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...The area sits over massive fault lines whose dangers have been highlighted by a startling new scientific discipline that combines Earth science studies and analysis of ancient legends. This is geomythology, and it is transforming our knowledge of earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis, says the journal Science.

According to the discipline's proponents, violent geological upheavals may be more frequent than was previously suspected.

Apart from the 'lost' Seattle earthquake, geomythology has recently revealed that a volcano in Fiji, thought to be dormant, is active, a discovery that followed geologists' decision to follow up legends of a mountain appearing overnight...

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
Scientists using old stories to figure out which areas have had repeated disasters. What astonishes me is that they haven't been doing this long since. Did they think local myths were just complete fiction?

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[ 07 December 2005: Message edited by: Makwa ]

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Originally posted by Contrarian:
What astonishes me is that they haven't been doing this long since. Did they think local myths were just complete fiction?

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The scientists need to be able to distinguish between a description of an actual physical event and whatever explanations and significance people might attach to it afterwards.

I just read somewhere that some argue Thera's eruption could explain the 10 plagues that hit Egypt in the Old Testament [sorry I forget what website]. There was a pillar of smoke showing the Israelites what direction to take out of Egypt; the website objects that the smoke from Thera would have been in the wrong direction. But I say, what if somebody remembered that a pillar of smoke had been seen, and without caring what direction it was in, they attached the meaning that it was there as a guide for the Israelites? You cannot dismiss the possibility that the smoke from Thera was seen and remembered, though the story was distorted for the storyteller's purposes. [I have no idea if there is any valid connection between Thera/Santorini and the 10 plagues in Egypt]

[ 07 December 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

There are a massive and complex variety of ethnohistorical accounts from various FN's. I dealt with West Coast groups myself, and in some of their early oral histories, there are accounts that are suggestive of glaciers, land bridges, volcanism and refugiae, suggesting that ethnohistorical accounts from that region might (BIG *might*) extend as far back as the first settlers arriving from Siberia. BUT, proving that beyond any kind of scepticism is another matter entirely. For the record I'm quite willing to believe that some of these tales are in fact that old (and remember we're talking about tales that have lasted on the order of 10,000 years here).

Maybe there is evidence in pictographic art as well. Some prairie tribes kept winter counts, drawn on buffalo robes, with a picture of something for each year. The picture was a memory aid for a description of something memorable about every year.

After the tsunami, there was a story that on one island the people knew to run inland as soon as they saw the water being sucked out to sea before the tsunami hit; based on stories handed down of the effect of Krakatoa about 120 years before I think.

Oh yes, and there were Helge Instadt and Anne Stine, who used the sagas to help find L'Anse aux Meadows.

[ 07 December 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

[ 07 December 2005: Message edited by: Contrarian ]

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For the record I'm quite willing to believe that some of these tales are in fact that old (and remember we're talking about tales that have lasted on the order of 10,000 years here).

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For the record I'm quite willing to believe that some of these tales are in fact that old (and remember we're talking about tales that have lasted on the order of 10,000 years here).

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