Prehistoric Astronomy and the Younger Dryas Catastrophe?

Actually, after perusing this topic for a while, I've come to the idea that cometary events might well be the greatest modulator of life on Earth in general, and the rise and fall of civilizations in particular.
It would appear be so, although comets would not be able to explain, I think, a Cambrian explosion of the many different species "evolving" as if they had come custom made. Such an event may connect with the influence of other densities, although rarely observed there are glitches in our reality. The title of the book you wrote was Earth Changes and the Human-cosmic Connections and it is very meaningful, but I am wondering if one could consider the order of the words differently and read them as The Human-cosmic Connection and Earth Changes, or should we rather say The Cosmic-human connection and Earth Changes.

Below there are a couple of excerpts that helped me to think about the topic of cyclical comet cludters, and after that I will return one more time to a few calculations, as I was trying to find patterns in the flux of comets; not that I succeeded, but I tried.
(L) Now, there is a lot of talk about the imminent stockmarket crash, so I put up the financial info on the site without any specific advice. Could you comment on this potential for a major crash or depression happening this year?

A: Is there not always an "imminent" crash/depression?

Q: Of course there is! It's like the Weekly World News predicting the imminent End of the World about once a month. Eventually, they will be right! (A) Maybe not. (L) Well, another thing that was brought up in our discussion with this new gal in the mail group was that nothing of any importance of significance would happen in terms of transition on the earth for at least another thousand years or so. She was saying that we would slowly transform for the next thousand years, and there would be no cataclysms or earth changes. I am wondering if this is a new option that has come up because of changes in consciousness?

A: It may be. But remember, the "future" is merely a matter of which reality one experiences in real time, so called. It is merely which of those that exist shall the menu selectors elect?
And before that:
A: Now, for the remainder of this session, we wish to address the so called earth changes for your benefit, as you are stuck here. Those present need to be equi... [Sound anomaly on tape begins here, on second side.] ...pped to stop buying into popular deceptions once and for all! Reread Bramley.

Q: (L) Funny I took him off the shelf today... (V) What's Bramley about? (L) Well, hold on. Do you want me to read it right now?

A: No.

Q: (L) Ok, address the subject.

A: All such changes are caused by three things and three things only! 1) Human endeavors. 2) Cosmic objects falling upon or too near earth. 3) Planetary orbital aberrations.

Q: (L) All right, carry on.

A: Don't believe any of the nonsense you hear from other sources. It is designed to facilitate mass programming and deception.

Q: (L) Ok, okay.

A: Just as your bible says; "You will know not the day, nor the hour." This means there is no warning. None. No clue. No prophecy. And these events... [anomaly starts again here, briefly.] are of the "past" as well. [and ends here.]

Q: (V) What events of the past, as well?

A: Cosmic and "man made" cataclysms.

Q: (L) Well, since you put 'man-made' at the top of the list, am I to infer that perhaps some of the activities of the consortium, the secret government, are going to precipitate some of these events?

A: No.

Q: (L) Yes. Okay, is there any more that you want to say on this? Go ahead, you have the floor. Please.

A: Ask away.

Q: (L) Well, you've said that there's a comet cluster that's coming this way. Is that still correct?

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Is this body that has been called Hale-Bopp, is this that comet cluster?

A: No.

Q: (L) Is this comet cluster that's coming, and you've indicated that it could arrive anywhere between 18 years, something like that, is that correct?

A: Maybe.

Q: (L) Now, is this something that can be seen from a great way off?

A: No.

Q: (L) Is this something that's going to impact our particular immediate location, and appear suddenly, as this comet that has flown overhead just did? Nobody saw it until a very short time ago, and all of a sudden everybody sees it?

A: The cluster is a symptom, not the focus.

Q: (V) What is the focus?

A: Wave, remember, is "realm border" crossing... what does this imply? Consult your knowledge base for Latin roots and proceed.

Q: (L) So, the Latin root of realm is regimen, which means a domain or rulership or a system for the improvement of health. Does this mean that, and as I assume we are now moving into the STO realm, now, out of the STS realm?

A: Partly.

Q: (L) And also, can I infer from this, that the comet cluster exists in the other realm?

A: Partly.

Q: (L)Well, previously, you had said that the comet cluster would come before the realm border. Which indicated that the comet...

A: Yes.

Q: (L) Well, how can something so... you said it appears to be one single large body, and that our government knows that it's on it's way, and that apparently somebody has spotted it. Which direction is it coming from?

A: Direction?

Q: (L) Well, the comet cluster. That comet cluster, is, I am assuming, a real body, in third density experience, right? A part of a real cluster of bodies in third density experience. Is that correct?

A: Cluster can approach from all directions.

Q: (L) So, can I infer from what has been said, that we are going to move into this comet cluster, as into a realm?

A: Border changes rules.

Q: (L) But if we run into the comet cluster before we cross the border, then, I mean, I would understand if we were going into the realm border first...

A: Part in part out.

Q: (L) OK, is this so-called HAARP project instrumental in any of these realm border changes, these realm changes?

A: All is interconnected, as usual.
After reading your article and discovering the list of comets with a long or even very long period, what on the Wiki they call near-parabolic comets with periods ranging from a 1000 years up to millions of years. I tried to order some of them in groups according to the duration of their periods.

Below is what I found using an interval of 200 years from 1000 and up to periods of 5000 years. The left column gives the range of the period of the comets in years, and the right side gives the number of discovered comets so far with periods within the given range.
1000-1200 10
1200-1400 7
1400-1600 5
1600-1800 10
1800-2000 14
2000-2200 7
2200-2400 11
2400-2600 9
2600-2800 6
2800-3000 3
3000-3200 2
3200-3400 7
3400-3600 5

3600-3800 2
3800-4000 9
4000-4200 4
4200-4400 2
4400-4600 2
4600-4800 1
4800-5000 2
If one considers that the window of reliable and comprehensive observation of comets is maybe a 20, 30, 50, 100, or 150 years one could extrapolate from the samples. If we say the window is 100 years, and there is equal distribution within the field, which is probably not the case, but if we pretend, then 100year/1000 years-100 years/1200 year is 10 % to 8.33 %. If there are 10 comets in this interval so far, then we should be able to find another about 90-130 comets in total with a period of a 1000 to 1200 years. The longer the period we consider, the smaller the presently discovered sample is relative to the length of the period. For example, if we look at the period from 3800-4000, then we find 9 comets, but our window of observation is just the same 100 years, so really we have only sampled 100/4000 of the period or about 2.5 % which is not much, but if we dare to think we have hit the average frequency then we should be able to find about 350 comets with periods of 3800-4000 years.

Zooming in on comets with periods from 3000-4000 years there was this distribution. What I have done is making the window 100 years long instead of 200 years.
3000-3100 0
3100-3200 2
3200-3300 4
3300-3400 3
3400-3500 0
3500-3600 5
3600-3700 2
3700-3800 0
3800-3900 7
3900-4000 2
4000-4100 2
4100-4200 2
One possibility is that just like there are meteor streams there are also comet streams, and not only the 3600 year cycle. In a meteor streams there are also the early birds followed by the peak shower. A similar pattern may play out with the comet clusters. A question is of course if there have been early birds from the 3600 year cycle and which ones, would any the ones we find in the Wiki list be among them? Or should we look into a more professional and updated list? On this page there should be a list of more than 3000 comets if one is able to configure ones system to make the program work. I couldn't do that yet, but the link is here, if anyone would like to try: Ephemerides

Another possibility is that the 3600 year cluster, if it can come from all directions, as it is said in the transcript could be the result of cosmic pulse or at least a pulse in the solar system, just like the beat of a heart. that affects the whole system. If this is the case, then trying to find patterns in the periods of discovered comets could be a waste of time. It is also possible there is a combination of different patterns like in large waves arising from constructive interference.

In the table of discovered long term comets, one will find periods like 3403179.42 years. I have not read the papers, but I would think an accuracy of a millions year long period down to the last week give and take four days is exaggerated. Indeed one could possibly question the accuracy of periods for comets that move into areas of the solar system that are little known and poorly understood, because if the distance from the Sun to Pluto varies between approximately 30-50 AU or astronomical units, each of which is 1.495978707×10^11 m. and the average distance of long term comets in the 3600 year range is around 230-250 AU on average, then these comets with orbits that are near-parabolic with eccentricities near one, move far, far beyond the orbit of Pluto. The times for the orbits would probably only be accurate if there are no major centers of gravity outside the known outer planets.

After getting this far, I found some papers that deal with the concept of comet clusters, also called comet showers, perhaps a play on meteor showers. There were also articles on mass extinctions, the role of massive stars, small stars and giant molecular clouds. I ordered them by year; it was a bit tedious, but in the process it was like opening a window to the far out areas of the Solar system from where the future comes, a bit frightening, but also grand.

Title: Comet showers and the steady-state infall of comets from the Oort cloud
Authors: Hills, J. G.
Journal: Astronomical Journal, vol. 86, Nov. 1981, p. 1730-1740.


Davis, M., Hut, P. & Muller, R. Extinction of species by periodic comet showers.Nature 308, 715–717 (1984) doi:10.1038/308715a0

Whitmire, D., Matese, J. Periodic comet showers and planet X. Nature 313, 36–38 (1985) doi:10.1038/313036a0

TIDAL GRAVITATIONAL FORCES: THE INFALL OF 'NEW' COMETS AND COMET SHOWERS
1985 Author(s): Morris, D.E. Muller, R.A


Kerr, Richard A. "Periodic extinctions and impacts challenged; critics are attacking the evidence that comet showers have caused periodic extinctions." Science, vol. 227, 1985, p. 1451+. Gale OneFile: Health and Medicine, Accessed 4 Dec. 2019.

Title: Dynamical Evolution of Cometary Showers
Authors: Hut, P. & Weissman, P. R.
Journal: Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 17, p.690
Bibliographic Code: 1985BAAS...17Q.690H

Mass extinctions, crater ages and comet showers.
Shoemaker, Eugene M.; Wolfe, Ruth F.

Icarus Volume 65, Issue 1, January 1986, Pages 1-12
Tidal gravitational forces: The infall of “new” comets and comet showers
Author links open overlay panel D.E.MorrisR.A.Muller

https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(86)90059-X

Hut, P., Alvarez, W., Elder, W. et al. Comet showers as a cause of mass extinctions. Nature 329, 118–126 (1987) doi:10.1038/329118a0

Icarus Volume 70, Issue 2, May 1987, Pages 269-288
The frequency and intensity of comet showers from the Oort cloud
Author links open overlay panelJuliaHeisler∗∗∗ScottTremaine∗∗∗†1CharlesAlcock∗∗∗1

https://doi.org/10.1016/0019-1035(87)90135-7

M. E. Bailey, D. A. Wilkinson, A. W. Wolfendale, Can episodic comet showers explain the 30-Myr cyclicity in the terrestrial record?, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 227, Issue 4, August 1987, Pages 863–885, Can episodic comet showers explain the 30-Myr cyclicity in the terrestrial record?

SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Title: Structure of Oort's comet cloud inferred from terrestrial impact craters
Authors: Stothers, R. B.
Journal: The Observatory, vol. 108, p. 1-9 (1988)
Bibliographic Code: 1988Obs...108....1S


Title: Geological and Astronomical Evidence For Comet Impact and Comet Showers During the Last 100 Million Years
Authors: Shoemaker, E. M.
Journal: Abstracts for the International Conference on Asteroids, Comets, Meteors 1991. Held June 24-28, 1991, in Flagstaff, AZ. Sponsored by Barringer Crater Company, the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Lowell Observatory, Meteor Crater Enterprises, Inc., NASA, the Northern Arizona University, and the U. S. Geological Survey. LPI Contribution 765, published by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, 3303 Nasa Road 1, Houston, TX 77058, 1991, p.199
Bibliographic Code: 1991LPICo.765..199S

Fernández, J. (1992). Comet Showers. Symposium - International Astronomical Union, 152, 239-254. doi:10.1017/S0074180900091233 Found on Comet Showers | Symposium - International Astronomical Union | Cambridge Core which besides an abstract lists a bibliography


Icarus Volume 116, Issue 2, August 1995, Pages 255-268
Periodic Modulation of the Oort Cloud Comet Flux by the Adiabatically Changing Galactic Tide
Author links John J.Matese Patrick G.Whitman Kimmo A.Innanen Mauri J.Valtonen

https://doi.org/10.1006/icar.1995.1124


Geochemical Evidence for a Comet Shower in the Late Eocene
K. A. Farley*, A. Montanari, E. M. Shoemaker, C. S. Shoemaker
Science 22 May 1998:
Vol. 280, Issue 5367, pp. 1250-1253
DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5367.1250


Matese J.J., Whitman P.G., Whitmire D.P. (1998) Oort Cloud Comet Perihelion Asymmetries: Galactic Tide, Shower or Observational Bias?. In: Yabushita S., Henrard J. (eds) Dynamics of Comets and Asteroids and Their Role in Earth History. Springer, Dordrecht
DOI Oort Cloud Comet Perihelion Asymmetries: Galactic Tide, Shower or Observational Bias?


Periodic Comet Showers, Mass Extinctions, and the Galaxy
Rampino, M. R.; Stothers, R. B.
Publication: Catastrophic Events and Mass Extinctions: Impacts and Beyond, p. 175
Pub Date: January 2000 Bibcode: 2000cem..conf..175R


Title: Variations of the Oort cloud comet flux in the planetary region
Authors: Mazeeva, O. A. & Emel'Yanenko, V. V.
Journal: In: Proceedings of Asteroids, Comets, Meteors - ACM 2002. International Conference, 29 July - 2 August 2002, Berlin, Germany. Ed. Barbara Warmbein. ESA SP-500. Noordwijk, Netherlands: ESA Publications Division, ISBN 92-9092-810-7, 2002, p. 445 - 448
Bibliographic Code: 2002ESASP.500..445M


SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)
Title: Oort Cloud Formation and Dynamics
Authors: Dones, L., Weissman, P. R., Levison, H. F., & Duncan, M. J.
Journal: Star Formation in the Interstellar Medium: In Honor of David Hollenbach, Chris McKee and Frank Shu, ASP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 323. Edited by D. Johnstone, F.C. Adams, D.N.C. Lin, D.A. Neufeld, and E.C. Ostriker. San Francisco: Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2004., p.371
Bibliographic Code: 2004ASPC..323..371D



The Role of Giant Molecular Clouds in the Evolution of the Oort Comet Cloud
Solar System Research, 2004, Volume 38, Number 4, Page 325
O. A. Mazeeva



Publication: American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #39, id.4.02
Pub Date: May 2008 Assessing the Threat of Oort Cloud Comet Showers
Kaib, Nathan A.; Quinn, T.

Icarus Volume 214, Issue 1, July 2011, Pages 334-347
The key role of massive stars in Oort cloud comet dynamics
Author links open overlay panel M.Foucharda Ch.Froeschléb H.Rickmancd G.B.Valsecchie

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2011.04.012
From the abstract:
The effects of a sample of 1300 individual stellar encounters spanning a wide range of parameter values (mass, velocity and encounter distance) are investigated. Power law fits for the number of injected comets demonstrate the long range effect of massive stars, whereas light stars affect comets mainly along their tracks. Similarly, we show that the efficiency of a star to fill the phase space region of the Oort cloud where the Galactic tides are able to inject comets into the observable region – the so-called “tidally active zone” (TAZ) – is also strongly dependent on the stellar mass.


The role of large and small cometary showers in the changes of living conditions on the Earth
Churyumov, K. I.; Steklov, A. F.; Vidmachenko, A. P.; Dashkiev, G. N.; Stepahno, I. V.; Steklov, E. A.; Slipchenko, A. S.; Romaniuk, Ya. O.
Materials of the International scientific-practical conference devoted to the 100th anniversary of astrophysicist I.S. Shklovskii "The problems of modern astronomy and method of its teaching." 6-8 October 2016 Glukhiv, Ukraine. - Sumy, LLC "Publishing house" Eldorado", 2016. - 128 p.

The Late Eocene Earth: Hothouse, Icehouse, and Impacts
Edited by Christian Koeberl, Alessandro Montanari

(Found on Google books)
See also https://www.researchgate.net/public...se_Icehouse_and_Impacts_The_Late_Eocene_Earth

Relating this list of papers to the calculations of the distribution of the frequencies of discovered long period comets, I return to the impression that there ought to be more than one comet shower. What is it that has made the 3600 year cycle special? And coming from all sides? But perhaps there is no need to brood over the question too hard because: A: The cluster is a symptom, not the focus.
 
Actually, after perusing this topic for a while, I've come to the idea that cometary events might well be the greatest modulator of life on Earth in general, and the rise and fall of civilizations in particular.

It would appear be so, although comets would not be able to explain, I think, a Cambrian explosion of the many different species "evolving" as if they had come custom made. Such an event may connect with the influence of other densities, although rarely observed there are glitches in our reality. The title of the book you wrote was Earth Changes and the Human-cosmic Connections and it is very meaningful, but I am wondering if one could consider the order of the words differently and read them as The Human-cosmic Connection and Earth Changes, or should we rather say The Cosmic-human connection and Earth Changes.

That's an interesting question. Which came first the chicken or the egg? From what I understand it is a 2-way street. Cosmic chaos worsen the human state and the human state affects the cosmic environment.

In any case, about the Cambrian explosion, and more generally "evolution" explosions, it is peculiar to notice that the 28 million year cycle (Nemesis and its cometary swarm) triggered mass extinctions that were followed by the apparition of more complex forms of life.

We can witness this phenomenon, for example, during the Eoceone-Oligocene (E-O) boundary (ca. 33 MY BP according to official science and attributed, at least partly, to cometary bombardments) numerous Eocene species got extinct and "replaced" by the more complex Oligocene fauna.

Even more open landscapes allowed animals to grow to larger sizes than they had earlier in the Paleocene epoch 30 million years earlier. Marine faunas became fairly modern, as did terrestrial vertebrate fauna on the northern continents. This was probably more as a result of older forms dying out than as a result of more modern forms evolving.
Source

Similar pattern at the Cretaceous - Paleogene (K-Pt) boundary (ca. 66 MY BP according to official science and attributed by some researchers to the Chicxulub impact) where numerous Cretaceous species got extinct and "replaced" by the more complex Paleogene fauna

The Paleogene is most notable for being the time during which mammals diversified from relatively small, simple forms into a large group of diverse animals in the wake of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event that ended the preceding Cretaceous Period.
Source

If major cometary impacts trigger jumps in terms of life complexity, the question is: "how?" One possible mechanism is cometary-borne virus. The presence of organic material is now hypothesized by mainstream science. And we know that viruses can transfer DNA to their hosts.

Are major cometary impacts, the window of opportunity the "4D engineers of life" use to remove obsolete prototypes and to introduce more elaborate prototypes via the new DNA codes carried by the accompanying viruses?

Comet-borne viruses might be only one of the action mechanisms. Major cometary events might also induce energetic/radiative changes, bleedthoughs, new connections with the information field. Those modifications being potentially conducive to the "apparition" of new forms of life.
 
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FWIW, a research geologist, Summer Praetorius (USGS profile) posted the following on Twitter but then subsequently removed the tweet! :huh:

8da75f447f297a01f4b4c74b688e074f.png

Link to her blog and her listed publications.
 
Comet-borne viruses might be only one of the action mechanisms. Major cometary events might also induce energetic/radiative changes, bleedthoughs, new connections with the information field. Those modifications being potentially conducive to the "apparition" of new forms of life.

Some woowoo specultation here, because the latest article delivered a hard punch in the stomach so to speak. The cyclic nature of these reset catastrophes, in terms of years, and given the coupling of human psyche with cosmic event, gives the impression that humanity's fate is sealed and inescapable. No matter what, every 3600 solar years (or/and other longuer cycles) or so, things go down very badly and a cosmic spanking is in order. It is possible however, that maybe from a cosmic point of view, "human time" in terms of information processing and knowledge (including whatever happens physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually on the individual and collective levels) flows differently (time is short when nothing happens and long when there is a lot of activity) and that the incarnational process kind of synchronizes human and nature times so to speak.
 
FWIW, a research geologist, Summer Praetorius (USGS profile) posted the following on Twitter but then subsequently removed the tweet! :huh:
I looked at her profile and her work. She received her Ph.D in 2014, so fairly young. Her activity on Twitter is limited, or like now she removes a tweet when she for some reason no longer wishes it to be there. From earlier Tweets I gather she is of the opinion that abrupt climate changes are possible.

One notices in the picture you posted that there were 6 responses to her Tweet and 7 retweets. I tried a couple of ways to move from there, and picked one of her followers hoping that was one of those who had retweeted, but no luck, as there were 97 more, I gave up. Then I tried #YoungerDryas, and voila I found a retweet that was still up:

1575535695808.png
The link to Cosmic Tusk were the original text in the Tweet is posted is: Praetorious investigating "mysterious" Younger Dryas materials - The Cosmic Tusk

On Cosmic Tusk one also finds links like:
2019 AGU abstract supports Younger Dryas "exacerbated" by cosmic impact - The Cosmic Tusk

While looking into the work of Praetorius I also found an article of peripheral interest: Ancient soil from secret Greenland base suggests Earth could lose a lot of ice

Ancient soil from secret Greenland base suggests Earth could lose a lot of ice
By Paul VoosenOct. 29, 2019 , 6:00 P
BURLINGTON, VERMONT—In one of the Cold War’s oddest experiments, the United States dug a 300-meter-long military base called Camp Century into the ice of northwest Greenland in the early 1960s, powered it with a nuclear reactor, and set out to test the feasibility of shuttling nuclear missiles beneath the ice. A constant struggle against intruding snow doomed the base, which was abandoned in 1966. But Camp Century has left a lasting, entirely nonmilitary legacy: a 1.3-kilometer-long ice core drilled at the site.
The core, extracted by a team that included glaciologist Chester Langway, yielded a record of past temperatures that helped kick off studies of Earth’s ancient climate. And last week, dozens of scientists met here at the University of Vermont (UVM) to take stock of another gift from the core: mud from Greenland’s ancient land surface, serendipitously discovered in archived samples. New analyses of the mud suggest Greenland’s massive ice sheet was largely absent in a warm period during the past million years when the global climate was much like today’s. [...]
 
From what I understand it is a 2-way street.
Which reminds me of:
Q: (L) Regarding the recent earthquake and tsunami, there is a huge buzz on the net that this was not a natural phenomenon. Some say it could have been a meteor; others say it was a US nuke; others say it was India and Israel playing around in deep sea trenches. Then there is the speculation on an EM weapon of some description. The New agers are saying it was the start of the final 'Earth Changes". So what really caused this earthquake that happened one year minus one hour after the earthquake in Iran?

A: Pressure in earth. Not any of the proferred suggestions. But remember that the human cycle mirrors the cycle of catastrophe and human mass consciousness plays a part.

Q: In what way does mass consciousness play a part?

A: When those with higher centers are blocked from full manifestation of creative energy, that energy must go somewhere. If you cannot create "without" you create "within".
 
Just read a german article but not the paper yet
The wide range of evidence supports the hypothesis that a cosmic event occurred at Abu Hureyra ~12,800 years ago, coeval with impacts that deposited high-temperature meltglass, melted microspherules, and/or platinum at other YDB sites on four continents.
 
Dr. Marc Defant now agrees with the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis(YDIH). The Cosmic Tusk has an article on it. :-)

In an admirable twist, Marc credits his reassessment of the subject to a recommendation from his Rogan debate adversary Graham Hancock to read a recent book by James Laurence Powell. It is not surprising that Defant was persuaded by the book. Powell is also a former YDIH skeptic, and “Deadly Voyager” has become the essential read for the subject. (Unless you care to pick your way through every paper on The Bib)

Good for Marc, good for the YDIH, and good for science — the system works!
 
Death from above? Fireball may have destroyed ancient Syrian village

Debris from a comet may have leveled an ancient village in Syria during a spate of several such explosions occurring around the world, according to new research.

The village of Abu Hureyra was a mound settlement in northern Syria around 13,000 years ago. The site was quickly excavated in 1972 and 1973, before the Euphrates River was dammed, flooding the site beneath Lake Assad. But the hurried excavations exposed charcoal-rich surfaces containing glass spheres formed from melting soil, melted iron- and sulfur-rich samples, and nanodiamonds. Such materials are all indicators of extremely high temperatures like those produced by a chunk of rock exploding in the air.

A team led by Andrew Moore, an archeologist at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York who led the emergency excavations of the site in the '70s, recently reexamined some of the excavated material in greater detail. The scientists then developed experimental methods to replicate the materials they discovered at the village.

"These provided new insights into how the meltglass was formed and how plant and other materials became incorporated in it," Moore told Space.com by email.

Melting the minerals found in the soil requires temperatures over 3,630 degrees Fahrenheit (2,000 degrees Celsius), "hot enough to cause the quartz grains to boil," Moore said. That suggests something cataclysmic.

"It is impossible to explain these melted minerals on meltglass by any natural process other than a cosmic impact event," Moore said.

A deadly explosion

The first settlers of Abu Hureyra were hunter-gatherers who lived off the land. A terrible drought drove the people to begin cultivating grains that they had previously collected from the wild, turning them into the first known farmers, previous research has revealed.

Then, about 13,000 years ago, something very bad seems to have occurred, leaving a layer of carbon suggesting dramatic fires. But for much of the last decade, scientists inspecting the remnants of the village have debated what happened, unable to decide whether the carbon formed during an airburst or during more mundane fires among the thatched huts.

So Moore decided to reexamine the glass in more detail. His analysis of the glass composition matched a 2012 finding claiming an airburst had destroyed Abu Hureyra, suggesting that the villagers' bucolic lifestyle ended suddenly when one or more fragments from a passing comet exploded in the air nearby.

"People who were in or near the village of Abu Hureyra at the time the airburst exploded would have seen an immense flash in the sky, equivalent to a nuclear explosion," Moore said. "A few seconds later, they would have been incinerated by the blast emanating from the airburst. The heat wave destroyed the village and everything in it, leaving a layer of burned material across the surface."

Observers several tens of kilometers from the site would have seen the flash, heard the explosion, and felt the heatwave, but likely survived the detonation.

Moore and his colleagues heated fragments of the glass in a laboratory furnace until they had fully melted, which occurred at 2,400 F (1,300 C), establishing a lower limit for the temperature the spheroids had originally been exposed to. But it took higher temperatures for the quartz and other particles on the exterior to melt.

The researchers also compared the Abu Hureyra material with glass melted at other prehistoric impact sites on Earth and found many similarities. The wealth of meltglass dating to roughly the same timeframe suggests to researchers that thousands of pieces of debris shed from a comet slammed into Earth's atmosphere 12,800 years ago, impacting more than 40 sites across North America and Europe.

The new findings by Moore's team match a 2007 hypothesis that Earth experienced several multi-continental airbursts. Since an individual comet or asteroid large enough to cause such widespread destruction is unlikely, the researchers suspect the disparate impacts were possibly caused by cometary debris.

"The largest cometary debris clusters are proposed to be capable of causing thousands of airbursts within a span of minutes across one entire hemisphere of Earth," the authors wrote. "An encounter with such a million-km-wide debris cluster would be thousands of times more probable than a collision with a 100-km-wide comet or a 10-km-wide asteroid."


Cosmic airburst may have caused cataclysmic destruction to Middle East 3,700 years ago

In an instant, those living in the ancient cities and agricultural settlements north of the Dead Sea were annihilated by a super-heated, cosmic blast from the skies that left destruction across nearly 200 square miles, according to new archaeological evidence.

During last month's annual American Schools of Oriental Research meeting, Phillip J. Silvia presented a paper showcasing soil evidence and analysis that suggests a meteor was responsible for the destruction of both the land and all human settlements in the region nearly 3,700 years ago.

According to the paper, the archaeological data collected demonstrates a pattern for a high-heat, explosive event.

According to the researchers, a cosmic airburst due to a meteor at low altitude is the only natural force known that could have caused the unique, destructive characteristics found in both the region's soil, melted rock and many of the pottery samples collected at the site.

The event in the Middle East was so powerful that it, "not only [wiped] out 100 percent of the [cities] and towns," but also stripped the land of fertile agricultural soils and littered the landscape with super-heated brine from the Dead Sea in the subsequent shockwave, according to the paper's abstract.

Silvia is the director of scientific analysis at Jordan’s Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project.

"The physical evidence from Tall el-Hammam, and neighboring sites, exhibit signs of a highly destructive concussive and thermal event," according to the paper's authors.

"The soil [and] ash samples gathered from Tall el-Hammam contain evidence of top-soil destruction and sub-soil contamination with Dead Sea salts that would have prevented the cultivation of crops for many centuries following the event."

Settlements did not return to the area for agriculture for nearly 600 to 700 years following the destructive event, the paper reported.
New research suggests that a cosmic airburst wiped out a swath of the Middle East about 3,700 years ago.

In addition to soil evidence, there were other archaeological indicators of a destructive, thermal event including zirconium crystals found within pottery shards that had been turned to glass.

The scientists "found bubbles inside melted zirconium crystals in the glass that indicate boiling of the crystal" at over 4,000 degrees Centigrade, or 7,232 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the paper, adding that the intense heat lasted for only a short time, leaving pottery pieces below unaffected by the heat.

However, no craters have been found near the site, but the chance of a meteor exploding above ground is possible. According to the paper, evidence suggests that the airburst occurred above the ground at around 1 kilometer in altitude.

Incidents like the Siberian Tunguska Event of 1908, the cause of which remains mysterious to this day, also have been attributed to a meteoric airburst. The event in Siberia, which flattened a large area of forest in an explosive, thermal and concussive event, has stirred speculation for an entire century.

"The explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River on June 30, 1908, flattened some 500,000 acres (2,000 square kilometers) of Siberian forest," according to Space.com.

"Scientists calculated the Tunguska explosion could have been roughly as strong as 10 megatons to 20 megatons of TNT - 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima," Space.com reported.

"Signature markers of an air burst event include high levels of platinum, typically 600 percent above normal background levels, and a high platinum-palladium ratio," Silvia and the research team reported, adding that similar evidence is being found at Tall el-Hammam.


Earth Impact: Are Comets a Bigger Danger Than Asteroids?

Discussions about "death from above" scenarios usually center on asteroids, but a comet impact could be far more devastating than a space rock strike.

Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) have Earth-like orbits, so their collisions with Earth tend to be glancing blows from behind or from the side. But comets travel around the sun in more random paths and can thus slam into the planet head-on, with potentially catastrophic results, researchers say.

"It would be a much bigger explosion, a much bigger crater, much more damage," impact expert Mark Boslough, of Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, said on June 5. He made the comment during a webcast produced by the online Slooh community observatory, which previewed the June 8 Earth flyby of the asteroid 2014 HQ124. [Amazing Comet Photos of 2013 by Stargazers]

In fact, comets can be traveling up to three times faster than NEAs relative to Earth at the time of impact, Boslough added. The energy released by a cosmic collision increases as the square of the incoming object's speed, so a comet could pack nine times more destructive power than an asteroid of the same mass.

The speed of comets also means that a dangerous one could be nearly upon Earth by the time scientists detect it.

"They come in fast," Bill Ailor, principal engineer with the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies at The Aerospace Corporation, said in March during a presentation with NASA's Future In-Space Operations working group. "In some cases, people have said that we may have two years' or so warning in the best case on something like that."

Two years may sound like a lot, but scientists and engineers would prefer even more lead time to keep Earth out of harm's way.

For example, one of the most promising deflection strategies envisions launching a robotic probe to rendezvous with and fly alongside of the incoming object, nudging it off course via a slight but persistent gravitational tug. This "gravity tractor" method obviously cannot work overnight.

Adding to the intrigue and the danger is the unpredictability of cometary orbits. The icy objects begin spouting gas as they near the sun and heat up; these gas jets act like little thrusters, making it tough to forecast exactly where a comet is going to go.

Despite all of these factors, however, the focus on asteroids as Earth's primary impact threat is not misplaced, Boslough and Ailor said. The reason is simple: numbers.

"I'm more worried about asteroids than I am comets, because there are so many more asteroids," Boslough said. "The likelihood of an impact from an asteroid is probably 100 times the likelihood of an impact from a comet of the same size."

There are probably trillions of comets out there, but the vast majority of them reside at the extreme outer edge of the solar system, in a shell of icy bodies known as the Oort Cloud. Near-Earth space, meanwhile, is dominated by asteroids. Scientists think millions of NEAs exist, but only about 11,000 have been discovered and tracked so far.

 
New article at Cosmic Tusk - Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes pinned on fragmenting Taurid comet 👍

In a nutshell, Napier’s study shows how comets are likely to fragment and lose considerable mass during encounters with the inner Solar System. The debris trail can expand to a cross section larger than Earth, increasing the odds of impacts with Earth. Also, the debris has considerable impact energy. But over time, that energy weakens, and the debris trail contracts again.
~Evan Gough, Universe Today, April 13, 2020
 
Sweatman in his latest blog entry responds to an idiotic article about Gobekli Tepe written by some journalist. We are familiar here with how these people operate but it's nice see it articulated. Here is the blog post: Response to Eric Betz in Discover and Astronomy websites
From the conclusion:
So, it seems to me that Eric favours whatever the archaeologists say simply because they are archaeologists, and not because of the evidence. Well, that’s not how science works. Evidence is key in science, and Eric should know this. In fact, by buying into the site's archaeologists' narrative with such certainty, on the basis of zero evidence, his behaviour smacks of a religious zealot. A follower of the modern cult of orthodox archaeology.
In fact, most if not all of the so-called skeptics and zeteticians are not motivated by knowledge or expansion of knowledge, but by a sort of religious orthodoxy. It is well displayed in this instance.
 
In fact, most if not all of the so-called skeptics and zeteticians are not motivated by knowledge or expansion of knowledge, but by a sort of religious orthodoxy. It is well displayed in this instance.

Indeed! It almost seems like that such people couldn't care less about evidence and truth, despite their fancy titles that are supposed to distinguish them as "scientists". Many of those "scientists" don't seem to be much more than fundamentalistic/religious fanatics while they seem to think of themselves as being the exact opposite of that.
 
Have not had the chance (nor the very book itself) to read Sweatman's book, Prehistory Decoded. Had, however started to unpack his series of the same name (Parts 1 - through 8 (approximately 37 min. each) posted 2019 through to 2020).

Right off the get-go, Sweatman brings up many relevant papers written since 2007 and started to eliminate many based on how the data has been selected. Thus, this is a debate between the comet people and the non-impact people. It is a deeper review of data comparison, omissions and errors.

Kept in the back mind, similar to climate change data we have seen, and much else, including pharmaceuticals in another direction, brings up the study funding in the first place – the comet people seem to have been recognized as something to dismiss, and that stance was funded, as seen, in the papers. This is more or less a sidebar issue that has not been reviewed, yet a factor in many other studies as can be seen across a large spectrum.

There seems to be effort to divorce the comet people from mainstream.

Sweatman, here, does some interesting pulling on data threads, kicking out papers in that large list that, for one reason or another, just don’t fit or can’t be relied upon. Often it is that data that was presented that excludes other available data that is known - and contradicts. It is data that shows blips while other data shows jumps - and why. Much of the focus is on the Black Mat sedimentary layer that appears in the study plot geographical areas.

Here is the complete series to date:
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The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 1 - Firestone 2007

Surveys the research literature surrounding the Younger Dryas debate. Part 1 discusses papers from 2007 to 2009.



The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 2 - Greenland nanodiamonds 2010

Part 2 of the series covers developments in the research in 2010, including the nanodiamond layer found in the Greenland ice sheet


The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 3 - requiem 2011


The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 4 - confirmation 2012

Continues my review of the research literature into 2012


The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 5 - platinum 2013

Continues my review of the Younger Dryas impact research literature - this one reviews a single paper from 2013 - the 'platinum' paper - a crucial paper that almost wins the debate.


The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 6 - spherules 2013

Continues my review of the Younger Dryas impact debate research, finishing off papers from 2013

The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 6 - spherules 2013

The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 7 - critical review 2014


Continues my review of the research literature about the Younger Dryas impact debate into 2014, this time focussing on a review paper by van Hoesel et al.

The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 7 - critical review 2014

The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 8 - timing debacle 2014

Continues my review of the research literature, this time focussing on some more papers 2014

The Younger Dryas impact debate: part 8 - timing debacle 2014
 
Sweatman also wrote a review paper on the younger dryas impact that's been accepted and and it's already available on his blog: Younger Dryas impact review paper accepted for publication in Earth-Science reviews

The latest video (from a week ago or so) on his YT channel is about a 2019 archaelogical report about Gobekli Tepe being also a settlement, including a burial with three bodies, not just "the oldest temple in the world".
 
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