Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 16/07/2006 22:20, Rochelle Altman wrote:
> Joel Stucki wrote:
>
>  >A point of clarification here. I was intending that seafaring was yet
>  >very primitive and generally did not include deep sea ventures or
>  >sophisticated navigation that would have made frequent contact with
>  >these creatures more likely. I did not intend to suggest that
>  >seafaring had not existed for a long time.
>
> Primitive? Did not include deep sea ventures? There has been contact _by 
> sea_ between the Atlantic coasts of the British Isles, Scandinavia, and the 
> Atlantic coast of France with the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula 
> since 10,000 BCE. The mtDNA study (longue duree) published in 2004 
> establishes the connection. Blue water sailing has been around for a very 
> long time.
>   

Yes, but maybe not this long. Britain was still connected to the 
Continent at this period, and I think Scandinavia also through Denmark. 
And it is hardly a deep sea venture to cross these straits even on the 
present coastline - not need to get out of site of land. On the other 
hand, humans crossed to Australia something like 60,000 years ago, and 
even at the lowest water levels during the Ice Ages that was a voyage 
out of site of land - although possibly an accidental one.

But then why do you need to be in the deep sea to see giant squid? They 
are occasionally washed up on land, and their regular habitations are 
not necessarily very far from land. I don't think there are now any in 
the Mediterranean, but if there used to be they may well have lived in 
the Rhodes Deep, as Rochelle suggested, which is over 4000 metres (not 
feet) deep and only about 50 km from the mountainous coasts of Rhodes 
and Turkey, so within the range of coastal navigators.

--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/