Glen Gordon:
> I would like to side with caution and think of the flood as
> significant locally but still not so entirely damaging as to
> have people fleeing miles and miles from the shore out of sheer
> terror that the sea is out to get them.
But you *did* "have people fleeing miles and miles from the shore out
of sheer terror that the sea is out to get them." This is the whole
point! If you had been at the ancient mouth of the Dnistr, you'd have
had to go (taking a quick and dirty look at a map) about 100 miles
inland to reach what would become the new seashore.
The Black Sea emerged in some 2 years, being raised some 300 feet
above the level the old freshwater Euxine Lake. The coast was flooded
inland for 'miles and miles'. And since this was a slow-motion
cataclysm, they had to keep moving to keep from getting wet. They had
no knowledge of where or when the rise would stop -- or if it would
ever stop.
The disruption to the lives and civilization of *everyone* living at
the old Euxine lakeshore was *complete*.
Now. You tell me. What are the effects of such a disaster? A two
or more year famine for sure. Some survivors would have come into
conflict with inlanders. There would been been some regrouping --
sometimes by related groups, other times by unrelated groups. And a
sudden, wide diffusion of agricultural knowledge, probably hundreds of
miles in a generation, rather than just the usual few.
We've not had a catastrophe anywhere near this big since.