Posted on 12/05/2012 6:09:59 AM PST by Renfield
A 200-year-long drought 4,200 years ago may have killed off the ancient Sumerian language, one geologist says.
Because no written accounts explicitly mention drought as the reason for the Sumerian demise, the conclusions rely on indirect clues. But several pieces of archaeological and geological evidence tie the gradual decline of the Sumerian civilization to a drought.
The findings, which were presented Monday here at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, show how vulnerable human society may be to climate change, including human-caused change....
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I blame Gozer the Gozerian.
“show how vulnerable human society may be to climate change, including human-caused change....”
Globull Wormists: “We can breathe life into this turd yet!”
Can they tell us what SUV’s or man caused events happened back then?
I guess global warming from all of the combustible engines they had 4200 years ago caused the drought.
A: "Bait."
That appears to be a normal climate thing around the Caribbean ~ and no SUVs.
Then, Sometime after 1541 a drought started somewhere in what is now the United States ~ or, in fact, it could have started before 1541 if we read DeSoto's diary/guidebook as indicating he and his band of explorers crossed the Great River at Leven's Worth Indiana.
It's pretty obvious there was a drought going on because the expedition traveled in open country virtually the whole way to Chicago ~ from Central Florida!
Some detailed studies have been done by archaeologists and they find evidence that pre-Colonial Virginia was in a drought that was at least 70 years in duration in the 1500s, and during that period there was a 17 year period with no precipitation at all!
Virginia's drought was in full blown splendor when Smith and crowd settled Jamestown (1609). It was 1620 before there was serious European interest in other large scale settlements ~ we may infer from that attitude that there was a water shortage along the East Coast.
What that means to the interior is just as serious ~ no water, no people! That also means the Mississippi main watershed (the Ohio Valley) was equally difficult to settle in that period ~ and the Iroquois might well have not had to kill many of them to get them to go somewhere else while they took over the region.
With the Upper reaches of the Mississippi and Missouri out of the running as reliable routes of travel, the main thrust of Spanish development would have hugged the Gulf Coast ~ which it did, and Texas ~ if they could ~ as hurricanes returned after the Great North American drought of the 1500/1600 period settlement was probably intermittent and difficult ~ which, in fact, it was, until the 1700s.
A 200 year drought in Sumer would have definitely caused some problems ~ first of all, they'd moved upstram into Turkey, and Kazan, and probably on up into Europe.
Much of the United States is at the same latitude as North Africa, Persia, the Gobi ~ and other desert regions.
Just a few years without regular replenishment with rain from Gulf hurricanes and this place returns to its natural desert state! Of course the entire Eurphrates basin is subject to the same sort of droughts.
200-year drought. What a buncha crap. Another brilliant scientist dreamed this one up.
i thought it was declining over a period of time, replaced by akkadian
Silly you. Didn't you know that SUV originally stood for "SUmerian Vehicle"??
A 200 year is possible and its occured before. Changing weather patterns etc. are perfectly natural causes
Gozer the Gozarian will come in one of the pre-chosen forms. During the rectification of the Vuldronaii, the traveler came as a large and moving Torb! Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the Meketrex Supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Sloar! Many Shubs and Zuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Sloar that day, I can tell you!
Think you're getting a little over-enthusiastic there. DeSoto probably didn't get any farther north than the MO bootheel.
Also the country he traveled thru is described as heavily populated, which no doubt explains to some extent why it was "open." Also large populations don't go along real well with desert conditions.
If Sumerian was a good language it would have survived the drought and most other catastrophies. Other competing languages must have been more efficient.
“Because no written accounts explicitly mention drought as the reason for the Sumerian demise, the conclusions rely on indirect clues.”
How rude of them not to write down why they lost their written language!
He can't be serious ...
Some interpreters of ancient texts would have it that Sumer ended after fallout from a nuclear exchange during a civil war between the Annunaki.
Not that I subscribe to it, but some of the arguments are interesting.
I wholeheartedly agree with climate change (but not global warming). My concern is for the derivation of the result. What is a drought? No water? Less water than normal? I take the latter. No water for 200 years is unprovable nonsense, imo. And don’t pull out the geological strata samples stuff, which would have to be obtained over a wide region to claim a drought that wiped out (deeply impacted) a people. I just can’t buy it.
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