The End of Eden

We place the "Garden of Eden" at the time of 8000 to 6000 yrs. BP (6000-4000 BC) at which time the temperature is warming culminating in an era warmer than present, when equatorial weather patterns may have reached farther north than at present, and the westerly storms of the north would have been confined to latitudes higher than at present.

Here we show the lower Tigris-Euphrates, most recently the scene of the Gulf War, beginning with the "Garden of Eden":








Drying climate, 4000 BC








Sea level rise in Gulf of Persia, 4000 BC








Irrigated society, 3500 BC








Rain storms, climatic oscillation. Millennial-scale warming terminates with a period of climatic disturbance and flooding in the lower latitudes (Nile, Arizona, Morocco, Israel, Mesopotamia), followed by a drought; general, worldwide, climate-driven shock to early societies living in "edenic" geography of plenty with "fertile crescent" survivors organizing into more centrally administered culture based on irrigation.








The Flood 3150 BC. Abrupt cooling at higher latitudes, possibly related to oceanic effects, especially in Northern Europe, corresponding to peak of megalith cultures. Probable oscillation in sea level at 3000 BC followed by 10-15 ft. alluvial deposition in river valleys.








The area today:










Copyright 1996 Kirribili Press. Return to Ignatius Donnelly and the End of the World | Love | Chronicle of the Late Holocene