(AI)RCHEOLOGY Atlantis and the (re)start of our civilization

Let’s start at the very beginning—or, more accurately, our beginning. If there’s one thing we can say with near certainty, it’s this: our understanding of civilization’s timeline is a bit of a mess. Much of what you learned in school? It’s starting to look … creatively interpreted. Archaeology, you see, often amounts to educated guesswork, sprinkled with a hefty dose of speculation. This gets particularly “creative” when certain archaeologists—or worse, the ones afraid of disrupting the cozy, agreed-upon narrative—start filling in the blanks.

Take Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, for example. This discovery rewrote our history books by thousands of years. It turns out that when we were supposedly nomadic hunter-gatherers, we were actually building elaborate structures, for reasons that still baffle us. And as if that wasn’t intriguing enough, this entire site was purposefully buried by its creators. Why? Big question marks all around. Similarly, nobody really knows who built the walls of Saskatchewan in what’s now Cusco, Peru. When the first Inca settled in that area they said “it was already there”. Even closer to our own timeline we keep finding monuments that leave us clueless as to who and why they were built. There is still no consensus on how Stonehenge was built, or how the Moai were transported on Easter Island. Let alone the pyramids. There is only ‘circumstantial proof’ that they may be tombs. No sarcophagus nor mummy nor hieroglyphs were ever found, there is no written documentation found on how they were built and even for who. Khufu may have had little to do with the construction.

Sure, we have carbon dating—but it's not as foolproof as people think. Personally, I’m more inclined to trust what I like to call “Ancient Media.” Mainstream archaeologists often dismiss these ancient narratives as myths. That is, until an amateur archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann decided to treat Homer’s works less like fairy tales and more like blog entries from a distant era. And, lo and behold, he found the city of Troy in Turkey, long thought to be nothing more than a fictional place.

We tend to relegate anything fantastical or counterintuitive to the category of “myth” or “legend.” Atlantis, for instance, is often brushed off as pure fantasy. But consider this: if a global catastrophe wiped out 80% of our current civilization tomorrow, taking the internet and most libraries with it, how long would it be before our technology and achievements drifted into legend?

?For example, the survivors would not have the time, interest, equipment nor skills to build a smartphone and reboot Wi-Fi. The first generation of survivors would tell detailed stories about smartphones and the internet, while the second would pass on half-remembered accounts. By the third generation, our entire modern world would be folklore. And that’s in just three generations.

So, what if there really was a “great reset,” a cataclysm that destroyed an advanced civilization that came before us? Increasing evidence suggests that this idea isn’t as outlandish as it sounds. I’m not going to dive into the specifics of what came before (not yet, at least). For now, let’s take a look at what “ancient media” has to say about this supposed cataclysm. After all, if it was as big as we think, someone somewhere would’ve been shouting about it. Spoiler alert: they were.

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1. The Mesopotamians: The Epic of Gilgamesh

In one of the world’s oldest surviving stories, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the gods send a massive flood to wipe out humanity. The god Ea picks Utnapishtim, a local hero, to build a boat and save his family, friends, and some animals. After the deluge, Utnapishtim’s boat lands on Mount Nisir, and he sends a bird to scout for dry land.

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2. The Bible: Noah's Ark

You might’ve heard this one. In Genesis, God decides humanity’s wickedness has reached unacceptable levels, so He floods the earth, sparing only Noah, his family, and pairs of animals. Noah’s Ark settles on Mount Ararat, and a dove returns with an olive branch, marking the flood’s end.

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3. The Hindus: The Story of Manu

In Hindu myth, Manu—the first man—is warned by Vishnu (in the form of a fish) about an impending flood. Manu builds a boat, ties it to the fish, and is safely guided through the waters. When the flood subsides, he repopulates the world.

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4. The Greeks: Deucalion and Pyrrha

Greek mythology tells of Zeus flooding the world to end humanity’s corrupt Bronze Age. Deucalion, son of Prometheus, and his wife Pyrrha survive in a chest. They repopulate the world by throwing stones over their shoulders, which transform into humans.

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5. The Norse: Bergelmir and the Jotunn Flood

In Norse lore, the world floods when Ymir, a primordial giant, is slain. His blood drowns all the giants except Bergelmir and his wife, who survive using a hollowed-out tree trunk as a boat.

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6. The Maya: The Popol Vuh

According to the Popol Vuh, the Maya gods created humans from wood, only to find them heartless and disrespectful. Displeased, the gods send a flood to destroy these wooden beings and later create humanity from maize.

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7. The Chinese: The Gun-Yu Flood

Ancient Chinese myth describes a flood lasting years, sent as punishment for humanity’s sins. After his father’s failed attempts, Yu successfully controls the floodwaters by digging channels, a feat that earns him the right to found the Xia dynasty.

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8. The Aztecs: The Flood of Nahui-Atl

In Aztec myth, the gods unleash a flood in the fourth age (Nahui-Atl). To survive, the god Tezcatlipoca turns people into fish, while one man and woman hide in a hollowed cypress, repopulating the world afterward.

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9. The Indigenous Americans

Many Native American tribes tell flood stories. Among the Cree and Algonquin, a hero (often helped by an animal) retrieves a bit of soil from the depths, from which the world is recreated.

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10. The Sumerians: Ziusudra and the Sumerian Flood

The Eridu Genesis recounts how the god Enki warns Ziusudra of a planned flood. Ziusudra builds a boat, survives, and is granted eternal life by the gods.

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So, is it safe to conclude there was a flood that reset civilization? Across all these ancient sources, there’s a strange, global consistency: a catastrophic flood, a handful of survivors, and the beginning of something new. But the big questions remain—what existed before? Who, or what, rebooted civilization? And, more intriguingly, where do we fit in?