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> The last major shift in drainage occurred around 8,200 years ago. The melting of remaining Hudson Bay ice caused Lake Agassiz to drain nearly completely. This final drainage of Lake Agassiz has been associated with an estimated 0.8 to 2.8 m (2.6 to 9.2 ft) rise in global sea levels. [...] A recent study by Turney and Brown links the 8,500-years ago drainage to the expansion of agriculture from east to west across Europe; they suggest that this may also account for various flood myths of prehistoric cultures, including the Biblical flood narrative. Reading things like this is very humbling. Humankind has been good at keeping records of things for the last, what? 300 years? Nearly by accident, we have successfully retained some accounts from the ancient Greeks, which were produced not even 3000 years ago. So 3000 years is a long-ass time, and really stretches our capabilities of preserving records. And this was after we invented some forms of writing, as far as I understand it. Yet historians have reason to believe that in the 5000 something years before that, humans told stories about actual great floods, passing them down one generation at a time, to a point where they still form part of our cultural heritage today? That is absolutely mind-boggling to me. Obviously, I can't tell whether or not that is actually the case, but that there's even a possibility that it is the case is just beyond me. Of course, for the generations living around 8,500 years ago, even just a 3 ft flood must have really been something if it happened all over the world at once – even if it takes multiple generations for it to reach peak levels. That I can sort of get my head around. Obviously, you talk about that with your contemporaries. But that it would have been significant enough that it would somehow make it into folklore that two hundred generations later, they still talk about it, that just... no words. |
A person who lives a long but relatively normal life might live until 70 to 90, and for the healthy and or affluent that’s been true basically forever.
Thinking about this in terms of human lifespans shrinks time a lot. I have been told stories about my great great grandparents, so even those experiences are at the fading edge of recently passed down history.
But anyway, back to thinking in terms of lifespans...
It’s only been 1 lifespan since world war 2, and only a generation (1/3 of a lifespan) more since world war 1.
It’s only been 2 lifespans since the civil war. 3 since the Napoleonic Wars. 6 since the renaissance, Columbus, and the fall of Constantinople (separate events but close in time). About 20 lifespans since the Roman Empire.
When you imagine that you yourself will live 70-90 years or more, and the changes you will see and have seen so far, and how quickly that time passes... it’s interesting to think how recently history happened.
At least for me, with this measuring stick, it only starts to sound “a long time ago” again when thinking about things like the first pyramids (2570 BC), about 57 lifespans ago. And it’s interesting to note that that far back, there were only about 14 million people on the earth.