Negotiating and Remembering the End of the World: Insights into Ancient People’s Responses to Sea-Level Rise

Abstract

At the end of the last ice age (Last Glaciation) when vast land-based ice sheets melted, water poured into the ocean causing the sea level to rise 120 metres 15,000-6,000 years ago. For many coastal dwellers, this sea-level rise must have been calamitous, perhaps perceived as the end of the world. A key question is how people responded to this threat. Did they accept it or did they actively resist it and try to halt its progress? Insights from traditional stories in long-standing cultures in Australia, France and India suggest people not only recognised the threat from continuing sea-level rise but also that they sought various ways of stopping it. Two approaches to negotiating the challenge of rising sea level are identified – the spiritual and the practical. Spiritual practices appear probable but are difficult to elucidate because of an incomplete understanding of their material and societal context. Practical solutions are better understood, largely because of information in ancient stories. Some Aboriginal Australian stories explain practical measures taken by people, presumably more than 7,000 years ago, that include tossing hot rocks into the encroaching ocean and building wooden fences along the shoreline. Details in stories from France and India that recall times when coastal cities (like Ys in Brittany and Kusasthali-Dwaraka in northwest India) were submerged can help reconstruct a plausible narrative describing the interaction between sea-level rise and coastal settlements. It seems likely that stories about such settlements affected by sea-level rise recall times when they were significantly rebuilt with the intention of sustaining their functionality but that they were eventually overwhelmed by sea-level rise, their existence passing into the realm of legend. Modern coastal dwellers are threatened by sea-level rise. Understanding how this affected their ancestors can help overcome scepticism and a sense of helplessness and aid in the development and implementation of realistic adaptive strategies.