Mark wrote
> I've had the book for nearly two years. Ryan and Pitman have
impeccable
> credentials as earth scientists, and whatever they say about
> oceanography, hydrology, geology, and such associated sciences are to
be
> accepted as fact.
>
> They are not competent to make judgments about historical linguistics
> and the origin of PIE. Nor are they competent to make archaeological
> judgments. Their book is addressed to a 'popular' audience, but the
> title and their speculations greatly diminish the book's overall
> acceptablity. The transgression of the Med into the Black Sea is way
to
> late to have had any effect on the breakup of 'Nostratic'. There are,
> however, profound implications for the fallling-together of PIE, in
that
> 5500 BCE is often said to be about the right date, and the north
Pontic
> region is often said to be right place.
Gerry replied
> Gerry here: Perhaps what you say is correct about Ryan and Pitman
being
> oceanographers and geologists and not linguists thereby negating their
> credibility to speak on the origins of languages. But what about
> Cavali-Sforza, the geneticist, who speculates on languages spreading
> throughout Eurasia. Is he taken as being "unbelievable" also? I
don't
> think so. Current scholarship fosters cross-overs.
>
> Back to Ryan and Pitman. What title would have given their Med. and
> Black Sea book more credibility? Furthermore, what gives a person
> credibility? A degree from a prestigious University? Lots of
> publications? The publication of one book? Being known by others in
> the field thus receiving "peer" review? I think the above criteria
were
> important before college admissions was based on the notion of being
> "politically correct; NOW everyone who has the appropriate "ethnic"
tag
> and money seems to be admitted over folks who only have the
knowledge.
It is interesting that less "looney" of the Christian right have jumped
on Ryan and Pitman's confirmation of "Noah's" flood, and of the origin
of the nations based upon a black sea spread. Certainly the Jewish
origins of the Flood myth seem to have been mediated via
Hurrian-Urartuean mediators. Even the name Noah (Hebrew Nhm) seems to
have come via a Hurrian intermediary Nhmzuli, and the story of the
resting place of the Ark as Ararat is clearly derived from the 9th -
7th century Hurrian kingdom Urartu. There are also some interesting
Hurrian-Jewish connections via Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Harran
(which was one of the centres of Hurrian power in Mesopotamia from
1,600 BCE onwards to the rise of Assyria in the 8th century). There is
also evidence of Jewish settlement in Harran with the Babylonian
captivity, which may have equally been a source for all these
Hurrian-Jewish connections. They certainly would have explained the
etymological connection between the various words for "wine" that Ryan
and Pitman suggest.
Nevertheless the Hurrian version of the myth seem to have derived from
earlier Sumerian models, which clearly show the flood to have been not
a Black Sea but a Persian Gulf phenomenon. There is also evidence of
post-glacial flooding here. For instance the area of the Persian Gulf
has a length of 990 km, ranges in width from 56 to 338 km, covers an
area of 241,000 km, occupies a volume of 10,000 km, has a mean depth of
40 m, and a maximum depth of abuot 170 m. This means at the time of the
Ice Age maximum (18,000 BCE) the gulf would have been totally above sea
level. The narrow straits of Hormuz suggest a bottleneck similar to
the Bosphorus, and the fact the area has a mean depth of 40 metres
suggests that the most of the area was flooded only in the third post
glacial warming period from 8,000 BCE to 5,600 BCE. This couples
nicely with the abandonment of Bahrein by the Ubaidian Sumerians (an
alternative theory for the coming of the Semites already mentioned).
It also ties in nicely with the 3 metre sediments of Ur during the
Ubaid period.
As regards the flood and IE peoples, there is the presence of the
Deucalian myth in Greece and the flood of Manu in India, but I know of
no other flood myths amongst IE peoples. Germanic mythos suggests a
maritime origin of the culture in a "sea-lung" (Snorri Snurlson), which
may perhaps be a memory of a flood, but then could equally be a memory
of a fog over the Baltic-North Sea area, projected back into their
cosmology.
Does anyone else have information of flood myths amongst IE peoples
that could have a Black Sea origin. I cannot think of any?
Regards
John