Bronze Age Catastrophe Layer Discovered In Irish Shell Midden

If I have the facts right, if the site is really 6ky old, the black layer over it would seem to be consistent with the 3114 BCE mega-tsunami Ed talks about.

Since they haven’t got a definitive date yet it looks like a lot more detailed analysis of that layer needs to be done before jumping to conclusions. But I wonder if this might have something to do with something mentioned in Bob Kobres’s work. Comets and the Bronze Age Collapse (http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/bronze.html)

Are guys doing arithmetic or Voodoo? If 6k is the age, that would be early Chalcolithic (copper, gold) or late Neolithic, but not Bronze Age, if memory serves. A date of 3114 BC would be 5126 BP, not 6k. This could be my problem, because I used to teach math, regular folks could care less?? Where's Ed, he complained he couldn't get on TUSK.

Further Comment of Age: The article states that the community was pre-farming. The dates for age archeological subdivisions such as neolithic or bronze age differ by region, with Middle Eastern ones being usually early. The Bronze Age came late to Northern Europe and, presumably, Ireland. So, perhaps this settlement was mesolithic.

I have to take exception to the logic behind this passage: "Excavation of the site revealed a mysterious black layer of organic material, which archeologists believe may be the results of a Stone Age tsunami which hit the Clare coast, possibly wiping out the people who used the midden." A midden is pretty friable, pretty fragile. It's just piled up shells and fish bones. Any tsunami would have erased the midden, unless I am missing something. One as strong as the Sumatran and Japanese tsunamis certainly would have, since they moved entire buildings and trees, not to mention cars, trucks, and ships. A midden is not more solid than buildings and trees.

Steve, you are missing something. You are correct that a tsunami would likely obliterate any evidence of a midden, but the mysterious black substance is reported to be found in the archaeological layer BELOW the midden. Thus if this layer was laid down by a tsunami, and the midden is above it, it implies that the users of the midden moved onto the land after the event, and that the two layers are not contemporary. Thus logically all that can be concluded is that the black mat is older than 6000 years BP, but how much older still needs to be verified.

http://www.livescience.com/56445-ancient-israel-city-burned-in-hours.html