[HN Gopher] Lost islands cited in Welsh folklore and poetry are ... ___________________________________________________________________ Lost islands cited in Welsh folklore and poetry are plausible Author : docmechanic Score : 111 points Date : 2022-09-03 16:16 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.sciencedaily.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.sciencedaily.com) | galgot wrote: | Could it be that the Ys city legend in Brittany was this Welsh | legend transposed in Brittany, when the Bretons (originally Welsh | peoples) migrated there... very interesting. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ys | gus_massa wrote: | I hate when the articles have no images, so here are a few: | | Wikipedia page about the legend | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantre%27r_Gwaelod | | The PDF of the research article is in | https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/ag/article/view/32596/... | (https://doi.org/10.4138/atlgeo.2022.005) | | The old map with the islands is in page 5 and a new map with the | sea depth is in page 7. | lumost wrote: | It does make you wonder if the legend of atlantis is simply due | to a myriad of ancient civilizations that vanished under rising | oceans. Given human population centers cluster around ocean | ports/rivers with easy access to fresh drinking water. It seems | entirely plausible that estimates of human population size at | the end of the last ice age may be substantially off. | swayvil wrote: | Through the grinder of mythology black can become white and | up can become down. You can't trust it except in the | blurriest sense. | | This is what makes science so special and revolutionary. The | alternative being normal horrible epistemology like everybody | does it all the time since forever. | | And yes, even science can be mythologized. | didericis wrote: | Not all of that older epistemology is horrible. Mathematics | and logic and proof are ancient. | bertil wrote: | There's a fairly credible theory that Atlantis was a port | city in the Richat Structure. | 01acheru wrote: | The whole circularity of this structure actually bring | Atlantis and it's rings to mind, and also we must remember | that the Sahara had a much different climate not that long | ago. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_humid_period | simonh wrote: | That's true, but it beggars belief that the civilisation | Atlantis conjures to mind would leave zero physical | evidence of significant structures behind. | PicassoCTs wrote: | It would also have significant trade and its artifacts | would show up along the traderoutes. | rustymonday wrote: | We don't know that it hasn't left any physical evidence | behind. The origin of many archaeological artifacts are | not known for certain. It's possible that there is | pottery and other artifacts from Atlantis that we've | already unearthed. | simonh wrote: | I was commenting in the context of the Eye of Africa, | it's a fascinating structure that happens to have some | dimensional characteristics that vaguely resemble Plato's | description. There's just no physical evidence of any | significant architecture there of any kind. | svrtknst wrote: | Not just zero physical evidence - zero evidence _at all_. | Afaik it doesn't appear until Plato uses it, and he | claims that its thousands of years old or something like | that. That should reasonably have traces in other | accounts through the years. | | I did hear a fairly credible theory that it is just an | allegory invented by Plato, but influenced by various | other myths and political centers (such as king Minos | rule on Crete). | tremon wrote: | The island Thera was destroyed by a volcanic eruption | some 1200 years before Plato: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini_caldera. The | collapse of the island would have triggered tsunamis all | across the Aegean Sea, so it's very likely many coastal | towns had their own stories of being "swallowed by the | sea". | twic wrote: | Exactly, Atlantis is in Tunisia: | https://medcraveonline.com/IJH/is-atlantis-related-to- | the-gr... | layer8 wrote: | It's not credible at all: | https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/no-atlantis- | ha... | MichaelCollins wrote: | Aka the "Eye of Africa" (wikipedia seems to have scrubbed | almost all trace of this commonly used name.) | | I don't buy it it all. The lowest point of this structure | is presently several hundred meters above sea level. There | is almost no archeological trace of human habitation, save | for some ancient stone tools (no trace of structures, no | middens indicating dense population.) These tools date to | the Late Pleistocene to early Holocene, when sea levels | were _even lower_ than they are today (in other words, this | formation was even further from the sea then.) | UberFly wrote: | Richat Structure | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richat_Structure | sampo wrote: | Then there is a fringe theory, that a somewhat advanced | ancient civilization and a city is sunken off the West | Coast of India. And that later travelers from India brought | the myth of a Western sunken city into Europe. Then | Atlantis would be in the Arabian Sea, East of Europe. But | West of India. | rustymonday wrote: | Here's the thing about Atlantis: even if you know exactly | where it is, and even if you can prove it, you'll find it's | nearly impossible to sell. | | The best way to be compensated for its discovery is probably | to make a documentary, but this has been done dozens of times | already by people who claimed to know where it is. Networks | only have so much appetite for it. And even without that | hurdle, it's extremely difficult to get a hold of anyone who | might be able to help. | | And if you went the academic route, you'd essentially be | publishing the information for free, running the risk of | someone else taking all the credit. | | How would you even go about selling Atlantis? I'm seriously | asking. | MichaelCollins wrote: | Plenty of wealthy people sail all over the world, looking | for interesting things to see and treasure to loot. | | And yes, there's a finite appetite for documentaries about | _" I found a few rocks that kind of look rectangular if you | squint real hard, I think it's Atlantis"_. But if you find | something more substantial than that, people will perk up | real quick. | zem wrote: | you don't sell discoveries like that. historically | speaking, the reward was either some explicit prize, or | simply the fame of being the discoverer, and the cost of | the exploration, as well as the prize if any, was borne by | some deep pocketed entity who wanted the discovery made | (the crown, the government or some academic body). | tpmx wrote: | Wikipedia: | | > Legends of the land suggest that it may have extended 20 | miles west of the present coast. | | Any idea of how large these lands were, area-wise? | gus_massa wrote: | From the research article: | | > _The dimensions of the offshore islands may be estimated in | proportion to these respective two sets of measurements, so | that the southern island measures approximately 6.6 x 3.8 km | (ca. 19.7 km^2) and the northern island 10.7 x 5.8 km (ca. | 48.7 km^2), and that the islands lie ca. 3.5-4.0 km from the | mainland shore. However, these measurements must be viewed | with extreme caution given the poor areal accuracy of the | Gough Map._ | | Later in the article they estimate that the sea erosion was | 5-10m/y and the alleged islands disappeared in 5 | approximately centuries, so a width of 5km is consistent. | docmechanic wrote: | Thank you! Surely there is a Welsh writer of science fiction or | fantasy that can make good use of this knowledge ... | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Is this a reference to Susan Cooper? | galangalalgol wrote: | That was my first thought on seeing the headline as well. | docmechanic wrote: | No, but she's exactly the sort of writer that I was | thinking of. | tombh wrote: | I grew up in this part of the world! Quite a strange | juxtaposition seeing my home on the front page of this site. | | So maybe I can offer some lesser known interesting context: | | Wales is only some 300km west of London, yet I have childhood | memories (some 35 years ago) of needing to try to speak Welsh to | my elderly (in his 80s) neighbour who struggled with English. | | There is a theory that English's use of "do" (so-called "Do- | support") comes from the Welsh language. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do-support#Origins | | The stones for Stonehenge come from the Preseli mountains, a | small range of blue-ish hills exactly on the coast where these | lost islands are proposed. | | There is a Welsh settlement in Argentina: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Wladfa | | Not strictly Welsh, but the Severn Estuary, which is the calm, | funnel of sea between Wales and England, that invites ships into | the harbour of Bristol, points exactly towards Newfoundland in | North America. This Welsh-English estuary is where John Cabot | made the second recorded voyage of a modern European to the New | World[1]. Nowadays, we think of Airports as being the doorways to | whole new worlds, but there was a time when it was the coastline | and harbours of the South West British Isles that rang and echoed | with the adventures, legends, captains, pirates, spices, gems and | foreigners of unimaginable far away lands. | | 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot#Second_voyage | docmechanic wrote: | New study of coastal geography and a medieval map. | paganel wrote: | > Evidence from the Roman cartographer Ptolemy suggests the | coastline 2000 years ago may have been some 13 km further out to | sea than it is today. | | This sort of stuff doesn't get repeated often enough in this day | and age, we live with the illusion that the sea levels as we now | have them should remain the same over the next centuries no | matter what. | 988747 wrote: | It does not get repeated because it would suggest that sea | level changes are natural, as opposed to being caused by | industrial CO2 emissions, and limiting CO2 emissions is a huge | business right now. | potsandpans wrote: | wow! more braindead takes on hn?! | simonh wrote: | Firstly sea levels have nothing to do with this at all, these | coastal changes were caused by erosion. | | Anyway some sea level changes are natural, some look to be | man made. Just because natural changes can happen, it doesn't | follow that man made one's don't happen, or if they do that | it's ok. | MichaelCollins wrote: | > _Firstly sea levels have nothing to do with this at all, | these coastal changes were caused by erosion._ | | The paper seems to say these islands were likely formed | from unconsolidated glacial till, and subsequently eroded | by some combination of melting glaciers and the Holocene | sea-level rise. | | Islands formed when the sea level was low, and eroded when | the sea level was high. When you say sea level rise had | 'nothing to do with it', you're contradicting the paper. | thrwyoilarticle wrote: | Conspiracy theory hogwash. Doggerland is well-discussed. | withinboredom wrote: | I imagine that most people haven't thrown gasoline on a fire. | Surely they can't understand making something bad way more | worse than it was. | MichaelCollins wrote: | General knowledge and popular culture acknowledge natural | climate changes. However I think people often overestimate | the length of time involved in those changes, *overestimating | the amount of time that has passed since dramatic climate | changes in the past. E.g. knowing of "the ice age" but | estimating that it happened millions of years ago and took | millions of years for these climate changes to naturally | occur. | | It's certainly not a _secret_ that Manhattan Island was | covered by nearly half a mile of ice less than 20,000 years | ago, nobody is suppressing this knowledge, but nevertheless I | think there 's a wide gap between public knowledge and common | knowledge. | StanislavPetrov wrote: | >It does not get repeated because it would suggest that sea | level changes are natural | | Sea level changes are absolutely natural and have fluctuated | wildly over the history of the planet. The sea level was 360 | feet lower 13,000 years ago. Certainly human activity has a | measurable effect on the environment but it is simply absurd | to pretend that our environment (including sea levels) isn't | in a constant state of flux. | Ma8ee wrote: | The problem now is that the change is some orders of | magnitude faster than they used to be. | StanislavPetrov wrote: | That isn't true at all. The history of the planet is | marked by rapid, repeated changes in the climate. The | climate is going to change - drastically - just like it | has for the entire history of the earth. We should | understand that our activity has an influence but it is | not the only factor or the dominant one. | | https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ContentFeature/GlobalWa | rmi... | [deleted] | gus_massa wrote: | Note that the change of this part of the coastline was caused | by sea erosion of the cliff, not a raise of the sea level. | fritztastic wrote: | It's always interesting (for me) to learn of lost lands- from | before humans were around, too, but especially those mentioned in | human stories. There are many of these [1]- some of which are the | subject of fascinating and informative documentaries, such as | this one about Doggerland [2]. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_lands?wprov=sfla1 | | [2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DECwfQQqRzo | UberFly wrote: | The article says the research was based on the Gough Map. Just | look at this thing. Quite impressive. | | http://www.geog.port.ac.uk/webmap/thelakes/large/ggh1.jpg | sveme wrote: | Pretty similar to the story of Rungholt[1], which is clearly no | longer myth, but fact, with lots of remnants being found. | | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rungholt | balentio wrote: | Wasn't this posted to Hacker News before? | gus_massa wrote: | I only could find this from another URL: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32542953 (2 points | 12 | days ago | 0 comments) | | Note that from the FAQ: | | > _Are reposts ok? If a story has not had significant attention | in the last year or so, a small number of reposts is ok. | Otherwise we bury reposts as duplicates._ | | I sometimes link old post with low points or few comments when | one of the comments is very interesting and explain or debunk | the post. But in this case there is nothing interesting in the | old discussion. (Is the other URL better? Both look similar to | me.) | jbverschoor wrote: | Why do people always think that things from the past are simply | not real. | | "They"(us in the future) could say the exact same thing about all | the things that are real in our current lives. | | All these mythical creatures (soon to be extinct) | | Having such a surplus of fresh water. | | At a certain point they will just deny Dubai was created | nelblu wrote: | It is human nature to glorify the past and romanticize the | greatness of "those days". There is nothing wrong in | maintaining a healthy skeptical mind towards outrageous claims. | Further the onus of proof lies on the person making the claim. | simonh wrote: | There are plenty of things from the past that are absolutely | real. We have tons of physical evidence for settlements all | over the world throughout history. I'm sure there's more yet to | be discovered. But until we discover it, it's just hearsay. | | There may well have been a real place that inspired Plato's | mention if Atlantis, but only one. Not the many hundreds of | possible locations suggested over the centuries. They can't all | be Atlantis, if any of them are. | ecolonsmak wrote: | 200yrs from now well meaning discussion will consider if the | long extinct elephant was in fact mythical | fritztastic wrote: | > At a certain point they will just deny Dubai was created | | That reminds me of a (reportedly fake) quote attributed to | Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum: | | "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I ride a | Mercedes, my son rides a Land Rover, and my grandson is going | to ride a Land Rover, but my great-grandson is going to have to | ride a camel again." | MichaelCollins wrote: | The way of vulgar skepticism is to assume something doesn't | exist until it has been proven to exist. | | In cases like the Lock Ness monster or invisible pink dragons | in my garage, that approach happens to yield good results (and | so would blanket generic cynicism.) But it falls apart quick | when you stray very far from the fantastical, e.g. _" masks | have not yet been proven to work, therefore masks don't work."_ | | A bayesian approach to skepticism is much better than vulgar | skepticism. Bayes asks the skeptic to consider the general | outlandishness of a possibility P(A), the basic likelihood of | apparent evidence occurring regardless of the hypothesis P(B), | and the likelihood of there being evidence at all even if the | hypothesis were correct P(B|A). | theknocker wrote: ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-03 23:00 UTC)