The Biblical account exactly matches archaeology,
qualitatively, with only a slight
quantitative discrepancy in dating. The precise sequence of events described in Genesis appears "in the ground", with:
- Adam & Eve in Eden representing ancient prehistoric Natufian "meso-lithic" hunting & gathering (HG) when the land provided for its few human inhabitants
- Cain & Enoch building cities representing the initial transition to Ubaid "neo-lithic" farming with the first sedentary settlements
- Lamech & Tubal-Cain smelting the first metals reflecting the transition to the Uruk "chalco-lithic" copper & bronze age with its onset of organized warfare & violence
- Noah & Flood reflecting the Jemdet-Nasr period about 3000 BC
The
Jemdet-Nasr period reflects the end of the "Halocene Climatic Optimum" (HCO) when worldwide temperatures were warmer than today. The climate cooled after
3000 BC, shifting Monsoon weather patterns, denying rain to northern Africa and causing deserts to spread across that region & encroach upon the Nile.
The Flood story of Noah sounds exactly like a tropical southern or southeastern Asian monsoon season, when it rains regularly for months on end and often precipitates large-scale flooding. And, the end of the HCO
circa 3000 BC shifted the Monsoons. Archaeologists have already found evidence of a
significant flooding of the Tigris-Euphrates Mesopotamian flood plain about
3000-2900 BC.
Western Russia evidently became inhospitable, because the early proto-Indo-Europeans immigrated into Europe
en masse at this time, witnessed archaeologically as the abrupt transition to the Beaker culture across the continent. Marija Gimbutas & Joseph Campbell describe this influx of "Aryans" as akin to an invasion of "old Europe" (Neolithic farming culture of Europe).
If there really was a massive climatic shift at that time, one which ultimately dumped rain on Iraq for months on end until the Tigris & Euphrates flooded far & wide across the well-known Iraqi "flood plain"... then the "Aryans" were "climate refugees". The (summer) Monsoons are driven by the central Asian deserts heating up, causing the atmosphere to rise up, and drawing in moist air masses from over the Indian & Pacific oceans. If there was some sort of desertification of the Aral sea region, the Monsoons might have shifted, flowing north & west up the Persian Gulf, dumping huge volumes of precipitation on Iraq, amidst a strong & persistent southerly wind.
That could have flooded Mesopotamia, and blown Noah's ark northward until it bobbed up against & grounded upon the mountains of northern Iraq.
There might be archaeological evidence of the Flood, in the form of a massive silt deposit, laid down in a single year, when the Flood waters slowly receded back into the Persian Gulf.
_______________________________
'
Eden plausibly locates to the now-indundated northern reaches of the Persian Gulf, which was as yet dry land in about
6500-6000 BC, according to science. That is really pretty close to the Biblical dating, of
5500 BC. Please please note, that that discrepancy, is almost exactly the same as that between "calibrated
vs. uncalibrated radiocarbon years Before Present" -- perhaps suggesting an easy rectification of the two dates?
The rising ocean levels which flooded the Persian Gulf easily explain the Biblical memory that "God expelled Adam & Eve from Eden".
