Ancient flood myths may have a basis in geological history

10,000 years ago , at a sentence when human recorded historical events by telling mythical stories that got passed from one contemporaries to the next , immense parts of the North American continent were deluged by monolithic walls of body of water . They were , as geologist David R. Montgomery writes in this calendar month ’s Discover mag , “ Biblical - type inundation . ” Huge regions of the Pacific Northwest , called the “ scablands ” were masticate up by flash flood that were more like tsunamis . And it was all due to the melting of the glacier from the last ice age . As the walls of ice damming lake melted away , the water would race out across the land .

Here ’s a map of the ice age deluge ( the grey regions are flood areas ) — click to enlarge .

Though it hire well-nigh a hundred for geologists to recognize the deep score in the earth , displaced bowlder , and deep ripple patsy on the prairies as signs of what is today called the Missoula Flood , apparently many tribes local to the Pacific Northwest had very similar stories about floods . write Montgomery :

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There is now compelling evidence for many mammoth ancient floods where glacial sparkler dkm bomb time and again : At the end of the last glaciation , some 10,000 old age ago , elephantine ice - dam up lake in Eurasia and North America repeatedly produced huge floods . In Siberia , rivers spilled over drainage divides and change their courses . England ’s portion as an island was seal by erosion from gelid floods that cut up the English Channel . These were not global deluges as described in the Genesis story of Noah , but were more focused ruinous floods take berth throughout the world . They likely invigorate chronicle like Noah ’s in many cultures , passed down through generations .

Since devastating floods were a fact of life on the margins of the worldly concern ’s great ice sheets , people in those areas probably witness them . Early missionaries in eastern Washington reported stories of a great flood among Yakima and Spokane tribe , who could identify locations where survivor sought refuge . An Ojibwa Indian legend from around Lake Superior tells of a great snow that fell one September at the beginning of prison term : A bag arrest the Sunday ’s heat until a shiner nibbled a jam in it . The warmth spilled over , melting the nose candy and producing a flood that rose above the tops of the highest pines . Everyone drown except for an old man who drifted about in his canoe rescuing beast . The native denizen of the Willamette Valley recount stories of a time the vale meet with water , forcing everyone to flee up a mountain before the waters receded .

This is enchanting hooey , and does hint at the idea that some deluge myths could be the neolithic equivalent of historical documentation . Read more of Montgomery ’s story at Discoverto line up out where you’re able to see the evidence for these flood , and how scientist discovered them .

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