Scientists Confirm Vast Catastrophe 10,800 BC

An ongoing controversy about what happened to end the last ice age in a huge catastrophe has been resolved. Something gigantic hit the Earth, leading to massive fires followed by flooding as ice sheets melted, and the extinction of huge numbers of animal species. Additionally, there is now provocative evidence that a human civilization very different from our own, but possibly quite widespread, was also destroyed. Until recently archaeologists disputed any timeline that suggested the presence of complex organized societies until about 5,000 BC. But the discovery of the Gobekli Tepi complex in Turkey, the earliest levels of which have been carbon-dated to approximately the same time as the catastrophe, indicates that a group of unknown size and complexity was able to not only engage in extensive building activities, but to do so over a period of 2,000 years, indicating that it existed far longer than any single historical civilization except ancient Egypt.

Geochemical and morphological analyses of nearly 700 spherules from 18 sites around the world support the claim that a major cosmic impact took place at the beginning of the Younger Dryas, 12,800 years ago. The impact was so significant that it left an estimated 10 million tonnes of melted spherules over 50 million square kilometers on four continents. An impact this large would certainly have been enough to end any civilization, and do it so completely that very little evidence of its existence remains.

For more information about the discovery of the extent of the impact, click here.

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Unknowncountry’s vast archive offers one of the world’s best archives of expert speculation about the lost past. Many of the great explorers of past catastrophes and their effects, such as Graham Hancock, Rand Flem-Ath, Robert Schoch and Laurence Gardner, have been interviewed on Dreamland. And don’t miss our GREAT stories about Gobekli Tepi, starting with Linda Moulton Howe’s amazing descriptions from her first hand tour of the site. To listen, click here.

The image is from the earliest level of the Gobekli Tepe site. It was created at roughly the same time that the catastrophe discussed here took place.