Article:
CIESM 2004. Human records of recent geological evolution in the Mediterranean Basin: historical and archaeological evidence. CIESM Workshop Monograph n°24 (F. Briand, ed.), 152 p., CIESM Publisher, Monaco.
Author:
Gilles Lericolais, Irina Popescu, Nicolae Panin, François Guichard, Speranta-Maria Popescu, Laurence Manolakakis.
Introduction:
In 1977, Ryan & Pitman ( Ryan et al., 1977) came forward with astonishing evidence suggesting that a catastrophic flood of the Black Sea, 7,500 years ago could have played a primordial role in the spread of early farming into Europe and much of Asia. In 1999, in their book “Noah’s Flood, the new scientific discoveries about the event that changed history” (Ryan & Pitman, 1999b) this two authors stated also that this flood could have cast such a long shadow over succeeding cultures that it inspired the deluge account in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh and, in turn, the story of Noah in the Book of Genesis……….
Two recent IFREMER oceanographic surveys carried out on the north-western continental shelf of the Black Sea established that the Black sea’s lake level rises on the shelf to the least isobath – 40 to 30 m given by the landward limit of extent of Dreissena layer characteristic of freshwater conditions. This rise in freshwater level would coincide with the functioning of the Black Sea as an important catchment basin of the melt wave drained from the melting of the ice cap ensuing the Melt Water Pulse 1A from Bolling- Allerod period (Bard et al., 1990). it is possible that at that time the lake level filled by freshwater rose to the level of its outlet and spilled into the Mediterranean. However, in mid-Holocene at 7,500 y BP the onset of salt waters conditions are clearly evidenced in the Black Sea. While this hypothesis has been discussed ( Aks et al., 2002a, 2002b, 1999b, 1999c) the recent discoveries of the excellent preservation of drowned beaches, sand dunes and soils seem to bring the credibility to the Ryan and Pitman assumption.