The Black Sea deluge hypothesis
A proposal that the Mediterranean burst into a freshwater lake — and a long argument about whether it did.
- When
- Known to
- ± 200 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
Ryan and Pitman proposed in 1997 that around 5600 BCE the rising Mediterranean breached the Bosphorus and flooded a much lower freshwater lake catastrophically, driving out the farming populations on its shores and perhaps seeding flood legends. Subsequent work has largely favoured a gradual rise instead, and the catastrophic version is now a minority position. It is included here as a hypothesis that shaped a generation of research rather than as an established event.