The Black Sea flood question : changes in coastline, climate and human settlement

Stimulated by "Noah's Flood Hypothesis" proposed by W. Ryan and W. Pitman in which a catastrophic inundation of the Pontic basin was linked to the biblical story, leading experts in Black Sea research (including oceanography, marine geology, paleoclimate, paleoenvironment, archaeology, and linguistic spread) provide overviews of their data and interpretations obtained through empirical scientific approaches. Among the contributors are many East European scientists whose work has rarely been published outside of Cyrillic. Each of the 35 papers marshals its own evidence for or against the flood hypothesis. No summary or overall resolution to the flood question is presented, but instead access is provided to a broad range of interdisciplinary information that crosses previously impenetrable language barriers so that new work in the region can proceed with the benefit of a wider frame of reference. The three fundamental scenarios describing the late glacial to Holocene rise in the level of the Black Sea--catastrophic, gradual, and oscillating--are presented in the early pages, with the succeeding papers organized by geographic sector: northern (Ukraine), western (Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria), southern (Turkey), and eastern (Georgia and Russia), as well as three papers on the Mediterranean. The volume thus brings together eastern and western scholarship to share research findings and perspectives on a controversial subject. In addition, appendices are included containing some 600 radiocarbon dates from the Pontic region obtained by USSR and western laboratories.

Victor R. BakerJames W. Murray and Keith Stewart and Steven Kassakian and Marta Krynytzky and Doug DiJuliDaniela Basso and Cesare CorselliAlexander V. Kislov and Pavel M. ToropovWilliam B.F. RyanAndrei L. ChepalygaValentina V. Yanko-HombachPavel N. Kuprin and Valentin M. SorokinValery I. ShmuratkoYuri ShuiskyViktor P. ChabaiPavel M. Dolukhanov and Konstantin K. ShilikCarlos E. CordovaDavid W. AnthonyVladimir N. StankoNicolae Panin and Irina PopescuEvgeny G. KonikovGilles Lericolais and Irina Popescu and Francois Guichard and Speranta-Maria Popescu and Laurence ManolakakisMariana Filipova-MarinovaPeter Ian Kuniholm and Maryanne W. Newton and Bernd KromerValentin A. Dergachev and Pavel M. DolukhanovDouglass W. BaileyYucel YilmazHayrettin KoralOya Algan and Mustafa Ergin and Seref Keskin and Erkan Gokasan and Bedri Alpar and Demet Ongan and Elmas Kirci-ElmasVural Yavuz and Naki Akcar and Christian SchluchterMehmet OzdoganDwight F. Coleman and Robert D. BallardOwen P. DoonanIgor P. BalabanovAlexander Yu. Glebov and Sergey K. Shel'tingJohanna NicholsKurt Lambeck and Dorit Sivan and Anthony PurcellArie S. IssarAvraham RonenIgor P. BalabanovValentina Yanko-Hombach

Preface	p. xi
Introduction	p. xix
List of contributors	p. xxv
General
1 Oxic, suboxic, and anoxic conditions in the Black Sea	p. 1
2 Molluscan paleoecology in the reconstruction of coastal changes	p. 23
3 Climate modeling results for the Circum-Pontic Region from the late Pleistocene to the mid-Holocene	p. 47
Principal Flood Scenarios
4 Status of the Black Sea flood hypothesis	p. 63
5 The Marmara Sea Gateway since - 16 ky BP: non-catastrophic causes of paleoceanographic events in the Black Sea at 8.4 and 7.15 ky BPRichard N. Hiscott and Ali E. Aksu and Peta J. Mudie and Michael A. Kaminski and Teofilo Abrajano and Dogan Yasar and Andre Rochon\|p89
6 The late glacial great flood in the Ponto-Caspian basin	p. 119
7 Controversy over Noah's Flood in the Black Sea: geological and foraminiferal evidence from the shelf	p. 149
Research in the Northern Sector
8 On the post-glacial changes in the level of the Black Sea	p. 205
9 The post-glacial transgression of the Black Sea	p. 221
10 Climate dynamics, sea-level change, and shoreline migration in the Ukrainian sector of the Circum-Pontic Region	p. 251
11 The Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic in the northern Black Sea region	p. 279
12 Environment, sea-level changes, and human migrations in the northern Pontic area during late Pleistocene and Holocene times	p. 297
13 Holocene Mediterranization of the southern Crimean vegetation: paleoecological records, regional climate change, and possible non-climatic influences	p. 319
14 Pontic-Caspian Mesolithic and Early Neolithic societies at the time of the Black Sea flood: a small audience and small effects	p. 345
15 Fluctuations in the level of the Black Sea and Mesolithic settlement of the northern Pontic area	p. 371
Research in the Western Sector
16 The northwestern Black Sea: climatic and sea-level changes in the Late Quaternary	p. 387
17 Sea-level fluctuations and coastline migration in the northwestern Black Sea area over the last 18 ky based on high-resolution lithological-genetic analysis of sediment architecture	p. 405
18 Water-level fluctuations in the Black Sea since the Last Glacial Maximum	p. 437
19 Archaeological and paleontological evidence of climate dynamics, sea-level change, and coastline migration in the Bulgarian sector of the Circum-Pontic Region	p. 453
20 Dendrochronology of submerged Bulgarian sites	p. 483
21 The Neolithization of the north Pontic area and the Balkans in the context of the Black Sea floods	p. 489
22 Holocene changes in the level of the Black Sea: Consequences at a human scale	p. 515
Research in the Southern Sector
23 Morphotectonic development of the southern Black Sea region and the Bosphoms channel	p. 537
24 Sea-level changes modified the Quaternary coastlines in the Marmara region, northwestern Turkey: What about tectonic movements?	p. 571
25 Sea-level changes during the late Pleistocene-Holocene on the southern shelves of the Black Sea	p. 603
26 The frozen Bosphorus and its paleoclimatic implications based on a summary of the historical data	p. 633
27 Coastal changes of the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara in archaeological perspective	p. 651
28 Submerged paleoshorelines in the southern and western Black Sea-Implications for inundated prehistoric archaeological sites	p. 671
29 New evidence for the emergence of a maritime Black Sea economy	p. 697
Research in the Eastern Sector
30 Holocene sea-level changes of the Black Sea	p. 711
31 Sea-level changes and coastline migrations in the Russian sector of the Black Sea: Application to the Noah's Flood Hypothesis	p. 731
32 Language dispersal from the Black Sea region	p. 775
Research in the Mediterranean
33 Timing of the last Mediterranean Sea-Black Sea connection from isostatic models and regional sea-level data	p. 797
34 Climatic changes in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Last Glacial Maximum to the late Holocene	p. 809
35 Climate, sea level, and culture in the Eastern Mediterranean 20 ky to the present	p. 819
Appendices	p. 833
Appendix 1 Table of Radiocarbon Dates from USSR Sources	p. 835
Appendix 2 Table of Radiocarbon Dates from USSR and non-USSR Sources	p. 861
Appendix 3 Programs from October-November, 2003, conferences	p. 879
Author Index	p. 889
Subject Index	p. 923
Taxonomic Index	p. 963

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