In the news are discoveries of civilizations that lived in areas now flooded by the Persian Gulf. This interesting for a number of reasons. One, finds in this region continue to show people were sophisticated early on. People didn’t start out dumb or animal-like. Two, past discoveries of settlements and dead rivers under the Persian Gulf have given rise to the possible location of the Garden of Eden. Others have seen the flooding of the Gulf as the source of the Noah and other flood accounts. But the flooding of the Gulf doesn’t seem catastrophic enough to be the source of those writings. We will take a look at a later date at some of those and draw out the history. For now consider that there were many millienia of history before scrolls, books and other records. We have only scratched the surface.
Prehistory
Atlantis Lost
For centuries people have debated the existence of Atlantis mainly due to some writings of Plato. He wrote that his information came from other sources and that the lost island was destroyed outside of the Pillars of Hercules ages past. Most have written this off as a fable, perhaps inspired by the many disasters that befell ancient cities. Others have turned Atlantis studies into a career, often conjuring up many a bizarre and unproven theories. The subject has been so colored by the new-agish-lost-mother-civilization crowd that it is a difficult subject to study without drawing too many strange looks. Even some of the better theorists insist that Atlantis was a super advanced culture that seeded the world either before its destruction or as its people sought refuge. Similarities in ancient cultures around the world are said to be the product of Atlantean travelers. The easier answer would be that ancient peoples got around a little better than we give them credit for. And where is the evidence for lost technologies that match or exceed our own?
There are whole millennias of prehistory lost to us. No documents, only hints in legend and myth. There are mysterious remains and misunderstood sites. So it’s not that there aren’t mysteries to be solved. Atlantis may have more basis in fact than we know. Perhaps we will never know, but examining antiquity is difficult enough without allowing so many bizarre claims going unanswered. It’s true we can be blinded by accepted paradigms, but can we get some more scholarly research into prehistory? If you delve into this subject, be prepared for anything and good luck.
Darrick Dean 