The history of ancient civilizations is pieced together by studying the remains of human artifacts and structures, as well as by finding their written or oral stories. Most artifacts are found above ground, but recent discoveries of places where there had been human activity are being found 20, 30, 40, 100, or 300 feet below the present ocean surface. Some of the explanations for why former centers of human life were abandoned are probably because of natural disasters. However, another idea being considered is that ocean levels fell at the beginning of the Ice Age and then rose at the end of the Ice Age as huge numbers of glaciers and ice shelves melted and poured water into the oceans. Ocean levels may have fluctuated as much as 300 feet as a result of the Ice Age.
There is both a majority and a minority report about the Ice Age and its effects on sea levels and human history. According to the majority report, humans evolved from ape-like animals, which evolved into cave men, who evolved into the first modern humans. The Ice Age is claimed to have ended at least 10,000 years ago during the time when cave men were learning to talk, do math, make tools, and use fire, but the Ice Age and changes in sea level had little effect on these early humans. A popular theory is that some groups of humans may have walked across the Bering Straight and inhabited North America at a time when sea levels were lower than today. However, this idea is strongly challenged by some archeologists. A more recent theory is that people from Asia traveled by boats along North America’s western coastline and established colonies along the way.
This article will focus on the minority report. This report says there was only one Ice Age and it occurred as a result of two unrepeatable unique conditions, which followed a catastrophic worldwide flood (not a local flood in the Middle East, but a worldwide flood). (1) Ocean waters were warmed by many active volcanoes and cracks in the ocean floor. The warm oceans produced massive amounts of evaporated water vapor that became rain and snow. (2) Cool summers persisted in the artic zones and even into the temperate zones so that snow and ice did not completely melt from year to year. Volcanic ash in the air was a contributing cause of the cooler summers, which in turn was a cause of the continued build up of huge sheets of ice. (See Explaining the Ice Age, posted 03.09.2013, Underground Paradigm)
According to the minority report, the first humans were designed and created by God as fully mature, physically fit, genius level people. They were designed to live eternally, but even after this was lost, they continued for several generations to have long life spans.
The small group of highly intelligent people who survived the Flood lived before the Ice Age began. They understood the basics of mathematics, language, astronomy, architecture, shipbuilding, and other technologies, which they had inherited from the pre-flood civilizations. As the Ice Age began and intensified, sea levels began to become lower, exposing large areas of the Continental Shelf and islands scattered across the oceans. Nations that were skilled in ship building and navigational skills likely played a role in the early history and immigration of humans.
Their first post-flood settlement was located in a fertile land near the Mediterranean Sea. As the original settlement began to break up, pioneers moved east and west and quickly established powerful nations over the next few hundred years. Widespread north-south migration was limited by the massive and wide spread sheets of ice that formed during the Ice Age.
The minority report proposes that as the Ice Age advanced, massive ice shelves accumulated in the Polar Regions and extended as far as the Temperate Regions. This caused the ocean levels to drop significantly around the world. It also opened opportunities for the nations with navigational skills to travel across large bodies of water in search of natural resources. Travel was aided by an abundance of islands that served as places where sailors could repair and replenish supplies on their ships. Peninsulas existed in many places that are now separated by bodies of water. The distance across oceans was decreased by the lower sea levels.
The report also suggests that skilled navigators could have left the western coast of Africa aided by natural currents that brought them to the Gulf of Mexico. This area was eventually inhabited by groups such as the Mayans and Aztecs who built pyramids similar to those in Egypt. Another natural current flows from North America to Europe for their return trip. Isaiah 18:1-2 refers to a group of tall smooth-skinned people the Upper Nile who were feared for their aggressive behavior. It’s not hard to theorize that such people may have traveled from Africa to Central America by ships. It’s reasonable to theorize that colonies were established as rest points for sailors who were bringing resources back across the ocean. As the Ice Age was ending and sea levels began to steadily rise, it became harder and harder to make trips across the ocean. The people who were left on the west side of the Atlantic would have eventually been unable to return to the original homelands and were forced to make permanent homes in the Americas.
One of the differences in the two reports is the age of the artifacts that have been found. Carbon dating sometimes gives ages that are less than 2000 years old, but other times the ages are much older than that. There are two events that could explain these differences. One is the period of the Flood, when most green plants would have been destroyed. Another is the period of the Ice Age, when a large swath of green plants would have been diminished. These events would have disrupted the balance of carbon-14 in both the atmosphere and in green plants growing on the earth for a extended period of time. This would have altered the results of carbon-14 tests.
Like contemporary civilizations in Europe, Africa, and Asia, early inhabitants of North Americas built earthen pyramids from the materials that were available. Pyramids were built in a band around the earth’s tropical and temperate zones by the early inhabitants during the first thousand years after the Flood. Many of these pyramids were made of huge hewn stones following exact mathematical angles and measurements. Even when stones were not available, people tended to use whatever materials were nearby. Everywhere people built pyramids, there is a strong correlation in size, shape and orientation between the world’s early pyramids. It is significant that there is a band of pyramids that exists around the earth within the temperate and equatorial zones, built within the same millennium.
The technological and mathematical skills necessary to build complex structures and navigate the oceans casts doubt on the majority report that brute cavemen were capable to accomplishing such feats as a result. The majority report stretches the time span to several thousand years to allow for cave men to progress to modern humans capable of accomplishing these feats. However, the minority report provides a logical explanation for how early civilizations were able to build complex pyramids and other structures and travel around the world.
Is there evidence that cities and other manmade areas existed in locations that are now beneath the ocean? There is actually an abundance of such underwater structures. One of the most recent is off the shores of Manasota, Florida, where the remains of a human burial ground was found under twenty-one feet of ocean water. Other underwater structures that show evidence of centers of human activity include Doggerland (Near Great Britain), Yarmuta (near Lebonon), Alexandria near present day Alexandria, Egypt, Yonaguni Jima, Japan, and Dwarka, India. Doggertown, once a farming community, is between England and the Netherlands under forty feet of water. The sites off the shores of Lebanon and Alexandria are in more than 200-foot deep water. Found under about 75 feet of water are the remains of what appears to be a stepped pyramid and other stone structures near the island of Yonaguni Jima, Japan. It has not been determined if the pyramid was carved from a massive stone or made of individual hewn rocks. Geometric ruins in India’s Gulf of Cambay are located off the coast of modern-day Dwarka. These ruins are thought to be the more ancient city of Dwarka, which is referred to in very old Indian texts as a city that was covered by ocean water. These six sites are not the only remains of ancient human structures that are now underwater. An Internet search of “underwater cities” and “megalithic underwater structures” will reveal dozen of other sites along with photographs of the sites.
Sea level changes of this magnitude would have had a profound effect on the people living at this time. The balance of power of the civilizations that lived during the Ice Age may have been determined by those who had the skills to travel long distances on seaworthy ships. The Phoenicians, the Babylonians, and the Olmecs of Africa were all known to have excelled as sailors.
Some of the most interesting accounts of King Soloman’s reign are found in II Chronicles 8:17, 9:10, and and 9:21. King Soloman made a treaty with King Hiram of Phoenicia to trade supplies of wheat for the Phoenician’s expertise in navigating ships for long distances. They sent out fleets of ships on three-year voyages that returned with gold, silver, ivory, apes, and baboons. Although this occurred after the Ice Age had ended, it indicates that the expertise in traveling by seaworthy ships had been established years earlier.