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_Earth, Air, Fire, And Water:
The Archaeology Of Bronze Age Cosmic Catastrophes_

_W. Bruce Masse_

_U. S. Department of the Air Force, Environmental Programs Flight,
56th CES/CEV Bldg. 302, 14002 W Marauder St, Luke AFB, AZ 85309-1125,
and Affiliate Graduate Faculty, University of Hawaii, USA_
_e-mail: wbmasse at worldnet.att.net_

Planetary scientists and astrophysicists recently have begun to model
the potential hazards on Earth from impact by asteroids and comets.
These models suggest that 20-30 at least locally catastrophic impacts
likely occurred in various portions of the world during the past 6,000
years, during which time occurred the major developments of modern
human civilization. This paper uses these cosmic impact models,
coupled with data from archaeology, paleoenvironmental studies, and
the systematic analysis of cosmogonic mythology and other literary
traditions, in order to identify previously unknown catastrophic
Bronze Age cosmic catastrophes, the most significant being a globally
catastrophic oceanic comet impact estimated at between 105 and 106
megatons that occurred in 2807 BCE. These data suggest that the threat
of cosmic impact is very real, and that such impacts have played a
critical role in the development of human civilization.
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W. BRUCE MASSE is an environmental archaeologist with the U.S. Air
Force and is affiliate graduate faculty at the University of Hawaii.
He received his degrees in Anthropology from Stanford University
(B.A.), the University of Arizona (M.A.), and Southern Illinois
University at Carbondale (Ph.D.). His doctoral thesis on the
archaeology and ecology of fishing in the Belau Islands of Micronesia
was honored as runnerup for Outstanding Dissertation of the Year by
the Society for American Archaeology. He has conducted extensive field
research in Micronesia, Hawaii, and the American Southwest, and has
published on a wide variety of topics including prehistoric irrigation
and dry farming systems, zooarchaeology, settlement patterns,
chronometrics, archaeoastronomy, cosmography, and public archaeology.
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Presented at the SIS Conference: [1]Natural Catastrophes during Bronze
Age Civilisations.

References

1. file://localhost/www/sat/cambconf.htm