Mixing religion, government, environmentalism explosive device.

Hypsithermal Warming Spreads Civilization 6000-9000 BC

by Lewis Loflin

We are in what's called the Holocene epoch by earth scientists that began about 10,000 years ago following the Younger Dryas event where a massive comet or asteroid explosion over N. America wiped out most life and triggered an ice age lasting over 1000 years. After that Professor Stanley states, "Global environmental changes of the early Holocene occurred with frightening speed. Knowledge of the instability of the natural system must heighten our concern about the future effects of human activities..." Then he goes into another Al Gore climate change rant.

Yes, I know he has to do this or lose his job, but that's political and distracts from the main thesis.

Yes we should aware that climate does change naturally and abruptly without human intervention and yes we need to do sensible things to curb pollution, etc. but without hysterics or inserting religion. The Little Ice Age lasted hundreds of years and ended in the early 1800s was a "recent cold spell just a few decades ago and (we) are now in a warming phase."

Thousands of years ago humans went from hunter-gatherers to towns and agriculture. This was due to massive global warming between 9000 and 6000 years ago. This is called a "hypsithermal interval" or "a brief period of global warmth." Yes 3000 years is "brief" in geological time. They don't know why this event occurred, but I'm sure they will try to link it fossil fuels.

The remaining material is from Earth System History P508 by Professor Steven M. Stanley.

Continental glaciers all but disappeared between about 9000 and 6000 years ago, (note the panic over glaciers today that formed mainly during the Little Ice Age) and climates became warmer than they have ever been since. (Including the lie 2016 was the hottest on record which only extends to 1979.) During this hypsithermal ("high heat") interval, eastern North America warmed enough that dwarf birch shrubs replaced tundra in some areas. Fossil needles of hemlock reveal that during the hypsithermal interval this conifer species was able to invade mountainous elevations of New England where the mean annual temperature today is 2 degrees C too low for hemlock to survive.

From this information and additional evidence from fossil pollen, researchers have estimated that mean annual temperatures in North America and Europe during the hypsithermal interval were about 2 degrees C warmer than they are today. Temperatures were similarly elevated in the Southern Hemisphere as far south as Antarctica.

Because huge masses of ice melt slowly, remnants of continental glaciers persisted into the hypsithermal interval in North America and Europe. Glaciers have existed only in mountainous regions of these large northern continents since the last remnants of continental ice sheets disappeared about 6500 years ago.

This warming allowed the spread of agriculture. To quote Prof. Stanley:

One of the most significant transitions in human history began when some populations abandoned a mobile life of hunting and gathering and settled down to domesticate plants and animals for food. These activities spread throughout Europe between about 9000 and 6000 years ago, during the hypsithermal interval.

Agriculture first emerged in the Zagros Mountains, near the borders between modern Iraq, Iran, and Turkey...From Greece, agriculture spread across Europe by fits and starts, reaching the British Isles and Scandinavia by 6000 years ago. Animal bones preserved at archeological sites reveal that cattle replaced sheep, goats, and pigs as the main large domesticated animals in Europe before 7000 years ago, perhaps reflecting an increase in the use of dairy products.

Question: could we be entering a natural hypsithermal interval? During that time plants flourished and humans advanced. The earth is greening right as I write this.

Religious Articles Index
Origins Christianity