Comet Airburst Initiated Transition to Agriculture 12,800 Years Ago, Scientists Say

Science News ^ | October 16, 2023 | News Staff

[SunkenCiv]

The settlement occupants left an abundant and continuous record of seeds, legumes and other foods...

By studying these archaeological layers, Professor Kennett and colleagues were able to discern the types of plants that were being collected in the warmer, humid days before the climate changed and in the cooler, drier days after the onset of what we know now as the Younger Dryas cool period.

Before the impact, the inhabitants' prehistoric diet involved wild legumes and wild-type grains, and small but significant amounts of wild fruits and berries.

In the layers corresponding to the time after cooling, fruits and berries disappeared and their diet shifted toward more domestic-type grains and lentils, as the people experimented with early cultivation methods...

Drought-resistant plants, both edible and inedible, become more prominent in the record as well, reflecting a drier climate that followed the sudden impact winter at the onset of the Younger Dryas.

The evidence also indicates a significant drop in the area's population, and changes in the settlement's architecture to reflect a more agrarian lifestyle, including the initial penning of livestock and other markers of animal domestication.

To be clear, agriculture eventually arose in several places on Earth in the Neolithic, but it arose first in the Levant (present-day Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Israel and parts of Turkey) initiated by the severe climate conditions that followed the impact.

In the 12,800-year-old layers corresponding to the shift between hunting and gathering and agriculture, the record at Abu Hureyra shows evidence of massive burning.

The evidence includes a carbon-rich 'black mat' layer with high concentrations of platinum, nanodiamonds and tiny metallic spherules that could only have been formed under extremely high temperatures.

[PIF]

I don’t remember exactly that specific mention, but they might. Certainly, the world wide flooding (recounted all over that the world) when sea level rose 400 feet on average

[SunkenCiv]

It wouldn’t surprise me, but I don’t think so.