Sumerian King List Fails Paleoclimate Alignment Test
Does the Sumerian King List Align with Paleoclimate Events?
An exploratory statistical analysis tests the hypothesis that the antediluvian reign lengths in the Sumerian King List encode real paleoclimate events. Using a Gaussian kernel proximity score, the analysis compares the sequence against a catalog of Quaternary events, anchoring the flood at 11.6 ka BP. Despite finding some apparent matches, the results are not statistically significant after permutation testing and multiple-comparison adjustment, with the best p-value at 0.021 but an adjusted q-value of 0.222. The article provides an interactive explorer and discusses what would constitute credible evidence.
Finding matches is easy. With nine boundaries and freedom to change the anchor or bandwidth, chance alignments are common.
- poulpy123
The idea that a list of kings from 4000 years ago would encodé global climate events for over 240.000 years is completely ludicrous. Astrology has a better grounding on reality than this idea.
And the fact that all lengths are multiple of 600, is even more telling knowing that they counted in base 60
- tehnoslow
Interesting breakdown. The author clearly put in the work to test this theory. I like that he's not trying to force the data to fit the result but instead explains why even apparent matches could just be coincidental.
- animan
This was fun to read! I wish there was a no tech version of hackers news for this type of content only
- mjd
Short answer: no.
Interesting nevertheless.
- quuxplusone
> One speculative interpretation treats these numbers as a distorted memory of prehistory. Under this hypothesis, the reign boundaries encode real climate shifts...
"One theory" implies that someone somewhere has ever claimed this. But has anyone? TFA gives no source for the claim, AFAICT (although I skimmed a bit).