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Subject: Re: Mediterranean Basin Flooding Date?
Doug Bailey"  wrote
>Thanks for all the responses.  I think its firmly 
>established that the Mediterranean basin flooded at 
>least some 5,000,000 years ago.  However, I am 
>confused.  I have read (though I can not currently 
>recall where) evidence of massive flooding at Malta.  
The claim that jumbled bone deposits and breccias 
found in caves were the result of a catastrophic flood is
a cliché claim that almost every creationist or catastrophist
book makes.  It is not just Malta, it is claimed for any
cave containing bone deposits.  The problem is that 
none of these books really give any specific reasons for
their claims.  They just repeat the same refrain of 
jumbled or anomalous bone deposits are proof of 
catastrophic floods.  Then, they fail to explain how a
raging flood would preferentially pack animals into
the relatively small opening of a cave or a narrow
fissure or give.  They also lack any direct evdience 
of flood transport.  The claims are just pure speculation 
lacking any  detailed, hard proof.
Similarly, if these bones were jumbled around by a flood
they should some distinctive wear markings from this transport.  
However, rarely do the bones from caves show any evidence
of being transported by water.  However, as shown by both
Andrew (1990) and Brain (1981), the bones found in caves 
rarely exhibit any evidence of water transport.  Rather, they 
show the cuts, scratches, fractures, and post-deposition
weathering indicative of other processes.  Also, the rocks 
within sediments enclosing the bones are derived from the
cave and fine-grained sediments  are of local origin.  Thus, 
there is no evidence of other material being transported 
into the cave as the flood hypothesis would required.
>Some of the evidence consisted of the remains of 
>various animals found usually in a large plain 
>environment washed into the recessed cavities of 
>caves on Malta.  
Malta is a fairly large open island.  It is large enough 
to support a significant population of plain animals.
Before humans farmed and deforested Malta and 
caused intensive soil erosion, it had very fertile soils.
These soils were capable of supporting enough 
vegetation to provide food for a large native animal 
population.
What creationists and catastrophist fail to understand, is
that caves are open holes in the ground and, thus, are 
natural places for bones to accumulate.  As discussed by 
Andrews (1990), the sources of bones in caves are:
1. animals living in caves
2. animals falling in by accident
3. animals taken in by predators
4. animals bones transported in after death
A fifth category Brian (1981)
5. animals accidentally dropped in by predators.
(Leopard stores and eats prey in tree by mouth of
vertical shaft, quite common.  As prey decays or 
leopards eats it, bones fall into cave.)
There are a number of recent articles on the cave faunas 
of Malta.  They are in German and I would have to get
by interlibrary loan.  It would take me some time to get 
them and translate enough of each to understand
what was going on.  Thus, I unable to get to them at this 
time as I have other things to do with my time, e.g.
looking for steady lady friend.
>A large assortment of bones have been discovered 
>together as if to say that a variety of species
>were washed into the caves by some flood.
Many caves remain open for tens of thousands of years during 
which the remains of animals to fall into and accumulate.  As
the climate changes occur, the local animals change and the 
types of bones falling into the cave change.  Processes
within the cave, e.g. animals borrowing, slumping of deposits,
cave collapse, and careless excavators, mix bones from these 
different times.  Thus, the variety reported from many caves 
is actually a mixture of animals from different times and is,
thus, meaningless as evidence for anything.  It is a false sense
of variety created by mixing of fossils within the cave deposits.
To understand cave deposits, a person needs to understand
about _time-averaging_ as discussed in Susan M. Kidwell 
and Anna K. Behrensmeyer (1993) Taphonomic Approaches
to Time Resolution in Fossil Assemblages, Short Courses in
Paleontology, The Paleontological Society.
For an understanding of how bones accumulate in caves, 
I would recommend reading:
1. Andrews, Peter, 1990, Owls, Caves and Fossils: Predation,
Preservation, and Accumulation of Small Mammal Bones
in Caves. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
2. Brain, C. K., 1981, The Hunters or the Hunted: An 
Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.
>I can not remember if human remains were found or not.  
>Additionally, I cannot remember the dates attributed to the 
>bones. 
The GEOREF (tm) references show that burials, other human
remains, even hominid fossils have been in the cave.  Nothing
unusual for any of this.  Again, most of the references were in
either German or needed to be gottten by interlibrary loan 
unfortunately.
>Though I believe it was around 10,000 to 20,000 BP.  Was 
>there flooding in the area during the end of the last Ice Age?  
>Also, was the Mediterranean significantly lower during the 
>height of the last Ice Age, and if so to the extent that
>now-submerged land areas were then exposed?  I can not 
>find any scholarly material dealing with any of these subjects.
If there is any data out there, it should be in:
Pirazzoli, P. A., 1991, World Atlas of Holocene Sea Level 
Changes. Elsevier Oceanography Series no. 58, Elsevier,
New York.
If not Malta, it should at least contain data for the Central 
Mediterranean that would allow you make some 
estimates of sea level for Malta.
Sincerely,
Paul V. Heinrich           All comments are the
heinrich@intersurf.com     personal opinion of the writer and
Baton Rouge, LA            do not constitute policy and/or
                           opinion of government or corporate
                           entities.  This includes my employer.
'Afterall, if the present is *not* the key to
the past, it is at least *a* key to the past.'
   -Flessa (1993) in Taphonomic Approaches to
   Time Resolution in Fossil Assemblages (The
   Paleontological Society)