Re: First iron swords on mass scale

Asteroid/comet impacts are not a thing of the distant past. Last time the Earth was hit by a comet was in 1908. We were lucky that time: it exploded in the air above Siberia, the largest sparsely populated part of Earth (hitting Siberia is better than hitting the oceans, anything hitting the oceans will create a large tsunami wave which will do a lot of damage when it reaches land). Proper investigation had to wait until 1927, but the right place wasn't hard to find: scientists travelling to the impact site told about travelling through miles and miles of forest lying flat on the ground, as if combed down. The impact flattened 2000 square kilometers of forest. Imagine what would have happened if that comet had struck a little more to the west, in the heart of Europe. There would have been no need for the first World War to mess things up then! :o)

Hakan

(On the net you can read that it was probably a spaceship: eyewitnesses saw a bright light that turned before it exploded, and the trees growing there now are larger than usual and show strange mutations.)

John Croft wrote:

I quote the abstract

Planetary scientists and astrophysicists recently have begun to model
the potential hazards on Earth from impact by asteroids and comets.
These models suggest that 20-30 at least locally catastrophic impacts
likely occurred in various portions of the world during the past
6,000 years, during which time occurred the major developments of
modern human civilization. This paper uses these cosmic impact
models, coupled with data from archaeology, paleoenvironmental
studies, and the systematic analysis of cosmogonic mythology and
other literary traditions, in order to identify previously unknown
catastrophic Bronze Age cosmic catastrophes, the most significant
being a globally catastrophic oceanic comet impact estimated at
between 105 and 106 megatons that occurred in 2807 BCE. These data
suggest that the threat of cosmic impact is very real, and that such
impacts have played a critical role in the development of human
civilization.

There is some really interesting evidence at this site, Mark, which
should whet your apetite.

Regards

John