Global Warming & Climate Change
Global warming and cooling during the Younger Dryas & human prehistory. Source
In the 1990s scientists began to understand what happened to earth’s climate in human prehistory. A group of researchers painstakingly measured global warming and climate change data in the Greenland ice core studies. They were able to produce the most accurate records of temperature change in the earth’s past.
Data revealed that the Younger Dryas was a spectacular chapter in earth’s prehistory. Changes in temperature were found to be a staggering ten degrees Celsius in 10 years. The earth, as it turns out, was violently pulled out of the ice age.
For all life on the planet, and humans, it must have been a harrowing period. Global sea levels rose an estimated 400 feet. Almost 75% of all megafauna on the planet were wiped out. Human populations also declined, with the disappearance of the North American Clovis ancient society from the fossil record.
Then, around 11,600 years ago, the Younger Dryas prehistory period ended.
Here marks the beginning of the earth period known as the Holocene. It has been the most stable period in terms of climate we have seen in at least the past 100,000 years.
These are the conditions we consider normal today. We can also attribute everything about modern society to this climate too.
What happened during the Younger Dryas cold event?
Let’s try and think about what it was like to live during the Younger Dryas. Most notably, there was far more land mass exposed.
At the glacial maximum, global sea levels were at the lowest they had been in thousands of years (roughly 400 feet lower than present day).
Prehistoric earth had an extra 10 million square miles of land exposed. That is about the size of Europe, and China added together.
Now, how did it all disappear?
Fast glacial melting and rising sea levels left conditions that were likely very difficult to live during this period. These conditions are the context of human prehistory.
The speed of the ocean rise helps to picture what events outlined our prehistory. Oceanographers and marine geologists report what they call ‘meltwater spikes’ that occurred during the Younger Dryas. These are flows of fresh water from the ice cap into the oceans.
There are two distinct glacial melt periods of prehistory.Meltwater pulse 1-A (About 13 000 years ago)
Meltwater pulse 1-B (About 11 600 years ago)
Each coincides directly with the two extreme warming events that start and end the Younger Dryas. This evidence points to rapid sea level rises due to two ice cap melting instances.
Younger Dryas sea level rises measured as Meltwater Pulse A & Meltwater Pulse B. Source
As the North American ice cap melted, floods of meltwater during the Younger Dryas were sent across the North American continent. The world’s sea levels also rose upwards of 400 feet.
Such a drastic sea level rise resulted in vast portions of land being swallowed up by the sea.
It equals the landmass of China and Europe being flooded by a Tsunami. Once the ocean levels rose, the continents and sea levels sat in their modern form.
Then human prehistory begins.
What caused the Younger Dryas?
Scientists are not exactly sure as to what causes the earth to enter and exit ice ages. They also don’t agree on what caused the Younger Dryas global warming or cooling.
The conditions we see today are known as interglacial periods. Geologists can’t explain how the earth moves from prehistoric glacial periods to interglacial ones. The paradox is that it’s thought more ice should reflect the heat of the sun, keeping the planet in permanent, descending temperatures.
The Younger Dryas is, therefore, an even bigger mystery. Temperatures bottomed out in a way not seen in regular earth periods. How the North American ice sheet vanished in such a short period is a big part of this. It was the most significant contributor to rising sea levels.
To date, the most widely accepted theory is that steady global warming affected the seas around the ice sheet. The steadily melt then continued until the glaciers completely vanished.
There are a number of big problems with the steady-melt theory.
Three of these include:
- The Greenland ice-core temperature data
- The speed at which the glaciers melted
- Other events and conditions around the planet.
Was there a Younger Dryas cataclysm?
The end of the last ice age occurred with immense and abrupt climatic change all over the planet. Currently, there is no consensus on the main cause of these events. For scientists to accept theories, there needs to be enough evidence.
Today, studies have revealed the size of temperature change during this period. It brought some to suggest more sudden theories as to what caused the Younger Dryas.
The amount of ice that melted during this short time is a problem with the gradual melt theory. The North American ice cap spanned the entire of modern-day Canada and the north of the US. There were also glacial ice sheets across South Western Europe and the UK. An estimated 7 million cubic miles of ice made up the ice cap, which was as much as 2 miles thick in some parts.
For this volume of ice, the amount of energy needed to melt is very, very high. Add to the problem of such a short period seem to exceed any gradual processes. In order to produce such a high amount of energy, scientists have suggested more cataclysmic causes of the Younger Dryas.
These include:
- The Younger Dryas Comet hypothesis
- The Younger Dryas Solar Flare hypothesis
While the consensus is not in, a cataclysmic demise of the North American Ice sheet may solve issues of the gradual melt theory.
Problems with gradual glacial melt theory:
1) Global warming evidence
The science of global warming has revealed that even small changes in earth’s temperature can have disastrous impacts on climate.
The Younger Dryas was a period of large temperature fluctuations. Records reveal that there were climate shifts up to half of the entire difference between ice age and non-ice age conditions.
Today climate change science reveals that two or even three-degree changes would have drastic results to the earth.
The Younger Dryas period had ten-degree shifts in temperature in as little as a decade.
2) Human population decline
The conditions of the Younger Dryas has impacted those living on the planet at that time. Before the time of human prehistory was a decline in existing ancient societies. Human populations have been found to of been depleted or in some cases, completely disappeared. In this period the Clovis culture of North America was nearly wiped from the record, with only a few tribes surviving.
Fossil records reveal a distinct layer of Clovis remains that date back to the Younger Dryas. The numbers then plummeted, presumed perished as the ice-sheet melted and temperatures changed.
The Clovis culture was the dominant human population throughout North America at this time. Their sudden disappearance provides evidence that there may have been a cataclysmic cause of the Younger Dryas.
3) Megafauna mass extinction
Before the Younger Dryas, North America was home to the world’s biggest population of megafauna. Including Wooly Mammoths, and Sabretooth Tigers, 15 genera of species went completely or near extinct. The event can be precisely dated to 12 900 years ago.
They account for 75% of these megafauna species in North America at the time.
Conclusion
The human origin story is punctuated with pivotal events in history. As modern humans, the agricultural revolution is one of those significant points.
Recent scientific discoveries about the Younger Dryas introduces a big question as to how humans took the leap into modern society.
The Younger Dryas undeniably shaped human prehistory and our modern lives. Finding out what caused this mysterious event will provide a pivotal piece in our origin story.
For Further Reading
This post was originally published by The Human Origin Project: Evidence that the Younger Dryas Forged Human Prehistory
