Is There Any TRUTH to Flood Myths?

All over the world different cultures have similar stories about floods. Could there be a reason for this? Today we look at several cases of legendary flood myths from the past and try to find if there could be any truth to them. From the biblical flood featuring Noah and his ark all the way to Chinese emperor who could redirect water, we've got a lot to talk about!

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[joshhumphreys]

Aboriginal stories tell of when the coast of Australia was many miles further out to sea, their culture definitely remembered the time of lower sea levels.

[misseli]

I've always been fascinated by stories that are common across cultures, including cultures that wouldn't come into contact with one another for several millennia

[Belboz]

Doggersland is interesting... During it's day it was a river delta where the Thames, Danube, and Seine all confluenced into one large river valley. It would've been extremely lush and fertile, with all kinds of things living there such as lions and rhinos.

*Most* of the inundation was gradual as you said, but around 6kya there were still a lot of remaining islands where people still lived. Then the thawing permafrost over in Norway caused a massive landslide, resulting in a megatsunami which wiped out all the remaining islands and would've gone at least 10-20' up over the shores of the British Isles. Even in Elizabethan England living near the sea was considered "bad luck" and you'll notice most ancient cities of England weren't built along the coat. I believe this "bad luck" myth sprung out of a cultural scar left by that event... Nobody knows how many people were washed out to sea, how many towns and villages wiped off the map, but it's quite possible people living a bit higher up in elevation had a good view of the destruction and retold the story to future generations.

My own paternal DNA comes from a group of people who arrived in the British Isles around the same time, and it's believed that they came from Doggersland for that reason.

[Lupinemancer]

Ragnarok in Norse Myth also ends in a great flood. Just in case you didn't know.

[kmmndr_kn]

"Whether a culture could remember an experience like this for so long is still up for debate." Not in Australia. I live on Wurundjeri country, a 27, 000 year old Nation that still has the song lines, maps in song, from Melbourne to Tasmania from before the waters rose 12, 000 years or so ago.

[mitchellskene]

I always figured flood myths were just mythological retellings of the ending of the last major glacial period, when coastlines disappeared, and people were pushed more inland. And yes cultures can remember things that go that far back, if it's in their oral traditions

[TboneI]

You should cover the recently discovered Greenland meteorite that supposedly impacted near the north west Greenland ice sheet causing huge glacial melting and rapidly raising sea levels. This impact is pegged by scientists right at 13000 - 12800 years ago which coincides with many origin stories of the great flood around the world.

[Annie-hbob]

I'm from Australia and even the Aboriginals have flood myths. Interestingly shares similarities with the Genisis flood myth. I study Ancient History at Uni and last year took a Myth class, lots of cultures have very similar creation myths also. Cultures that would definitely not been influenced by one another

[tenani]

Isekai is the oldest Genre that every human seems to dig. "A flood came and transported me to another World that I have to repopulate"

[vanevenezuela]

It’s also interesting that in the Bible story about the Flood it says that water came from underneath the earth. It reminds me of that video taken during Japan’s earthquake where water was coming out of the floor due to something called liquefaction. There are different sources of water in the earth not only rain. Thanks for the information! It was very interesting.

[crashtest]

For the Eastern Mediterranean, there is also the Black Sea Deluge hypothesis. In around 5600 BC, the Black Sea may have formed from the breaching of the Istanbul land bridge, carving out the Bosphorus Strait and flooding the below sea level basin now occupied by the Black Sea.

[alecity]

you confused adriatic with tirranean sea, the one at the left of the map is the tirranean, the adriatic is at the right of the italian peninsula.

[rajbagwe]

Earlier Indians used to live in the South part of India, also called the Sangamtamil. It is said, that when the sea levels started rising, Lord Manu warned the people of the sea level rise. It's said that it was Lord Manu who guided the people up north in the Indo-Gangetic plains. He wrote a book called Manu Smriti which was a code of Laws. It was written in this book that no Indian should cross the Narmada(a river that divided North and South India).

It is said that the Vishnu's Matsya Avatar came at this point and helped Lord Manu.

[Vienna]

The Greenland meteorite that was discovered last year could have also lead to many of the flood Myths

[LongTran-yvnq]

The map at 7:45 is an absolutely amazing piece of information!

Imagine what we could find when we re-explore those sunken lands! Lost civilizations, a missing link in human evolution, ect.

That map also reminds us about our fragile existence here on Earth and how nature could totally alter our history and life as we know it...

[Tiri_the_takehe]

I think that there's an aboriginal oral myth of rising seas that's been traced back to the last ice age

[franknordbergno]

Two huge flood events you overlooked.

One is the formation of the Bosporus strait. It is likely to have cause a serious flood in the area around Black Sea and even though it is generally believed to have happened much earlier, there is a theory that it happened as late as 5, 600 B.C. It remains an unconfirmed theory but it has been suggested as the root of the flood stories both in Gilgamesh and the bible.

Another confirmed event, is the Storegga megastunami that flooded Doggerland and the coastlines around the North Atlantic c. 6, 100 B.C.

[nicholaskelly]

I saw some research that indicated that in fact the ice sheets at the end of the last Ice Age largely melted in less than 50 years. As a result the massive increase in sea level was actually a very rapid event.
Also it is worth noting that verbal oral memory is extremely strong. People like the indigenous Australian cultures amongst others have always relied on Oral Tradition.
When you think the their oral traditions go back some 40, 000 years it becomes plausible that this is the main explanation for the Flood Myth

[greekgodedess]

Literally handed in my Master's Thesis about the Flood Myth in Mesopotamian, Israelite and Greek mythology - coming across this video would have been helpful last week!

[JustArtsCreations]

very well put. id like to note just to add to this that they have recently confirmed a impact crater in Greenland dating to roughly 11-12k years(i forgot the exact date of top of my head)