Re: Atlantean Mythology

Doug Weller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> On Tue, 02 Dec 2003 05:46:06 GMT, Rick Sobie wrote:
> 
> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
> >> [20 quoted lines suppressed]
> > 
> > Riiiight....
> > 
> > "The acoustic imaging has identified a nine-kilometre-long stretch 
> > of what was once a river but is now 40 metres beneath the sea. 
> > The site is surrounded by evidence of extensive human settlement. 
> > Carved wood, pottery, beads, broken pieces of sculpture and human 
> > teeth have been retrieved from along the river banks, according 
> > to a report in the Indian Express newspaper. Carbon dating of 
> > one of the wooden samples has dated the site to around 7500 BC. "
> > 
> > http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991808
<snip>

> The wood may be that old -- there are actually two dates for the wood, but
> never mind. It is simply 
> a piece of wood
> dredged off the bottom, there is
> no way to associate it with anything else.  
<snip>
> See this also:
> http://www.intersurf.com/~chalcedony/geofact.shtml

Doug:
  It's a tad more confused than that.
  The dates cited at that URL are given as age ranges,
as given in this precis, from:

Gupta, S. P., 2002, Marine Archaeological Findings in the Gulf of
Cambay, Gujarat. Indian Archaeological Society.
http://www.ias-del.org/arch/cambay.htm

 (Unfortunately, neither that link, nor the Indian Archaeological
Society homepage, is available right now.)

"The carbonised wood pieces recovered were taken up for dating 
using C14 technique in the Birbal Shahni Institute of Palaeo 
Botany, Lucknow and in National Geophysical Research Institute, 
Hyderabad. Preliminary results of the analysis of 
samples 
have revealed that the age range was between 
8150 and 7680 years before present (BP) 
(by the Birbal Shahni Institute) and 
9910-9330 years BP 
(by the National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad)." 

  Note that they refer to "samples", meaning that these might be two
different dates on two different pieces of wood.

  Taking the middle of each range, we get
7915 BP and
9620 BP.

  Using the INTCAL98 curve at:
http://www.radiocarbon.org/Journal/v40n3/editorial.html
we get approximate dates of 
6800 BC (8600 years ago) and
8600 BC (10,600 years ago).
  The first might be Hancock's 
"one giving a date of 8500 years ago"
but his
"and the other of 9500 years ago"
seems to be a confusion with 9500 BP.
  The New Scientist's 
"around 7500 BC" would match the older date of 9620 BP
if, again, there was a confusion, between 9500 BP and 9500 years ago.

  Just to be overly ambitious, I ran the two age ranges through:
http://www.calpal-online.de/

and got:

14C-age BP: 7915 ± 265 
Calendric Age calBP: 8814 ± 322 
68% range calBP: 8492 - 9136
Calendric Age calBC: 6864 ± 322

and:

14C-age BP: 9620 ± 290 
Calendric Age calBP: 10965 ± 403 
68% range calBP: 10562 - 11368
Calendric Age calBC: 9015 ± 403

  But, again, no real indication of where the New Scientist's 
"7500 BC" date came from.
  Unless maybe they confused "7500 BC" and
Ryan and Pitman's initial date of "7500 BP"
for their presumed Black Sea Flood,
and applied that number to the flooded Gulf of Cambay material.
  Easy to confuse those two, as they both refer to 
hypothetical heretofore-unknown drowned civilisations.

  So hey, re: the New Scientist's "7500 BC" date, 
anybody know wassup wit dat?

Daryl Krupa