[Tuna-Fish]

The story in the Vedas probably has the same origin as the Mesopotamian flood myths. The oldest surviving Akkadian and Sumerian references to the flood precede and are pretty close in time to the Aryan expansion to the Indian subcontinent, and the Mesopotamian cities had long-lasting trade, cultural and military links to the peoples living in the Iranian plateau.

I love speculating on the origin of the flood myths. My personal favorites are long-lasting oral traditions about the Black Sea flood and the Persian Gulf flood, both of which were rapid, catastrophic large-scale floods of large areas that were previously settled by humans. Sadly, the true origin is probably a lot more banal -- the oldest surviving fragmentary literary evidence refers to the specific city that flooded, Shuruppak, or modern Tell Fara. There is indeed a significant flood layer there (60cm of alluvial sand!) at about the right time (2900BC), but this was left by a normal river avulsion that created a violent but local flood.

[Zancarius]

Have you ever read John Walton's "The Lost World of the Flood?" Admittedly he coauthored it with Tremper Longman, so different views are presented in the text, but I'm currently working through it. It's quite interesting and makes a good companion to his book "Lost World of Genesis One."

Some things just off the top of my head: Much of the story is probably a polemic (or has polemical qualities), it ties into the Genesis 6:4 Watcher theology (and much of the Second Temple period literature on the subject), and... the description of the ark has some translational issues that we rarely touch on. In particular, we have no idea what "gopherwood" is. Or if it's even a wood. Most probably it was thatching.

[thaumasiotes]

>The oldest surviving Akkadian and Sumerian references to the flood precede and are pretty close in time to the Aryan expansion to the Indian subcontinent, and the Mesopotamian cities had long-lasting trade, cultural and military links to the peoples living in the Iranian plateau.

Note that the oldest attested Indic people lived to the west of the Iranian plateau. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni

[cryptonector]

It could have been the asteroid hit to the Michigan ice sheet that set off the Younger Dryas period. That hit sent enormous ice boulders flying which hit all over the U.S. creating the "Carolina bays", and which may also have hit the Atlantic and send huge waves over northeastern Africa.