Re: [tied] Euxine basin agriculture.

--- In cybalist@..., markodegard@... wrote:

> 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.

Somewhere in Anatolia is what is traditionally regarded as the first
city. I think the name is Catal Huyuk.
Some time ago I saw an article that tried to disprove that this was a
true city. The reason: all houses were constructed differently and
personally, even at the level of basic techniques, the implication
being that C H therefore had had no artisans (of the house-building
kind).
My interpretation is this: the first city in the world was a refugee
camp. For the first time there was a heap of people were crowded into
an area that couldn't feed them by the means known then, hunting and
gathering of scattered "fields". Everything, especially agriculture,
must be organized in a novel and efficient way or they would all be
dead. Their new neighbors were wary of the intruders.

Just imagining things.

Torsten