Posted on 02/03/2022 6:16:15 AM PST by Red Badger
More than 1500 years ago, a vast culture known as the Hopewell tradition (or Hopewell culture) stretched across what is today the eastern United States.
The cause of the culture's decline has long been debated, with war and climate change two of the possibilities, but now a new avenue of inquiry has opened up: debris from a near-Earth comet.
Researchers working across 11 different Hopewell archaeological sites covering three states have found unusual concentrations of iridium and platinum in their digging – telltale signs of meteorite fragments. Meanwhile, a charcoal layer in the sediment suggests an intense period of high heat.
The hypothesis is that debris from a passing comet may have struck close to the Ohio Hopewell communities, causing an airburst that would have profound and potentially devastating effects on the local environment.
Signs that the people collected meteorite fragments and incorporated them into their jewelry and instruments, along with hints of a calamity in local folklore, suggest there was certainly some significant event – one that the researchers suggest may have contributed to a significant upheaval in the social sphere.
A magnet holding tiny micrometeorites collected from the sediment samples. (Michael Miller)
There are other clues too: the Hopewell built a comet-shaped mound near the epicenter of the meteorite rain region, which is today called the Milford Earthworks. What's more, a calamitous event way back in history is still spoken about today amongst descendant tribes.
"The Miami tell of a horned serpent that flew across the sky and dropped rocks onto the land before plummeting into the river," says anthropologist Kenneth Tankersley from the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. "When you see a comet going through the air, it would look like a large snake."
"The Shawnee refer to a 'sky panther' that had the power to tear down forests. The Ottawa talk of a day when the Sun fell from the sky. And when a comet hits the thermosphere, it would have exploded like a nuclear bomb."
The micrometeorites left behind in such events can reveal a chemical fingerprint, the researchers say.
"Cosmic events like asteroids and comet airbursts leave behind high quantities of a rare element known as platinum," Tankersley says.
"The problem is platinum also occurs in volcanic eruptions. So we also look for another rare element found in non-terrestrial events such as meteorite impact craters: iridium. And we found a spike in both iridium and platinum."
The team used techniques including scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry to identify the elements in the sediment they collected. The meteorite fragments were unusually highly concentrated compared with other locations and times.
At the same time, the material was also dated using radiocarbon and typological dating. The researchers estimate that the event took place between 252 CE and 383 CE. Historical records show that 69 near-Earth comets were documented across the same time period.
The research team on site. (Larry Sandman)
The explosion from space would have set off fires covering some 9,200 square miles (some 23,828 square kilometers), this latest study suggests.
Further studies are now planned to get a better idea of how the shower of meteorites might have impacted such a widespread area. The botanical landscape of the time can be analyzed through careful observation of the pollen trapped in sediment, for example.
However, the scientists admit that there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered – peering back through 1,500 years of history isn't particularly easy. There's plenty still to explore in these particular locations across this particular time period.
"It's hard to know exactly what happened," says paleoecologist David Lentz from the University of Cincinnati. "We only have a few points of light in the darkness. But we have this area of high heat that would have been catastrophic for people in that area and beyond."
The research has been published in Scientific Reports:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05758-y
#25 Some 1500 years from now she will be found in that pit.
Researchers will think she was a religious sacrifice....
maybe she is hiding her figure for the photo
Some time ago SC posted information that as a result of draining the Iraq marshes, a 2000 bc crater had been discovered. There seems to be a lot of termoil in the Middle East around 2000 bc. Perhaps the black mat layer you reference belongs to that same calamity that hit Iraq. There were no doubt many fatalities in the entire area surrounding that crater, which if I remember was quite large.
Not if it was over North America. They certainly did notice the long term atmospheric effects dimming the sun and the moon for 18 months, causing crop failure, starvation and possibly Justinian’s plague as hungry rats migrated and became ill from malnutrition and fleas.
Unfortunately the typical accumulation of human greed, callousness, etc. hasen’t done a thing to stop Pfizer, Bill Gates, etc. or cause their collapse. YET?
Maybe, but a meteor/comet/bolid strike in Iraq big enough to flatten and fry a couple towns in northwest jordan —would have also been big enough to flatten and fry the rest of israel and jordan. That didn’t happen.
The dates for abraham leaving Ur in what is today southern iraq was around 2000 bc or the time of the comet/meteor stike you refer to.
The story of sodom and gomorrah takes place around 1700-1800 BC
my understanding is that there was a big civilization die off from mesopotamia to egypt that killed off the ancient sumerians and old egypt. that took place over a 200 year period from 2200 -2000 bc. that’s generally attributed to drought. but its easy to imagine that a comet strike could have contributed to the downfall.
Something similar happened in the late bronze age about 1200 bc when kingdoms and empires all over the middle east collapsed. archaeologists point to several factors that did them in from earth quakes, drought and raiders.
Wow, that was a while back [rustling noise] it's around here somewhere... I think it's a post in a related topic, rather than a topic in it's own right. Paper author was, hmm, Prouty? The keyword to check (you'd have to check each topic, starting with oldest first) is curseofagade".
Probably in more than one of these.
I tried entering curseofagade which has a lot of interesting posts. Then I entered Iraq Marshes, and found a piece I had written and posted a month after I first joined FR in Dec. 2005. The articles you list in the next comment are all written or posted well before in joined FR. Also I remember you SC specifically posted the article that referenced discover of a large bolide crater found in the drained marshes and about 2000 bc. Here is what I posted then, I haven:’t explored what has happened since to the marshes.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1557199/posts
This hopeful article from August 2020 describes the Marshes after 3 years of water recovery following 4 years of drought.
https://www.positive.news/environment/how-a-disaster-zone-in-iraq-became-a-conservation-success-story/
This link from 2021 has a good map showing the extent of the marshes in 1979, and 40 years later in 2019. Saddam started action against the marshes during the Iran Iraq war of the 1980’s but greatly increased it after the 1991 Gulf War ended. [My son served in that war with the 82nd Airborne from a few days after the initial invasion of Kuwait to April 1992. Subsequently he entered Special Forces and did 2 tours in Afghanistan.] At any rate it is good to see substantial progress from a time when the marshes were over 90% destroyed.
https://reliefweb.int/map/iraq/restoring-marshlands-iraq-ecosystem-under-threat-01062021
This is one of several articles I found while Goggling Iraq Marsh Crater. In addition to explanation of how such a bolide strike might have impacted Middle Eastern civilizations, it also mentions the possibility of more worldwide strikes causing multiple strikes in Argentina, identified in another article as the Rio Cuarto crater field.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/cosmic-collision-17290
I thought they drained the marshes to drive the people who lived there out, so they could drill for oil............
Saddam destroyed the marshes because opponents were hiding in them. THere may also have been interest in oil exploration, but depriving enemies of a sanctuary was the main reason.
The Roman empire withered away more than two hundred years before the Mohammedans.
“so they could drill for oil............”
Don’t know about that but having driven all over southern Iraq I can tell you I never saw a drilling rig. However, oil bubbles out of the ground in many places and contaminates ground water and salt mining operations.
Imo the only reason the oil fields are in the north and south is because the British wanted production near export terminals for security purposes. The country is rife with oil deposits. Tribalism makes it unrecoverable.
The Hopewell worked copper.
They produced some beautiful copper artifacts, and yes, instruments. They were known to make copper pan flutes, etc.
The researchers estimate that the event took place between 252 and 383...
A bunch of keywords, including dendrochronology and Milvian Bridge, sorted, duplicates out:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.