Philip R. "Pib" Burns
Emerging Technologies Group

pib@nwu.edu

Emerging Technologies Group
Academic Technologies
Northwestern University
2129 North Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208-2850
USA

Catastrophism

My Interest in Catastrophism

Ever since childhood I've been interested in the interaction of the history of astronomy with archaeology and mythology. I remain intrigued by the possibility that small solar-system bodies like comets, asteroid, and meteors have played a significant role in the shaping the destiny of proto-historic and historic peoples all over all the world. In my youth in the 1960s I devoured the works of authors such as Hans Bellamy, Immanual Velikovsky, Comyns Beaumont, and Ignatius Donnelly, each of whom suggested that mythology encoded catastrophic astronomical events resulting from decaying moons, wildly careening planets, or asteroidal and cometary impacts.

As I grew older and learned more about astronomy and physics, I realized the untenability of the physical scenarios embraced by these authors. Yet I could not shake the idea that the mythology, religion, and ritual of different people all over the world stemmed at least in part from astronomical causes, including catastrophic impacts. In the early 1970s I read Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio de Santilliana and Hertha von Dechend. These authors collated myths from all over the world to show the universality of certain themes which most likely had an astronomical basis, primarily in the procession of the equinoxes. Santilliana and von Dechend noted that many of the myths discussed catastrophic occurrences, but they ascribed an allegorical meaning to these.

The first part of Terry Alden's essay The Mill of Time provides an overview of Santilliana and von Dechend's astronomical approach to mythology. Alden contrasts this with the psychological approach of Joseph Campbell. Alden suggests that both approaches represent valid understandings of the mind of the ancients, who he suggests believed "As above, so below." In the second part of his essay, Alden attempts to explain the "Star of Bethlehem" in terms of Santilliana and von Dechend's ideas. I do not know that von Dechend (who is still living; Santilliana died some years ago) would necessarily agree with Alden's conclusions about the Star of Bethlehem.

William Sullivan's The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time applies Santilliana and von Dechend's astronomical approach to unravel the technical language of Andean mythology. The Secret of the Incas contains 413 pages, bibliographical references, and an index. 

     Date     : 1996
     Price    : $35.00 (US)
     ISBN     : 0-517-59468-4
     Publisher: Crown Publishers, Inc.
                New York, NY.
Jane B. Seller's The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt: An Essay on Egyptian Religion and the Frame of Time, now regrettably out of print, combines Santilliana and von Dechend's approach involving precession with the phenomena associated with total eclipses to explain the prehistoric origins of Egyptian religion and mythology.

Clube and Napier

In 1982, two British astronomers, S. V. M Clube and William Napier, published a book entitled The Cosmic Serpent. Clube and Napier suggested that Jupiter and Saturn occasionally divert giant comets (>50 km in diameter -- Chiron is an example) into the inner solar system into short-period orbits. Debris from the resultant disintegration of these giant comets can adversely affect the environment of the Earth. Dusting can block sunlight, resulting in globally cooler conditions. Impact events in the super-Tunguska class may result in not only heavy localized destruction but also the occasional "impact winter" or dust veil with global climatological effects. Clube and Napier identified the progenitor of the Taurid complex as such a giant comet whose injection into a short-period (about 3.3 year) orbit occurred sometime in the last twenty to thirty thousand years. The effects of the disintegration of this object in an Earth-crossing orbit should appear in the geological and climatological record. Clube and Napier marshalled evidence for such effects in "The Cosmic Serpent" as well as their later book Cosmic Winter published in 1990. Clube and Napier, following in the footsteps of earlier catastrophists, also sought evidence of catastrophic events in ancient mythology and history. These authors have also written papers in standard peer-reviewed journals about the role giant comets play in constructing a tenable physical theory of coherent catastrophism. The extracts from Clube's paper "Giant Comets and their Role in History" which appeared in The Universe and its Origins edited by S. Fred Singer (Paragon House, New York, 1990) emphasize the potential climatic effects of the Taurid complex.

I believe that Clube and Napier provide the best physical model for recent astronomical catastrophes. Independent researcher Bob Kobres thinks so too. You can find his papers on the role of comets in the Bronze age collapse and on Comet Phaeton's Ride on his Web site, among other interesting things.

Catastrophism and Mass Extinctions

Since 1980, the theory that the impact of a large asteroid or comet brought about the demise of the dinosaurs and many other forms of life at the end of the Cretaceous (the "K-T boundary") has gained in popularity. Some scientists remain unconvinced by the evidence, however. Here are some Web pages which discuss this mass extinction event as well as others before and since.

Other Catastrophism

Research continues into planetary catastrophism which calls for large-scale disruptions of the solar system during the Holocene. Exponents of this viewpoint in the twentieth century include Immanual Velikovsky and a host of his followers, Zecharia Sitchin, and Hanns Horbiger. I do not agree that the physical, historical, or mythological evidence requires or supports such disruptions. Here are some Web pages which discuss these alternative viewpoints.

Impact Images

The images of terrestrial impact craters compiled by Calvin J. Hamilton clearly show that the Earth, like the Moon and other terrestrial planets, bears scars caused by the impact of extraterrestrial objects.

How Dangerous are Earth-Crossing Objects?

The danger from near-Earth objects has sparked research into the probability of occurrence of damaging impacts as well as the possibility of deflecting potential impactors before they strike the Earth. The extent of the damage even a small impactor can cause is exemplified by the asteroid or comet fragment which exploded in the air over Tunguska in Siberia in June of 1908 with a force equivalent to between ten and twenty megatons of TNT. (Such an explosion in the air in which the impactor does not reach the ground intact is called an airburst.) The resulting blast wave leveled hundreds of square kilometers of forest. The Tunguska object was probably about 50-70 meters (around 200 feet) in diameter. Clearly an object of this size could easily destroy a large metropolitan center. This nearly happened with Tunguska; a difference in arrival time of a few hours might have seen populous St. Peterburg or another European city destroyed. In fact, at about the same time as the Tunguska object exploded, a small object struck near the city of Kiev. The coincidence in time leads some scientists to speculate that the Kiev object may be a fragment of the Tunguska impactor, or at least, a fragment of the same parent object as the Tunguska impactor.