Those who survived the famine and thirst would not have turned feral overnight. Most would surely have retained their values and technical skills. Allan & Delair point out that ‘there is a large corpus of evidence, both circumstantial and factual, indicating that civilised communities existed on Earth before that shocking calamity.’
‘Many … traditions refer … to various antediluvian structures (for example, houses, temples, towns, canals), and vehicles (charts, chariots), aquatic vessels (rafts, canoes and arks) and implements (ploughs, bows, and spades).’
‘Among the physical evidence for exceedingly early civilisation are the innumerable stone walls retaining agricultural terraces … Cyclopean stone ruins … seem to be equally ancient. Their enormous size and extent testify eloquently to markedly different environmental conditions and population densities …’
They also instance certain handiwork of early cultured peoples: a carved figure under lava in Idaho; vessels of vesicular basalt in California; a mortar, a polished stone hatchet, and carved stone utensils also in the USA; portion of an iron chain, fragment of a paved road or causeway, and a copper coin-like object, all in the USA as well.
After the Deluge, forced by the need for relocation, nomadic lifestyles and, subsequently, pastoral communities would have developed. Some communities are known to have subsisted on shell-fish. And so mankind started on another phase of civilisation.
And here we are, building and destroying simultaneously. Reminds me of the depiction of the Hindu Shiva’s dance of Nataraja. The dancer is shown under a ring of fire with one arm offering creation, the other promising death, and a third arm indicating a possible blessing. There is a 2-metre copy donated by the Indian Government outside CERN’s building in Geneva.
Should we not seek to avoid this implicit cyclic path of existence? Indeed, Firestone, West, and Warwick-Smith, in the their ‘The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes’ assert that we are already living in the period known as the Sixth Extinction, having survived five major extinctions in the last 500 million years!
RAJA ARASA RATNAM 