What Graham Hancock Gets WRONG about Flood Myths

Do the world's Flood legends give testimony to a cataclysmic disaster at the end of the last Ice Age some 12,000 years ago? This analysis of the arguments of Graham Hancock may provide some answers.

Minor correction: In the video, I say that Critias says that he got the story from his ancestor Solon, but I should have said that Critias says he got the story from his ancestor Dropidas, who was a friend of Solon.

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► REFERENCES

Papers on Meltwater Pulse 1A:

Papers on Meltwater Pulse 1B:

On Deucalion:

On the Maya art depicting a Great Flood:

Professor Miano's handy guide for learning, "How to Know Stuff," is available here:

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[WorldofAntiquity]

If you liked this video, you may also enjoy these:
ANCIENT CITIES DISCOVERED UNDERWATER:
THE EARLIEST KNOWN CITIES IN THE WORLD:
GOBEKLI TEPE: A REPLY TO GRAHAM HANCOCK

[valmarsiglia]

I mean, it's not like even the most educated ancient Greeks, Mesopotamians, Mayans, or Aztecs had the vaguest concept of the actual geography of the whole world, so that if they said a flood covered the whole world, they'd obviously be referring to their own limited conception of it.

[BaronVonQuiply]

I just can't fathom how so many cultures that lived on the water all had flood stories.

...oh, right.

[twentyelectronics]

“People who live near water are bound to experience floods.” That’s exactly the point I was about to make

[helenamcginty]

I heard an African storyteller on the radio quite recently. He re told ancient stories. He commented that he added and changed bits as his father and grandfather had before him. He was amused at the idea that ancient stories are unchanged in the telling. Yet I have heard and read people who believe that oral traditions are accurate retellings of ancient stories. I know in my family alone each of us children have slightly different memories of the same occurrence.

[annepoitrineau]

I live between a river and a canal, I was flooded in 2012 and 2015. It looks "global" when it hits you and it's all you see, and you can't get out. Moreover, we had no electrics, phone, internet and in the past, it might have meant being cut off from everybody, but it was in fact quite limited.

[pwimbledon]

Never let detail get in the way of a good story. Especially if you've got a book and subsequent tour to promote.

[EdrickBluebeard]

I thought it was pretty silly to believe that an advanced civilization would just... let itself get wiped out by rising sea levels over 500 years, but then I recalled that this is the hottest year on record for the 10th consecutive years in a row and half the population believes that it is fake.

[TheFeralFerret]

Great video. I admire your seemingly infinite patience with these theories and with their proponents who seem to swarm the comments.

[Baka_Komuso]

The Great Flood occurred in my basement when I was a child when the washing machine drain hose clogged up from textile lint and water spilled on to the floor. It was extremely frightening and I have never forgotten it. So, I have a special appreciation for Mr. Hancock’s research.

[MyMy-tvfd]

the strangest thing about 'flood myths' to me was that ancient Egypt did not have one. But then I looked at it from their point of view - they had a flood every year, they completely relied upon the annual Nile flood for agriculture and life itself, so no need for a myth at all.

[JonnoPlays]

Flood stories are extremely rare in Africa because the flood myth is invented after humans left Africa, thus the flood myth backtracked back into Africa later. The channel Crecganford has a very long video about the oldest myths and which ones are the very oldest and the chronology of myths. The most ancient myth is that of the Earth Diver who dives to the bottom of an endless ocean to bring up a little dirt from the bottom to create an island. There's many variations of this myth and it's the oldest myth we know of. The process of how we know that is fascinating and is also covered on his channel. I learned a lot from this video, and I understood a lot more because I watched the videos about the early myths too.

[christophercripps]

One other thoughts:
40 mm (1.5") rise per year would be 2.5 feet (>630 mm) in a 20 year period. Thus in a person's lifetime they would remember the sandbars, causeways & swamps or drowned forests no longer extent since their youth. A parent passing on tales heard from a grandparent of what's no longer there could be speaking of land submerged by 7+ feet over a mere 60 years - "living memory." After a few more generations of the story who knows what details get lost & which embellished.

[underdarkness]

Asserting there was a single big worldwide flood every culture has in its memory feels like someone from 14, 000CE reading a story about the Great Fire of Rome, the Chicago Fire, (one of) the Fire(s) of London, and the line "my world's on fire, how 'bout yours" from Smash Mouth's All Star, and extrapolating this to mean there was a point the entire world burst into flames.

[luborpetrik]

It would be absolutely amazing having Mr. Miano debating Mr. Hancock and Mr. Carlson on Joe Rogan :) Epic podcast to die for

[latetotheparty]

I have an alternate history promoter in my family. He’s published(not peer reviewed), was frequently interviewed on the radio(he’s in his late nineties now, he’s cooled his interviewing jets), and my cousins and I have come to the realization: he will be the great one in the family, while us normies will soon be forgotten.
The myth of Atlantis is not a myth. It’s the story told by one individual. I ask those who follow Hancock, name one thing he has promoted that has forwarded science or academia. Just one. I used to be a fan until I discovered archaeology is more fascinating than he suggests. Since I first read Hancock, tens of thousands of papers have been published in archaeological journals, and he never says, just last week I was reading a research paper that says…. I don’t think he’s keeping up with any research except that which corroborate his premises. Academic research is not easy, and can be expensive. Access to research means you have to pay exorbitant subscriptions to online journals to access abstracts. You could also go to a university and access the abstracts, it takes time, parking is expensive. I go to my alma matter to research these journals. Then, these papers are not dumbed down for those who haven’t been schooled in nomenclature and standards of practice. It’s easier to research using Google—you’ll get Hancock and his ilk. It takes 20 minutes to grasp what Hancock purports, but years to obtain a scholarly degree. It’s not done in 20 minutes.
What still amazes me is how much Hancock gets wrong. I think much of the popularity of “alternativism” is due to so many journalists misunderstanding science. Hancock was a journalist, here he is misunderstanding. Journalists report over and over that scientists debate humanity’s part in climate change, for instance.

[hanxor]

I was born in Vietnam and we have epic floods. There's something called the 100 year flood that even the government preps for. My family's lost river front land for centuries due to the delta widening. I hold to the overall theory that meteors were the cause the the sudden transformation of ice to liquid. The amount of meteor "close calls" we have daily is terrifying to do the math. I can't imagine, within the last 25, 000 years, a mateor or two hasn't struck parts of the globe. I truly hope field technology gets better so we can explore our oceans more!

[sfjarhead]

When going after the Big Daddy of alt history, you'll need many more specific citations than he himself uses. Well stated, and well done.

[asukaever]

Early inhabitants lived near rivers (Nile, Indus, Amazon, Yangzi, etc.) and flooding was usual. Since their scope of the world" was within their village/town, their being destroyed by the river flooding as catastrophic. It is like a kid having his/her apple stolen. It is life-threatening event to the kid.

[duke_hugo]

I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.

Even in modern Australia we have poems about floods. My conclusion. Noah was a 19th century Australian.