Freda, I'm reminded of a program I saw a year or two ago about Bob Ballard's research in the Black Sea. He found archeological evidence of human occupation in what is now quite deep water. The theory is that there was a natural barrier to rising ocean levels and when the Bosporus broke through the water rushed in and over time filled the basin where the now much later Black Sea is today. (Much as when Lake Bonneville, the Great Salt Lake predecessor, rushed out and down the Snake and reshaped the Columbia.) This leads Ballard and others to speculate that such an event (people having to move hundreds of yards a day to stay ahead of the water) could lead to the story of the flood and Noah's Arc.

I mention that story and the information that is appearing now in the context that some of these early stories may also have interesting natural history connections. It is easy to imagine the habitation of a large cave with well-established formations leading to a story of an elaborate underground city. And here in the states, it is known that in places like Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, the longest cave system in the world, that every place that modern day cave explorers have traveled in that cave system, they come upon evidence of ancient exploration through or living accomodations by American Indians. There are some very large rooms in Mammoth that are still full of artifacts, but there are also lots of tunnels they traversed. There seems to have been a lot of mining activity, scraping minerals from the walls, though I don't know what that would have been used for.

Has anyone read the May 2004 Smithsonian article called "Rocking the Cradle" about an archeologist's work in Iran? The subtitle is "In Iran, an archaeologist is racing to uncover a literate Bronze Age society he believes predates ancient Mesopotamia. Critics say he may be overreaching, but they concede his dig will likely change our view of the dawn of civilization." What do you suppose an ancient city like this has contributed to human storytelling and literature about mythic places over the centuries?

Then there are the hanging coffins of the ancient Ba people in China. . .

SRS