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.com Review ----------- The Deluge of Noah has long been one of the points of tension between geology and Christianity. Scientific diluvianism--the theory that the earth's history was shaped by a universal flood--collapsed in the early 19th century, well before Charles Darwin wrote The Origin of Species ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/0517123207/${0} ). Since that time, scientists and historians have assumed that the flood story derived from local events in Mesopotamia. In 1997, geologists Walter Pitman and William Ryan proposed the first truly novel interpretation of the flood in over 150 years. Their studies of sediments in the Black Sea convinced them that the body had been a freshwater lake until about 5600 B.C. When the rising waters of the Mediterranean broke through the Bosporus, "ten cubic miles of water poured through each day, two hundred times what flows over Niagara Falls." With great intellectual daring, Pitman and Ryan have moved outside of their academic niche to suggest that this event had enormous consequences for human history. They marshal evidence from archeology, mythology, linguistics, and agriculture to describe a flood-driven diaspora of early farmers. Subsets of these people became (variously) proto-Indo-Europeans, Sumerians, Beaker People, Vincas, Tocharians--the founders of the early cultures of Europe and western Asia. --Mary Ellen Curtin Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) From Publishers Weekly ---------------------- Archeologists have long sought to prove that the great flood described in Genesis and in the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh was a historic event. Columbia University geologists Ryan and Pitman weigh in with a highly conjectural theory that seems as good as any other, if no better. Around 5600 B.C., they maintain, Noah's flood occurred when rising Mediterranean waters roared through the narrow Bosporus Strait, transforming the Black Sea, then a freshwater lake, into a bloated saltwater body. Taking a cue from Australian prehistorian Gordon Childe, who posited that Europe's first farmers came from Asia, the authors contend that the Black Sea at the time of the alleged flood was a fertile oasis, a cultural magnet where diverse peoples?farmers, animal breeders, artisans?exchanged techniques and possibly genes. They point to the sudden appearance in Europe, shortly after 5600 B.C., of "outsider" tribes, advanced farmers who, the theory goes, were fleeing the flooded Black Sea region. Other flood refugees, in this scenario, migrated to Russia's steppes, Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Middle East, preserving memory of the catastrophe in mythic and oral traditions later enshrined on clay s and ultimately in the Bible. Ryan and Pitman base their theory partly on radiocarbon dating of marine sediments that they collected in 1993 during a Black Sea expedition and partly on Ice Age climatic patterns, modern linguists' quest for a proto-Indo-European mother tongue and genetic studies of population migrations over the millennia. Their complicated detective tale is intriguing, but much more solid evidence would be required to convince skeptics. Illustrated with drawings by Anastasia Sotiropoulos and s by William Haxby. Agent, Roger Jellinek. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) From Library Journal -------------------- The lure of reconciling history and myth with scientific fact lies behind this book. Two Columbia University geologists describe mythological traditions related to great flood stories, arguing that approximately 7500 years ago a great flood inundated the Black Sea and scattered the local peoples, who started settlements elsewhere. These dispersed groups took their agricultural skills to new homes, where archaeological evidence has demonstrated the growth of agriculture and civilization. This story focuses more on geology and scientific discovery than on the human experience of a great flood. Although archaeologists were consulted, the hypothesis is supported most strongly with geological studies and would have been more convincing had an archaeologist been a coauthor. That aside, this is a well-written tale that deserves an audience. Recommended for general audiences and libraries. -?Joyce L. Ogburn, Old Dominion Univ., Norfolk, VA Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) From Scientific American ------------------------ The tale of a massive, devastating flood appears not only in the Bible but also in other ancient writings, often in similar terms, suggesting that it records a real and singularly memorable event. Ryan and Pitman, who are senior scientists at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, think the event might have been a huge and prolonged cascade of water from the Mediterranean that broke through a natural dam in the Bosporus Strait and plunged into what was then a freshwater lake and is now the Black Sea. They present both geologic and archaeological evidence for the flood, dating it at about 5600 B.C. "The Bosporus flume roared and surged at full spate for at least three hundred days," they write. The cascade inundated 60,000 square miles of land, forcing the people living in the region to disperse. The book explores the question of who those people were and where they went; it also examines the tradition of oral storytelling that could have passed the flood story from generation to generation. Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) From Kirkus Reviews ------------------- In a rare marriage of science and myth, two geologists draw on their worldwide oceanographic expeditions in search of evidence of the biblical flood. The authors first trace attempts to establish the historicity of the flood back to the work of archaeologists and scientists in the 1820s and '30s. Then, looking at the physical evidence, according to Ryan and Pitman (both geology professors at Columbia University), indicates that the cataclysm actually occurred 7,600 years ago; it consisted of the Mediterranean rising in Marmara and cing through the natural dam of the Bosporus, raising the Black Sea 280 feet in 12 months. The archaeological evidence, according to the authors, is that the resulting dispersion of the populace led to the spread of farming skills, languages, and cultures to new settlements in southern Europe, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Asia. The archaeological record is supported by studies that reveal genetic connections between modern peoples of these regions and remains found around the flood region. But Ryan and Pitman dont draw only on science, they study as well the flood stories of various cultures, from Sumer to India, contending that they remain remarkably similar despite local coloring and storytellers embellishments. These tales tell of the destruction of the world as it was then known, but they universally also offer hope of salvation, regeneration, and divine forgiveness. The authors offer clear explanations of the scientific techniques involved in gathering evidence of the flood, and couch it in a historical narrative that preserves for readers the sense of discovery and wonder experienced by scientists through the 19th and 20th centuries (somewhat oddly, in keeping with this narrative, they relate their own research in the third person). An impressive marshalling of geophysical and archaeological evidence to reconstruct the truth behind an ancient myth. (illustrations and s) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) Review ------ ...an interesting and provocative story.... a detective story that rollicks along, sweeping up everything in its path... -- The New York Times Book Review, Richard Ellis Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D. President, Institute for Exploration William Ryan and Walter Pitman's Noah's Flood is a fascinating and compelling scientific detective story. A must-read! It will definitely launch many expeditions seeking to prove it right or wrong. -- Review The flood is a fascinating story, all the better for being told by working scientists. What comes across clearly is the thrill of discovery.... Ryan and Pitman's book is a mind-expanding read. The mixture of disciplines and ways of doing science is exhilarating and paints a realistic picture of the way research works. -- New Scientist, Sue er Read more ( javascript:void(0) ) About the Author ---------------- William B. F. Ryan and Walter C. Pitman are senior scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Pitman is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and both authors have received the Shepard Medal for exemplary research in marine geology. Read more ( javascript:void(0) )