Human History Across the Flood Date

Egypt's early dynasties, the Near Eastern Neolithic, Japan's Jomon and Australia's first settlers lie before or run through every biblical Flood date, on clocks that agree with each other. The Septuagint's date clears Egypt's pyramids but nothing older. No published compression works, and population growth shows a young human race is possible, not that it is young.

By AI (Claude Opus 5.5, thinking level unavailable) Draft:  October 2026

"The only thing we can be certain about are the biblical dates and the age of the earth. It is Egyptian chronology that needs adjusting." — Gavin Cox and Gary Bates, Creation Ministries International, 20201

"Currently, a biblical recalibration curve for carbon dates does not exist so we can only talk in generalities." — Robert Carter, Creation Ministries International, 20212

"It is impossible at this point in time to give an accurate assessment of the time taken for the build-up of these strata." — A. J. M. Osgood, the only creationist to attempt a model of the whole Stone Age, 19863

Summary

Genesis has every living person descend from Noah's family, and young-earth writers place the dispersal from Babel a century or a few centuries after the Flood.  So a human record that runs through the Flood date without a break, or that needs more time after it than Genesis allows, tests the young-earth reading.  This page gathers four articles that run the test on Egypt, on the first farming villages of the Near East, on the first peoples of Australia, Japan and the Americas, and on the growth of world population.

The Flood date depends on which text of Genesis 5 and 11 is followed.  Ussher's reckoning from the Hebrew Masoretic text gives 2348 BC, and the Masoretic plain sum gives 2518 BC.  The Greek Septuagint's plain sum gives about 3298 BC.  Chris Hardy and Robert Carter, two young-earth writers, put the widest window the texts allow at "between 3386 bc and 2256 bc".4

On any Masoretic date the human record does not fit after the Flood, and on the Septuagint's date only Egypt's dynasties do.  Egypt's first four dynasties, Göbekli Tepe, Jericho's lower 8,000 years, Japan's early Jomon pottery and the first Australians all lie before every Masoretic Flood date, and the records at Jericho, in the Jomon and at Madjedbebe in Australia run through it with no break.  The Septuagint's date puts the pyramids and the First Dynasty after the Flood with no revision to Egyptology.  It leaves Egypt's Predynastic farmers, the whole Neolithic, and every site in Australia, Japan and the Americas before it.  The dates do not rest on radiocarbon alone:  king lists counted back from 664 BC, counted building levels and tree rings, and luminescence that agrees with radiocarbon where the two meet all give the same answer.  Each compression route in print fails a test that can be put to it, and its most careful proponents say in print that no working calibration exists.  The young-earth side wins one argument here:  eight people can become eight billion since the Flood at under half a percent a year.  That shows a young human race is possible, not that it is young.

The four articles:

  1. Egypt and the Flood Date. King lists and radiocarbon agree to within 178 years and put the Step Pyramid before every Masoretic Flood date. The Septuagint clears the pyramids; nothing clears the Predynastic farmers.
  2. The Neolithic Revolution and the Flood Date. Göbekli Tepe, Jericho and Çatalhöyük lie 6,000 to 10,000 years before any Flood date, on counts of building levels and tree rings that use no radiocarbon. Tell depth alone proves nothing, and the article says so.
  3. Australia, Japan, and the Americas Before the Flood Date. Five sites dated by agreeing methods need post-Babel clocks running 3 to 100 times fast, and the Jomon and Madjedbebe sequences run through both Flood dates.
  4. Human Population Growth. Eight people become eight billion since the Flood at under half a percent a year, so the arithmetic works. Real populations grow in booms and crashes, so an average rate dates nothing.

Part 1: Which Flood date

The four articles use the figures in the Summary:  2348 BC for Ussher, 2518 BC for the Masoretic plain sum, and 3298 BC for the Septuagint's.  The young-earth camp does not agree to better than about 170 years within the Hebrew text.  Answers in Genesis prints 2348 BC, and Creation Ministries International prints "the Great Flood (c. 2450 BC)."5  Between the Hebrew and Greek texts the spread is much larger.  Hardy and Carter:  "The Masoretic/LXX debate creates a 1,326-year dichotomy".4  They also warn their own side:  "Christians should avoid dogmatic claims of dating precision greater than intended by the Bible that could be refuted with new evidence, causing some to mistakenly believe the Bible itself has been refuted."4  The text-forms are weighed in The Genesis Genealogies and Gaps and How Old Does the Bible Say Earth Is?.

The Flood is not the only line.  Genesis 11 counts 101 years from the Flood to the birth of Peleg on the Hebrew text and 531 on the Septuagint, and young-earth writers put the dispersal from Babel at or after that point.  Every people outside Mesopotamia must arrive after Babel.  The Babel account itself is tested in Babel, Language, and Human Dispersal.

Part 2: The records across the Flood date

The table gathers the records the four articles test.  Two kinds matter.  A sequence that runs through a Flood date without a break shows no Flood on its own dates, so the young-earth answer must compress the whole of it into the time after Babel.  A single dated horizon says only how far back people were in one place, and so how much compression it needs.

Record How it is dated Conventional date Masoretic Flood, 2348 to 2518 BC Septuagint Flood, about 3298 BC What a young-earth reading needs
Egypt's Predynastic farmers, Badarian and Naqada 186 radiocarbon dates in Bayesian models; seriated cemeteries about 4400 to 3100 BC6 All before All before; the last Naqada phase on the line No creationist chronology exists
Egypt's Dynasties 1 to 6 King lists counted back from 664 BC; a lunar chain from about 2350 BC; radiocarbon on short-lived plants Aha 3111 to 3045 BC; Djoser 2676 to 2643 BC7 Dynasties 1 to 4 before; Ussher's date leaves 27 years for them All after, with no revision King lists 244 years too long and radiocarbon 312 years too old, at once, for Ussher's date
Göbekli Tepe, Turkey Radiocarbon on wall plaster and on mortar in the standing walls one enclosure wall 9745 to 9314 BC8 Before, by about 7,000 years Before; the extra 780 years close about 11 percent 1,500 to 2,000 conventional years of building squeezed 6 to 60 times
Jericho Stratified tell; radiocarbon; the excavator's period table 10,500 BC to the Ottoman period9 Runs through; the Flood lands in Early Bronze IIIB or IVA Runs through; the Flood lands at the start of Early Bronze IB10 7,200 to 8,000 years of tell beneath the Flood horizon
Çatalhöyük, Turkey Seventeen building levels; measured house lives; tree rings 850 to 1,700 years of levels, counted with no radiocarbon Before Before Osgood allows 330 years for the whole world's Stone Age
Early managed goats, Ganj Dareh, Iran Direct radiocarbon on bone; body-size measurements managed by 9,900 BP, domestic in form 500 to 1,500 years later11 Before Before A biological rate, compressed with everything else
The Jomon of Japan 1,433 radiocarbon dates; pottery phases about 16,000 to 2,500 years ago12 Runs through; the Flood falls at the start of the Late Jomon Runs through; the Flood falls in the Middle Jomon 11 to 13 conventional years per real year; about 7 on the most generous dates
Madjedbebe, northern Australia Luminescence on sand; radiocarbon on charcoal, agreeing to about 34,000 years first people about 65,000 years ago, about 50,000 on the critics' reading; upper band 7,100 years ago to now The upper band runs through The upper band runs through Luminescence clocks 14 to 15 times fast since Babel, or about 100 times if the excess ended with the Ice Age
Lake Mungo, Australia Luminescence on the burials 40,000 ± 2,000 years13 Single horizon, before Before Luminescence 9 times fast; air at 2 percent of today's carbon-14
Monte Verde, Chile Radiocarbon on the camp; luminescence on the peat that seals it about 14,500 years14 Single horizon, before Before Luminescence 3 times fast; air at about 35 percent of today's carbon-14
White Sands, New Mexico Radiocarbon on seeds, pollen and lake mud; luminescence on quartz 21,000 to 23,000 years15 Single horizon, before Before Air at about 16 percent and a dose rate 5 times today's, agreeing by coincidence
World population Censuses and historical estimates; radiocarbon-date counts 0.064 percent a year from AD 1 to 175016 Not a dated record Not a dated record An average of 0.47 percent a year from Ussher's date, 0.39 from the Septuagint's

Three things stand out.  First, three records run through every Flood date in print:  Jericho, the Jomon, and the upper layers at Madjedbebe.  Second, most of the clocks in the table are not radiocarbon.  Egypt's king lists, the lunar chain, Çatalhöyük's building levels and tree rings, the stacked periods at Jericho, the goats' slow change in body size, and luminescence in Australia and the Americas would stand if every radiocarbon date were thrown out.  Third, where two unrelated clocks meet, they agree:  Egypt's king lists and its radiocarbon, and radiocarbon and luminescence at Madjedbebe, Monte Verde and White Sands.

Part 3: The compression routes

Young-earth writers have proposed five ways to fit these records after the Flood, besides setting the dates aside.  Each is given here in its proponents' words, with the verdict of the article that tests it.

Route Who proposes it What it could move Verdict
The Septuagint's longer chronology Habermehl 2013 Egypt's dynasties Works for the pyramids and the First Dynasty; moves nothing older
Overlapping dynasties Eusebius, Courville, Habermehl Egypt only Fails on raw radiocarbon, reused stone and the lunar chain
Low carbon-14 after the Flood Carter, Walker, Brown, Snelling Radiocarbon dates only Right direction, wrong size; no curve exists, and the one published curve puts White Sands at Babel
Fast radioactive decay after the Flood Snelling Luminescence and other radiometric dates Needs 3 to 100 times today's rate on a schedule, and a coincidence wherever two clocks meet
Fast tells, contemporary cultures, telescoped time Osgood, Habermehl 2018 The Near Eastern Neolithic Tell depth falls to it; counted levels, tree rings and measured building spans do not

The Septuagint's longer chronology

This is not a compression but a shift of the Flood to about 3298 BC.  Anne Habermehl argued for it in 2013:  "It is shown that more time for events between the Flood and Abraham is needed than the Masoretic timeline allows; the longer chronology of the Septuagint is therefore most likely correct."17  David Down and John Ashton saw the same escape and refused it on textual grounds, describing scholars who try "to move the date of the Flood back beyond the biblical date of about 2,300 B.C."18  Verdict:  it puts Djoser six centuries after the Flood and Aha about two centuries after it with no change to Egyptology.  It does nothing for the Badarian farmers, 1,100 years before it, closes about a tenth of the Neolithic gap, and is irrelevant at 14,000 to 65,000 years.

Overlapping dynasties

The licence comes from Eusebius, a fourth-century bishop:  "But if the number of years is still in excess, it must be supposed that perhaps several Egyptian kings ruled at one and the same time".19  Donovan Courville built on it in 1971:  "The so-called Middle Kingdom of Egypt thus never had an existence as such and is but a creation of modern historians resulting from an erroneous interpretation of Manetho's dynasties."20  Habermehl's version:  "Dynasties 5 & 6 may have run concurrently with Dynasties 11 & 12."21  Verdict:  both schemes fail three tests.  Uncalibrated radiocarbon on comparable short-lived material puts the Old Kingdom set about 350 radiocarbon years older than the Middle Kingdom set, before any curve is applied.22  "Old-Kingdom decorated blocks with the names of several kings were reused in building Middle-Kingdom pyramid-temples, as at Lisht".23  And a lunar distance of "at least 211 years" separates year 7 of Wenis, late in the Fifth Dynasty, from a date early in the Eleventh.24  Creation Ministries International withdrew its endorsement of David Down's chronology in 2022.25  The route has no counterpart outside Egypt.

Low carbon-14 after the Flood

Robert Carter's 2021 statement is the most careful:  "If ancient samples started out with less carbon-14 than we expect, they will appear to be older than they really are… This age inflation should also increase as you sample older and older objects. Thus, we might expect samples from ancient Egypt or Jericho to be inflated by a few centuries."2  Tas Walker goes further:  early post-Flood samples "give ages that are too old by tens of thousands of years."26  Verdict:  in Egypt the shape is right and the size is wrong.  The gap between the historical and radiocarbon clocks grows with age but reaches only 178 years at Aha, while Ussher's date needs 312 at Djoser.  Setting every radiocarbon date aside leaves Djoser where the king lists put him before radiocarbon existed, and leaves Çatalhöyük's levels and tree rings untouched.  At the distant sites the air after Babel would need 2 to 35 percent of today's carbon-14, and refilling it from the White Sands level by 1000 BC needs about 7 times today's production for a thousand years.  The one young-earth curve with a published equation, Robert Brown's of 1992, puts the Flood 5,350 years before 1950 and starts the air at 1.1 percent of today's level.27  Rebuilt, it puts the White Sands footprints 99 years after the Flood, at Babel itself.  Marcus Ross, Peter Brummel and Todd Wood concede that "none of the dating methods have a widely accepted method of recalibrating to a creationist timescale."28

Fast radioactive decay after the Flood

Andrew Snelling's chart for Answers in Genesis files the luminescence ages of early human carvings and pottery under "Centuries soon after the flood (~2250 BC–present)",29 and states that "radioactive elements decayed rapidly during and soon after the flood".29  Verdict:  luminescence clocks would have to run 3 to 15 times today's rate on average since Babel, or 17 to 100 times if the excess ended with the Ice Age, on a schedule that gives each site its own conventional age.  At White Sands, Monte Verde and Madjedbebe the same layers are dated by radiocarbon and by luminescence.  On the model as its writers state it, low carbon-14 in the air fixes one clock and fast decay in the ground fixes the other, so two unrelated corrections happen to give the same answer at three sites.  A uniform speed-up of all decay would make the clocks agree, but no young-earth writer proposes one for the centuries after Babel, and it would act in every living body of the time.

Fast tells, contemporary cultures and telescoped time

A. J. M. Osgood, in 1986, gave the only creationist model of the whole Stone Age.  It allowed the period from 2200 to 1870 BC for nearly every Stone Age culture outside Mesopotamia,3 and proposed that "The Paleolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic could well be contemporary".3  He argued that mud-brick houses in a wet climate collapsed every 7.5 to 15 years and built tells fast.  Habermehl's 2018 paper maps conventional time onto biblical time unevenly:  "there is as little as 25 years allowed for the building of the entire Gӧbekli Tepe site before its abandonment."30  Verdict:  Osgood's mechanism works, and the Neolithic article concedes it:  it builds a 21-metre tell in 200 to 800 years, so depth alone proves nothing.  What fails is the rest.  Çatalhöyük's houses "were lived in for 50-100 years",31 and two of its timbers are 132 tree rings apart.32  Periods stacked in one column at Jericho cannot be contemporary with each other.  Göbekli Tepe's excavators now place its final building phases "in excess of five centuries after their initial foundation".33  Habermehl allows 25 years.

Setting the dates aside

The commonest response is not a route.  Walker on Lake Mungo:  "That is why we won’t accept any date that contradicts the eyewitness evidence of human history recorded in the Bible.  Such contradictory dates can’t be right."26  Lita Sanders and Carter on Göbekli Tepe:  "the dates are wrong."34  Gavin Cox and Gary Bates on Egypt:  "It is Egyptian chronology that needs adjusting."1  None of these names a measurement that went wrong.  Answers in Genesis gives Göbekli Tepe a biblical date of "about 2150–1900 BC" with no method stated.35

Part 4: Egypt

Answers in Genesis states the problem in one line:  "pyramids could never withstand a worldwide flood."36  The Old Kingdom is not dated by the Sothic cycle that creationist writers attack,23 and its two independent clocks agree to within 178 years.  A 2025 radiocarbon study found that "the Low Chronology is no longer empirically supported for the Old and Middle Kingdoms".22  Every creationist founding date for Egypt traces to a Christian chronographer, Eusebius in the fourth century or Constantine Manasses in the twelfth.36  The Septuagint's Flood clears the pyramids and the First Dynasty, but not the Badarian farmers before them.  Read the article.

Part 5: The Neolithic

Genesis puts Noah's landing and Babel where archaeology finds the first villages, monuments, bread and domestic animals.  Göbekli Tepe's wall plaster is about 6,000 to 7,400 years older than the Flood, depending on the text, and Jericho "records over 10,000 years of human history … without any apparent significant breaks in occupation".9  The article concedes that tell depth proves nothing, then shows what does:  measured house lives, counted tree rings, periods stacked in one column, and the slow change of domestic animals.  The creationist literature offers four dates for Göbekli Tepe and a method for none.  Read the article.

Part 6: Australia, Japan and the Americas

People were at Madjedbebe by about 65,000 years ago, "conservatively 59.3 ka",37 or about 50,000 on the reading of critics who judged that "an age estimate of >50 ka for this site is unlikely to be valid."38  Lake Mungo, Japan's first pottery, Monte Verde and White Sands follow at 40,000 to 14,500 years, and four of the five rest on two or more agreeing methods.  Madjedbebe's upper band "has a modelled start age of 7.1 ± (1.0, 1.1) kyr" and runs to the present,37 so it and the Jomon run through both Flood dates.  Young-earth writers place all of these people after Babel, Andrew Sibley putting White Sands at "around 4,000 years BP",39 and none names a failed measurement at any of these sites.  Read the article.

Part 7: Human population growth

Henry Morris argued in 1974 that a long human past means billions of dead, so "it is incredible that today there would be so little fossil or cultural evidence of ancient man".40  The arithmetic of a young race is right:  eight people become eight billion since 2348 BC at 0.47 percent a year, a fifth of the rate of French Canada's settlers.16  The premise is wrong.  Morris judged it "unlikely that the long-time growth rate could have averaged significantly less than (1/2)%",41 but growth from AD 1 to 1750 averaged 0.064 percent, and the Holocene's 0.04 percent hides swings "substantially greater (a factor of >10)".42  An average built from booms and crashes dates nothing, and the burial count needs a survival rate no one has measured.  Read the article.

Objections and responses

  1. "Every one of these dates leans on radiocarbon, and radiocarbon assumes a steady atmosphere." Most of the clocks in Part 2 are not radiocarbon. Egypt's king lists put Djoser near 2600 BC before radiocarbon was invented, and Çatalhöyük's levels and tree rings use none. Where radiocarbon is checked against another clock, it agrees.
  2. "The experts disagree among themselves." They do, and the articles print each dispute with its size. Egypt's disputes are worth a century or two. Madjedbebe's 65,000 against 50,000 is 15,000 years. Lake Mungo's burials have been dated at 30,000, 42,000 to 45,000, 62,000 and 40,000 years. None of these disputes brings any record within reach of a Flood date.
  3. "The Septuagint solves it." For Egypt's dynasties, yes, and it is the strongest move a young-earth writer has. It does not reach the Predynastic, the Neolithic, the Jomon or Australia. Hardy and Carter's earliest date, 3386 BC, adds only 88 years more.
  4. "Scripture is eyewitness testimony, and it outranks inference from dating methods." That is a statement of trust, not a measurement. It cannot tell a reader which date failed or why the unrelated clocks agree. Hardy and Carter's warning against "dogmatic claims of dating precision greater than intended by the Bible" applies here, since the texts themselves differ by 1,326 years.
  5. "The world could have filled fast enough after the Flood to build Egypt." The population article's front-loaded path, growth at the French Canadian rate from Ussher's date, gives the whole world about 370 people in 2188 BC and about 3,100 in 2100 BC.43 Mitchell has Mizraim found Egypt "around 2188 B.C.",36 and Ashton and Down start Egyptian history "around 2100 B.C."18 Genesis has Egypt founded by one family, so this is no disproof. But the revised chronologies must build the First Dynasty's kingdom and the Old Kingdom's pyramids from the descendants of a few hundred people within a few centuries, and no creationist source read for these articles works that out.
  6. "Then the young-earth side has nothing right here." It has several things right. Tell depth proves nothing. The standard handbook's Old Kingdom dates were about a century off as recently as 2006. Göbekli Tepe's "first temple" reading and its ritual backfilling have been withdrawn by its excavators. Lake Mungo's methods once agreed on a wrong date. The population arithmetic holds. None of these closes the gap.

Issues and unanswered questions

  1. No young-earth calibration exists. There is no published curve for radiocarbon that fits Egypt, Jericho and the Jomon at once, no cause that moves radiocarbon and luminescence together, no creationist chronology of Egypt's Predynastic, and no young-earth treatment of the Jomon or Odai Yamamoto. Any of these would change the verdicts.
  2. The mainstream case has soft spots. Of Dee's 112 legacy dates for early Egypt, 63 are on wood, charcoal or shell, which can read old. Madjedbebe is one site in sand that termites rework. White Sands has no stone tools. Japan's first pottery dates come from one pot. Hodder's much-quoted claim that Çatalhöyük's plaster was renewed every year cites a chapter that says nothing about plaster. These are worth from a few hundred to about twenty thousand years, and none brings a record near a Flood date.
  3. The children differ slightly on the Flood band. The Neolithic article says every Flood date Genesis allows falls between 3300 and 2350 BC, while Hardy and Carter, cited by the Australia article, give 3386 to 2256 BC. The Australia article's Summary gives the Septuagint Flood as about 3100 to 3300 BC, and its own Part 2 as 3298 to 3386 BC. Hardy and Carter's range is the sourced one and is used here. No verdict moves: the differences are at most about two centuries, against gaps of thousands of years.

Verdict

The human record does not fit after any Masoretic Flood date, and after the Septuagint's date only Egypt's dynasties fit.  Three records run through every Flood date in print without a break:  Jericho, the Jomon and Madjedbebe's upper layers.  The rest lie centuries to tens of thousands of years before it.  The dates rest on king lists, lunar dates, counted levels, tree rings and luminescence as well as radiocarbon, and where two unrelated clocks meet they agree.

Every compression route has been tested.  Dynastic overlap fails on raw radiocarbon and reused stone.  Low post-Flood carbon-14 has the right shape and the wrong size, and its only published curve puts White Sands at Babel.  Fast decay needs a schedule and a coincidence.  Fast tells explain depth and nothing else.  Setting the dates aside names no failed measurement.  The writers closest to the problem, Carter, Osgood, and Ross, Brummel and Wood, say in print that the work is not done.

What an honest young-earth position looks like.  Take the Septuagint and pay its textual price, which clears the pyramids.  Say plainly that the Predynastic, the Neolithic and the first peoples of Australia, Japan and the Americas have no young-earth chronology yet.  Use the population argument only as a defence.  And name the measurements a working model would have to explain:  the 178-year agreement of Egypt's two clocks, Çatalhöyük's counted levels, and radiocarbon and luminescence agreeing at White Sands.

Sources

  1. 1.

    Cox, Gavin, and Gary Bates.  Can we understand Egyptian chronology before the Exodus?  Creation Ministries International.  Jul 22, 2020.  A reply by Gavin Cox and Gary Bates of Creation Ministries International, updated 12 September 2020, to a reader's question about whether the earliest Egyptian dates can be trusted.  It gives no new dates.  It argues that Manetho's history and carbon-14 dating are both shaky, and it concludes that the Bible's dates are certain and Egyptian chronology needs adjusting.  The article uses it as the clearest admission from CMI that creationists cannot yet fix early Egyptian dates.

    1. 1a.

      Section Beginning with the Bible:  The article's closing verdict.  “Based upon the information currently available, we don't think it is even possible to be definitive about this. The only thing we can be certain about are the biblical dates and the age of the earth. It is Egyptian chronology that needs adjusting.” ↩ ↩

  2. 2.

    Carter, Robert.  How carbon dating works.  Creation Ministries International.  2021.  A Creation Ministries International explainer by Robert Carter on how carbon-14 dating works and why creationists say it reads ancient samples too old.  Carter says the piece was reviewed by a physical chemist, an Egyptologist, a radiocarbon archaeologist and a chemist who runs a dating laboratory.  The article uses it for the most careful creationist statement of the claim that the Flood and a decaying magnetic field inflated early carbon dates.

    1. 2a.

      Section Egyptian history:  “Currently, a biblical recalibration curve for carbon dates does not exist so we can only talk in generalities.” ↩

    2. 2b.

      Section How are the dates obtained?:  “If ancient samples started out with less carbon-14 than we expect, they will appear to be older than they really are… This age inflation should also increase as you sample older and older objects. Thus, we might expect samples from ancient Egypt or Jericho to be inflated by a few centuries. The carbon date of any sample that was formed immediately after the Flood would be even more inflated, perhaps by 50,000 years or more.” ↩

  3. 3.

    Osgood, A. J. M.  “A Better Model for the Stone Age.”  EN Tech. J. (now Journal of Creation) 2:88–102.  1986.  A creationist article that tries to fit the whole Stone Age, everything before the end of the Chalcolithic (the copper-using period) in the Middle East, into the years after the Flood.  Osgood gives that period 330 years, from 2,200 BC, the date he assigns to Babel, to 1,870 BC, the date he assigns to Abraham's entry into Canaan.  The article uses it as the fullest creationist attempt at this, and quotes its statements about the period and its rejection of radiocarbon and tree-ring dating.

    1. 3a.

      Section A wet middle east and heavy strata build-up:  The last paragraph of the section.  “It is impossible at this point in time to give an accurate assessment of the time taken for the build-up of these strata.  Long periods of time that have artificially been assigned to them simply cannot be sustained on any present evidence.” ↩

    2. 3b.

      Section A better model - Bibilical chronology of the stone age:  “However, all the rest of the civilizations of the ancient world will have to be seen as post-Flood and post-Babel, and therefore after 2,200 B.C.  Consequently, on the biblical model, any other civilization outside of Mesopotamia, with the possible exception of small areas along the route between Ararat and Sumer, would have to be dated from 2,200 B.C. until 1,870 B.C. for a stone age period, that is, for all that is embraced within the Paleolithic to the end of the Chalcolithic, wherever such a relative chronology can be applied satisfactorily.” ↩

    3. 3c.

      Section The pond ripple effect:  In the paragraph beside Figure 3:  “The Paleolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic could well be contemporary, and might simply be an indication of the different conditions and the different environment and distance from the centre point available to each of the different cultures.” ↩

  4. 4.

    Hardy, Chris, and Robert Carter.  “The biblical minimum and maximum age of the earth.”  Journal of Creation 28(2):89–96.  2014.  A young-earth paper that works out the earliest and latest dates the biblical numbers allow for creation and the Flood, across the Masoretic, Samaritan and Septuagint texts.  This article uses its earliest Flood date as the most generous young-earth figure.

    1. 4a.

      Page 96:  “The Flood probably occurred between 2600 bc and 2300 bc, but certainly between 3386 bc and 2256 bc (table 5).” ↩

    2. 4b.

      Section Abstract, page 89:  “Accounting for all presently known relevant details and assuming the Babylonian Captivity began in 587 or 586 bc, we can say with confidence that the Bible places limits on the year of creation between 5665 and 3822 bc. The uncertainty within this range is mainly driven by textual considerations. The Masoretic/LXX debate creates a 1,326-year dichotomy, the Long vs Short Sojourn positions differ by 215 years, and various interpretations of the lists of the kings of Judah and Israel equates to around 54 years of additional uncertainty.” ↩

    3. 4c.

      Section Abstract, page 89:  “Christians should avoid dogmatic claims of dating precision greater than intended by the Bible that could be refuted with new evidence, causing some to mistakenly believe the Bible itself has been refuted.” ↩

  5. 5.

    Bates, Gary.  “Egyptian chronology and the Bible—framing the issues.”  creation.com.  Creation Ministries International.  Sep 2, 2014.  An overview by Gary Bates of Creation Ministries International, asking whether the dates given to the Egyptian dynasties falsify the biblical creation date; it was updated on 9 April 2024.  Its argument is that the secular Egyptian chronology runs too far back, with dates for the great pyramids that would put them before the Flood.  The article uses it as a creationist critique of Egyptian dating and checks three of its claims.

    1. 5a.

      “the Great Flood (c. 2450 BC).” ↩

  6. 6.

    Dee, Michael et al.  “An absolute chronology for early Egypt using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian statistical modelling.”  Proceedings of the Royal Society A 469.  2013.  A study that dated 186 samples from the Badarian, Naqada and First Dynasty periods by radiocarbon, 74 of them new, and combined the results with archaeological evidence about the order of pottery styles in a Bayesian statistical model.  It finds that the state formed more rapidly than was thought, and dates the accession of King Aha, the start of the First Dynasty, to 3111–3045 BC (68%).  Its article number is 20130395, in volume 469.  The article uses it for the date of Aha and for the Predynastic farmers, whom no Flood chronology can reach.

    1. 6a.

      Table 1, section 3:  “Modelled dates for accession years of the First Dynasty and cultural transition dates for the Naqada and Badarian periods”.  68% hpd: Aha 3111–3045; Den 2928–2911; Qa'a 2906–2886; duration of Dynasty 1 170–270 years (153–375 at 95%); Naqada IB/IC 3690–3605; Naqada IIB/IIC 3498–3413; Naqada IID/IIIA 3352–3297; Badarian start 4407–4308; Badarian end 3800–3667; duration of the Naqada period 563–730 years. ↩

  7. 7.

    Bronk Ramsey, Christopher et al.  “Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt.”  Science 328(5985):1554–1557.  Jun 18, 2010.  A research paper that dated 211 samples of short-lived plants from Egypt by radiocarbon, then fed the results into a Bayesian statistical model that also uses historical information on how long each king reigned.  Its model puts the start of Djoser's reign between 2691 and 2625 BC, earlier than some previous historical estimates.  The article uses it as the main radiocarbon dating for the Old Kingdom.

    1. 7a.

      From the Supporting Online Material.  Table S7:  “Modelled accession dates for the Old and Middle Kingdom model”.  Khasekhemwy 2696–2654 (68%), 2725–2633 (95%); Djoser 2676–2643 (68%), 2691–2625 (95%); Sneferu 2634–2599 / 2649–2582; Khufu 2613–2577 / 2629–2558; Unas 2438–2397 / 2450–2363; Pepy I 2389–2349 / 2399–2310.  Table S8:  New Kingdom model. Ahmose 1566–1552 (68%), 1570–1544 (95%); seasonal effect 17–24 (68%), 14–27 (95%).  The abstract prints the 95% ranges; this article uses the 68% ranges throughout, so that the two-clock comparison is like for like. ↩

  8. 8.

    Dietrich, Oliver et al.  “Establishing a Radiocarbon Sequence for Göbekli Tepe. State of Research and New Data.”  Neo-Lithics 1/13:36–41.  2013.  A paper in Neo-Lithics, the newsletter of Southwest Asian Neolithic research, giving the radiocarbon dates for Göbekli Tepe.  It warns that dates from pedogenic carbonate, lime that forms in the soil, ran too young, and it gives a wall-plaster date as the better sample.  The article uses it for the wall-plaster date, which it treats as dating the building itself.

    1. 8a.

      Page 36:  Sample KIA-44149, wall plaster of Enclosure D between pillars 41 and 42.  “gives a date of 9984 ± 42 ¹⁴C-BP (9745-9314 calBC at the 95.4% confidence level)”. ↩

  9. 9.

    Wang, Xiaoran et al.  “Isotopic and proteomic evidence for communal stability at Pre-Pottery Neolithic Jericho in the Southern Levant.”  Scientific Reports 13:16360.  2023.  A study of isotopes in the enamel of 52 human teeth from Pre-Pottery Neolithic layers of Jericho, used to test diet and movement.  Only two of the 44 sampled inhabitants identified by strontium were non-local, which the authors read as consistent with a largely sedentary community and no large-scale migration.  The article uses it because its authors had no stake in the Flood argument and describe Jericho as occupied without apparent breaks.

    1. 9a.

      Section Introduction:  “ancient Jericho records over 10,000 years of human history, from the Late Natufian (10,500–8500 BC) to the Ottoman period (1516–1918 AD), without any apparent significant breaks in occupation”.  A summary sentence that cites Kenyon's excavation volumes.  It conflicts with Bar-Yosef's Natufian-to-PPNA gap. ↩ ↩

  10. 10.

    Nigro, Lorenzo, and Jehad Yasine.  “Interim Report on the Excavations at Tell es-Sultan, Ancient Jericho (2019–2023): The Bronze and Iron Age Cities.”  Vicino Oriente XXIX:47–96.  2024.  An interim excavation report on the Bronze and Iron Age cities at Tell es-Sultan, the mound of ancient Jericho, covering the years 2019 to 2023.  Its Table 1 gives the dated periods of the mound from the Late Natufian to the Iron Age.  The article uses that table to place the Flood dates against the layers of the mound.

    1. 10a.

      Table 1, page 48:  The table gives: Sultan Ia, Epipaleolithic (Late Natufian), 10500–8800 BC; Ib, PPNA, 8800–7500 BC; Ic, PPNB, 7500–6300/6000 BC; IIa, PNA, 6300/6000–5300 BC; IIb, PNB, 5300–4300 BC; IIc, Chalcolithic, 4300–3500 BC; IIIa1, EB IA, 3500–3300; IIIa2, EB IB, 3300–3050; IIIb1, EB IIA, 3050–2850; IIIb2, EB IIB, 2850–2700; IIIc1, EB IIIA, 2700–2500; IIIc2, EB IIIB, 2500–2300; IIId1, EB IVA, 2300–2200; IIId2, EB IVB, 2200–2000; then Middle Bronze 2000–1550, Late Bronze 1550–1200/1190, and the Iron Age.  The paper defers the PPNA tower to.  “a forthcoming dedicated study”. ↩

  11. 11.

    Zeder, Melinda A.  “Domestication and early agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin: Origins, diffusion, and impact.”  PNAS 105(33):11597–11604.  Aug 19, 2008.  A review article by a Smithsonian archaeobiologist whose own study of animal bones finds little support for the idea that domestication automatically shrinks managed animals.  It argues that evidence for herd management and crop cultivation appears at least 1,000 years before the morphological changes traditionally used to document domestication.  The article uses it to show that domestication is a rate as well as a date.

    1. 11a.

      “Application of this approach to archaeological assemblages from Iraq and Iran has identified the clear signature of a managed herd of goats (harvesting of young males and prolonged survivorship of females) at the site of Ganj Dareh in highland Iran.  Directly dated to 9,900 B.P., the goats from this site show no evidence of size reduction or any other domestication-induced morphological change.” ↩

  12. 12.

    Crema, Enrico R. et al.  “Summed Probability Distribution of 14C Dates Suggests Regional Divergences in the Population Dynamics of the Jomon Period in Eastern Japan.”  PLoS ONE 11(4):e0154809.  Apr 29, 2016.  A statistical study of 1,433 radiocarbon dates from Jomon sites in three regions of eastern Japan, used as a proxy for population between 7,000 and 3,000 years ago.  It finds a shared rise and fall with regional differences, and it sets out the standard period boundaries of the Jomon from Kobayashi's radiocarbon chronology.

    1. 12a.

      Page 1:  “The Jomon culture of Japan (ca 16,000 ~ 2,500 cal BP)”. ↩

  13. 13.

    Bowler, James M. et al.  “New ages for human occupation and climatic change at Lake Mungo, Australia.”  Nature 421:837–840.  2003.  A new chronology for the Lake Mungo burials from 25 luminescence ages on the sand units, led by James Bowler, who found Mungo III with Alan Thorne in 1974.  It replaces the 62,000-year date of 1999 with 40,000 and sets the lake's environmental history beside it.

    1. 13a.

      Section Abstract:  “Here we report a new series of 25 optical ages showing that both burials occurred at 40 ± 2 kyr ago and that humans were present at Lake Mungo by 50–46 kyr ago”. ↩

  14. 14.

    Dillehay, Tom D. et al.  “New Archaeological Evidence for an Early Human Presence at Monte Verde, Chile.”  PLoS ONE 10(11):e0141923.  Nov 18, 2015.  New excavations at Monte Verde by the archaeologist who has led work there since the 1970s, with radiocarbon on charcoal and bone and luminescence on quartz and feldspar.  It confirms the accepted MV-II camp at about 14,500 years by luminescence and reports older, sparser traces that the authors themselves say may not meet the usual standard for a site.

    1. 14a.

      Page 3:  “Previous work at Monte Verde revealed one valid human site (MV-II) dated ~14,500 cal BP”. ↩

  15. 15.

    Bennett, Matthew R. et al.  “Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum.”  Science 373(6562):1528–1531.  2021.  The first report of the excavated footprint layers at White Sands National Park, dated by radiocarbon on seeds of the pondweed Ruppia in the layers above and below the prints.  It started the dispute about a human presence in North America at the height of the last glaciation.

    1. 15a.

      Section Abstract:  “multiple in situ human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by seed layers that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between ~23 and 21 thousand years ago.” ↩

  16. 16.

    Livi-Bacci, Massimo.  A Concise History of World Population.  Malden, MA: Blackwell.  3rd edition.  Translated by Carl Ipsen.  2001.  A standard textbook of historical demography by an Italian demographer.  It summarises world population estimates from the Paleolithic to 2000, explains how fertility and mortality set growth, and treats the Black Death, the collapse of the Americas and the settlement of French Canada as case studies.

    1. 16a.

      Page 26, table 1.2:  Population, total births, and years lived, 10,000 BC to AD 2000.  Population 6 million at 10,000 BC, 252 million at AD 0, about 771 million at 1750, 2,521 million at 1950;  annual growth 0.008% before 10,000 BC, 0.037% to AD 0, 0.064% to 1750, 0.594% to 1950;  births 9.29 billion before 10,000 BC, 33.6 billion from 10,000 BC to AD 0, 22.64 billion from AD 0 to 1750. ↩

    2. 16b.

      Page 8:  “The current population of 6 million French Canadians descends, for the most part, from those 5,000 immigrants who remained, as subsequent immigration contributed little to population growth.”  “the 905 pioneers (men and women) who were born in France, migrated to Canada before 1660, and both married and died in Canada produced on average 4.2 married offspring (figure 1.3), a level of fertility which corresponds to a doubling of the original population in a single generation (from two spouses, four married children).” ↩ ↩

  17. 17.

    Habermehl, Anne.  “Ancient Egypt, the Ice Age, and Biblical Chronology.”  Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Creationism 7.  Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh.  2013.  A conference paper, article 37 in volume 7, by an author listed with a B.Sc. rather than a university post.  It argues that the Ice Age ended before the Nile Delta formed, and that the time from the Flood to Abraham is longer than the Masoretic (the Hebrew text's) timeline allows, so the longer Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) chronology is most likely correct.  The article uses it as the one creationist paper that takes the Septuagint route for the Egyptian dates, and its reason is the Predynastic (the Egyptian period before the First Dynasty), not the pyramids.

    1. 17a.

      Section Abstract:  “It is shown that the Ice Age must have ended before the formation of the Nile Delta, and therefore well before the beginnings of Egyptian civilization and Abraham's visit to Egypt. It is shown that more time for events between the Flood and Abraham is needed than the Masoretic timeline allows; the longer chronology of the Septuagint is therefore most likely correct.”  Section Conclusion 4:  “The LXX chronology must be considered in determining a true biblical and historical timeline.” ↩

  18. 18.

    Ashton, John, and David Down.  Unwrapping the Pharaohs: How Egyptian Archaeology Confirms the Biblical Timeline.  Master Books, Green Forest.  2006.  A 2006 book by two creationists who argue that Egyptian archaeology supports the biblical timeline.  CMI withdrew its endorsement of Down's chronology in 2022.  The article uses it for what the authors say about the Septuagint's Flood date and the start of Egyptian history.

    1. 18a.

      Page 199:  Ashton and Down describing the scholars they argue against.  “Some scholars have tried to at least partially reconcile Bible chronology with the extended Egyptian chronology by trying to move the date of the Flood back beyond the biblical date of about 2,300 B.C. … Such scholars point out that the LXX adds 100 years to most of the progenitors named in Genesis 5 and 11.” ↩

    2. 18b.

      Page 200:  “The history of Egypt would begin soon after the dispersion from Babel, around 2100 B.C.” ↩

  19. 19.

    “Manetho.”  Loeb Classical Library 350.  Harvard University Press.  Translated by W. G. Waddell.  Edited by W. G. Waddell.  1940.  Manetho's history of Egypt survives only in later summaries, and this is the Loeb edition, with the editor's translation and notes.  Kitchen calls it a convenient edition of the surviving king-list, the Epitome.  The article quotes its Eusebius and Africanus passages to show what the ancient sources say about overlapping dynasties and dynasty totals.

    1. 19a.

      Page 9:  Eusebius, Chronica (Armenian version), fr. 5.  “But if the number of years is still in excess, it must be supposed that perhaps several Egyptian kings ruled at one and the same time; for they say that the rulers were kings of This, of Memphis, of Sais, of Ethiopia, and of other places at the same time. It seems, moreover, that different kings held sway in different regions, and that each dynasty was confined to its own nome: thus it was not a succession of kings occupying the throne one after the other, but several kings reigning at the same time in different regions. Hence arose the great total number of years.” ↩

  20. 20.

    Courville, Donovan A.  The Exodus Problem and Its Ramifications.  Volume 2 vols.  Challenge Books, Loma Linda.  1971.  A creationist work in two volumes arguing that the Flood-to-Dispersion interval needs no more than 200 years, and that Egypt's Middle Kingdom is a modern invention.  The article calls it the ancestor of the dynasty-overlap schemes that it later tests against the radiocarbon dates.

    1. 20a.

      Page 101:  Volume I, point 5.  “The so-called Middle Kingdom of Egypt thus never had an existence as such and is but a creation of modern historians resulting from an erroneous interpretation of Manetho's dynasties.” ↩

  21. 21.

    Habermehl, Anne.  “Revising the Egyptian Chronology: Joseph as Imhotep, and Amenemhat IV as Pharaoh of the Exodus.”  Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Creationism 7.  Creation Science Fellowship, Pittsburgh.  2013.  A conference paper, article 38 in volume 7, which proposes that Joseph of the Bible was the famous Imhotep of Egyptian history and that Amenemhat IV was the pharaoh of the Exodus.  Its argument indicates a drastic shortening and rearranging of Dynasties 3 to 12.  The article uses it because its author is the one creationist who meets the reused Lisht blocks, and she reads them the other way.

    1. 21a.

      Section III, Telescoping the Dynasties:  “We suggest that Dynasties 3 to 12 cannot have reigned one after the other in the order that Manetho listed them. Dynasties 5 & 6 may have run concurrently with Dynasties 11 & 12. The First Intermediate Period (at the end of the 6th Dynasty) and Second Intermediate Period (at the end of the 12th Dynasty), both times of great disorder in Egypt, appear to be the same period… Dynasties 7, 8, 9 and 10 would therefore have reigned after the Exodus at the same time as Dynasties 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17.” ↩

  22. 22.

    Erdil, P. et al.  “Resolution of the High versus Low debate for Old and Middle Kingdom Egypt.”  PLoS ONE 20(5):e0314612.  2025.  A 2025 radiocarbon study of the Old and Middle Kingdoms, with 48 new radiocarbon dates, 37 of them on material from Senusret III, and models built on 33 Old Kingdom dates in all.  It concludes that the Low Chronology, which the paper ties to the 2006 handbook of Hornung, Krauss and Warburton, is no longer supported.  The article uses it as the 2025 study that rules out the Low Chronology.

    1. 22a.

      Table 1:  Linen from Deshasheh (Dyn. V or VI) at 3815±38, 3899±37 and 3915±29 BP; linen from the pyramid of Pepy I at 3956±32 BP; linen from the pyramid of Merenre at 3968±31 BP.  Table 2:  Reed and grass culms from Senusret III's fortress at Uronarti (Dyn. 12) at 3642±40, 3553±24, 3528±23, 3542±24 and 3543±24 BP. ↩

    2. 22b.

      The paper's abstract.  “we show that the Low Chronology is no longer empirically supported for the Old and Middle Kingdoms, and resolve a long-standing historical schism.”  Table 4:  Model P1 (Hornung reign lengths), 68% hpd: start of Old Kingdom 2679–2642; start of First Intermediate 2267–2228; start of Middle Kingdom 2058–2045; end of Middle Kingdom 1819–1806. ↩

  23. 23.

    Kitchen, K. A.  “The chronology of ancient Egypt.”  World Archaeology 23(2):201–208.  Oct 1991.  A survey of how the dates of Egyptian history are fixed: the king lists and their regnal years, the Sothic dates, and radiocarbon.  It gives a table of how far each period's dates may be wrong, and concludes that radiocarbon has not yet improved on historical dating.  The article uses its table of margins of error, its view of the Sothic dates, and its date for Menes.

    1. 23a.

      Page 203:  “Old-Kingdom decorated blocks with the names of several kings were reused in building Middle-Kingdom pyramid-temples, as at Lisht, in the structures of Amenemhat I (c. 1930 BC) (Goedicke 1971).” ↩

    2. 23b.

      Page 205:  On the Sothic dates that survive in the texts.  “One is the rarity of such dates in our existing texts. One exists under Sesostris (II or III) of the twelfth Dynasty, another under Amenophis I in the early eighteenth Dynasty.” ↩

  24. 24.

    “Ancient Egyptian Chronology.”  Handbook of Oriental Studies I/83.  Brill, Leiden and Boston.  Edited by Erik Hornung, Rolf Krauss and David A. Warburton.  2006.  A handbook of chapters by separate specialists, such as Kim Ryholt on the Turin king-list, on how the chronology of ancient Egypt is built.  The article uses it as the mainstream reference for the earliest dynasties, and for the handbook's own warnings about how far its dates can be trusted.

    1. 24a.

      Chapter IV.1, page 483:  The chapter "Conclusions," by Rolf Krauss and David A. Warburton.  “Within this minimum range the appropriate lunar distance between year 7 of Wenis and the Khozam date amounts to at least 211 years + 119 days; other astronomically feasible possibilities are 236 y + 119 d or 261 y + 119 d.  The corresponding possibilities for year 1 of Wenis can be expressed as 2321 BC ± 25 years.”  On Posener-Kriéger's two lunar dates:  “Posener-Kriéger found two lunar dates in the Neferirkare' archive; both could be regnal years of Izezi, or only one date his and the other Wenis's.” ↩

  25. 25.

    Cox, Gavin, and Gary Bates.  Is CMI confusing Egyptian chronology?  Creation Ministries International.  Oct 29, 2022.  A Creation Ministries International reply to a reader from Germany who asked about the Exodus date, the Naqada culture and Joseph's pharaoh.  In it CMI says it has moved away from the Egyptian chronology of earlier articles by David Down and Patrick Clarke, and it places the Exodus in the mid-late 18th Dynasty.  The article uses it as CMI's own public retreat from the popular alternatives, and as its only chronology statement on the Naqada culture.

    1. 25a.

      "Patrick Clark" is the article's own spelling; the author is Patrick Clarke.  “Regarding Egyptian chronology on CMI's site, yes, as you notice, we have moved away from the positions laid out in earlier articles (particularly by David Down, and some by Patrick Clark). We will be putting a notice at the top of many of them to say that CMI no longer accepts the chronological positions laid out by the authors, and why. Yes, we now place the Exodus in the mid-late 18th Dynasty, for multiple reasons.” ↩

  26. 26.

    Walker, Tas.  “The dating game.”  Creation 26(1):36–39.  Dec 2003.  A magazine article by Tas Walker of Creation Ministries International on the changing dates of the Lake Mungo burials.  It reads the revisions as proof that dates are chosen to fit expectations and sets out the young-earth objections to each method in a box.

    1. 26a.

      “the carbon-14 method does not account for the disruption of the carbon balance during the Flood some 4,500 years ago.”  Section Dating methods:  “Samples from before the Flood, or from the early post-Flood period, give ages that are too old by tens of thousands of years.” ↩

    2. 26b.

      “That is why we won’t accept any date that contradicts the eyewitness evidence of human history recorded in the Bible.  Such contradictory dates can’t be right.” ↩

  27. 27.

    Brown, Robert H.  “Correlation of C-14 Age with Real Time.”  Creation Research Society Quarterly 29(1):45–47.  Jun 1992.  A three-page paper deriving an equation that converts radiocarbon ages into calendar dates on a young-earth timeline, by assuming the air's carbon-14 started at about 1 percent of today's level after the Flood and rose exponentially.  It prints a conversion table and applies it to a frozen musk ox and a ground-sloth dung cave.  It is the only published young-earth radiocarbon calibration with a table found for this article.

    1. 27a.

      Page 46:  “In my judgment the most suitable value for F is 5350.”  “The fraction of equilibrium activity represented by age 37,650 is 0.011.” ↩

  28. 28.

    Ross, Marcus R. et al.  “Human History from Adam to Abraham:  Integrating Paleoanthropology with a Young-Age Creation Perspective.”  Proceedings of the International Conference on Creationism 9:66–87.  2023.  The fullest recent young-earth treatment of the human fossil record, presented at the movement's main technical conference by three young-earth scientists including Todd Wood of Core Academy of Science.  It sorts fossils into human and non-human by signs of advanced behaviour and places all of them after the Flood.

    1. 28a.

      Page 75:  “as young-age creationists, we believe that conventional dating methods that reveal tens of thousands or millions of years are interpreted incorrectly as absolute dates. … Other radiometric methods are still under investigation, and none of the dating methods have a widely accepted method of recalibrating to a creationist timescale.” ↩

  29. 29.

    Snelling, Andrew A.  “How Reliable Are Dates for Human Fossils?”  Answers.  Sep 1, 2018.  A magazine article by the research director of Answers in Genesis, a geologist, explaining each dating method used on human fossils and mapping each to a window of real time after the Flood in a three-row chart.  It is the clearest statement of how the young-earth side recalibrates these dates.

    1. 29a.

      Section chart, second row:  “Early Human Carvings & Pottery”.  “luminescence, electron spin resonance, and cosmogenic radioisotopes”.  “But they cannot be sure if they really started at zero or if impurities affected how much energy or radioisotopes the samples stored.”  “Centuries soon after the flood (~2250 BC–present)”.  Section chart, third row:  “Comparisons with historic dates show that radiocarbon dates are unreliable before 1000 BC because of a stronger magnetic field and rapid buildup of radiocarbon after Noah's flood.”  “Later centuries after the flood (~2150 BC–present)”. ↩

    2. 29b.

      Section chart, first row, Difficult Assumptions:  “Multiple lines of evidence show that radioactive elements decayed rapidly during and soon after the flood, so these “early” dates must be calibrated to the biblical timeframe—a matter of months, years, or decades, not millions of years.” ↩

  30. 30.

    Habermehl, Anne.  “A Creationist View of Gӧbekli Tepe: Timeline and Other Considerations.”  Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, 7–13.  Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship.  Edited by J. H. Whitmore.  2018.  A paper for the Eighth International Conference on Creationism, by an independent scholar.  It places the conventional dates of Gӧbekli Tepe onto the Masoretic and Septuagint timelines, using the end of the Neanderthals, the end of the Pleistocene, the formation of the Nile Delta and Abraham's visit to Egypt.  The article calls it the most serious creationist treatment of the site in print, and uses it to test the timing claim.

    1. 30a.

      Page 10:  “The two thousand conventional years claimed for the time that Gӧbekli Tepe was in process of being built, from its founding to its abandonment, becomes a very small number on our biblical timeline.  From Fig. 3 (MT), we see that there is as little as 25 years allowed for the building of the entire Gӧbekli Tepe site before its abandonment.  Figure 4 (LXX) shows about 50 years.  Either way, the building pace would have been much faster than conventional scholars would have us believe.” ↩

  31. 31.

    Hodder, Ian.  “Çatalhöyük. A Summary of Recent Work Concerning Architecture.”  Festschrift for Ahmet A. Tirpan, 303–314.  Istanbul: Ege Yayınları.  Edited by B. Söğüt.  2012.  A summary, by Ian Hodder of Stanford University, of recent excavation work on the architecture of Çatalhöyük.  It says each new house was built on the lower walls of the one before, and that floors and wall plasters were resurfaced on an annual or even monthly basis, with up to 450 layers within 10 cm of a wall.  The article uses it for how long houses stood, how often they were rebuilt and how many plaster coats they carried.

    1. 31a.

      Page 306:  “Many houses were lived in for 50-100 years.  The people of Çatalhöyük had great problems keeping the buildings standing for this long as the mud brick walls made of smectitic clay tended to lean and bend.” ↩

  32. 32.

    Kuniholm, Peter I., and Maryanne W. Newton.  “Interim dendrochronological progress report 1995/6.”  On the Surface: Çatalhöyük 1993–95 (Çatalhöyük Research Project 1; British Institute at Ankara Monograph 22), 345–348.  Cambridge and London: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and BIAA.  Edited by Ian Hodder.  1997.  Chapter 17.  An interim report, in a volume of excavation studies, on dating the timbers from Çatalhöyük by counting their tree rings (dendrochronology).  The article uses it for the one result that gives a length of time: two timbers from levels VII and VIB are at least 132 years apart.

    1. 32a.

      Page 345:  “The terminal year for CTL-16 at relative year 1437 is 132 years earlier than the last preserved ring (relative year 1569) of CTL-6 from level VIB.  This tells us that the difference, in calendar years, between the two timbers is at least 132 years, and suggests that the life span of level VII and part of VIB is likewise at least 132 years.” ↩

  33. 33.

    Clare, Lee.  “Göbekli Tepe, Turkey.  A brief summary of research at a new World Heritage Site (2015–2019).”  e-Forschungsberichte des DAI (Faszikel 2):81–88.  2020.  A research report by Lee Clare, who heads the Göbekli Tepe project of the German Archaeological Institute together with R. Eichmann.  It covers excavation of deep soundings from 2015 to 2019 and a re-reading of two decades of older records, and it argues that the popular picture of the site as a temple needs revising.  The article uses it for the excavators' own retractions and for their dating of the buildings.

    1. 33a.

      Section 10:  The mortar dates show:  “that these multi-phase structures were much longer-lived than previously acknowledged; indeed, in some cases their final building phases are consistent with a construction date around the mid-ninth millennium calBC, which is in excess of five centuries after their initial foundation.” ↩

  34. 34.

    Sanders, Lita, and Robert Carter.  “How does Göbekli Tepe fit with biblical history?”  Creation Ministries International.  Jul 26, 2011.  A reply to a reader's question, posted on the website of Creation Ministries International.  It says the dates for Göbekli Tepe are wrong and offers only a tentative date soon after the Flood.  The article uses it as the first creationist answer to the site.

    1. 34a.

      “Our response to that is the same as the dates that put the earliest Egyptian pyramids before the biblical date for the Flood and those that claim dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago— the dates are wrong.  In this case the dates are based on carbon dating, something we've written much about previously.” ↩

  35. 35.

    Lacey, Troy, and Avery Foley.  “Ancient Apocalypse Part 2: 'What the Sites Mean in a Biblical Worldview'.”  Answers in Genesis.  Feb 21, 2023.  A movie review by two Answers in Genesis writers of the series Ancient Apocalypse, taken episode by episode.  It gives biblical-timeline dates for the sites that the series' narrator, Graham Hancock, visits.  The article uses it as the creationist side's printed date for Göbekli Tepe.

    1. 35a.

      Section Episode 5: Legacy of the Sages:  “Göbekli Tepe is an impressive site and is considered to be one of the earliest post-Babel sites.  Whether it was a city or just a ceremonial center is unknown and debated. … Conventionally dated between 9500 and 8000 BC, which Hancock seems to agree with, they can be dated to about 2150–1900 BC in a biblical timeline (early post-Babel).” ↩

  36. 36.

    Mitchell, Elizabeth.  “Doesn't Egyptian Chronology Prove That the Bible Is Unreliable?”  answersingenesis.org.  Jul 22, 2010.  Chapter 24 of The New Answers Book 2 (Master Books, 2006), republished on the Answers in Genesis website on 22 July 2010.  A popular creationist article by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell that argues the traditional Egyptian chronology rests on unreliable foundations, Manetho's list of pharaohs and the Sothic theory.  The article uses it for the one-sentence statement of the conflict, that pyramids could never withstand a worldwide flood.

    1. 36a.

      Section Traditional Egyptian Chronology:  “This so-called traditional Egyptian chronology would have the pyramids predate the flood of Noah's day; such cannot be the case, for pyramids could never withstand a worldwide flood.” ↩

    2. 36b.

      Footnote 37, in full:  “Ibid. The 12th-century historian Constantinus Manasses wrote that Egypt endured for 1,663 years. Egypt lost her independence around 526 B.C. with the Persian conquest. Hence, 2188 B.C. is a reasonable date for Egypt's founding and is consistent with a 2242 B.C. date for the Tower of Babel.”  The Persian conquest is conventionally 525 BC. ↩

    3. 36c.

      Section Predynastic Egypt and Old Kingdom—the Post-Flood World:  “Mizraim, Noah's grandson, founded Egypt around 2188 B.C., a date consistent with both biblical and secular records.” ↩

  37. 37.

    Clarkson, Chris et al.  “Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago.”  Nature 547(7663):306–310.  Jul 20, 2017.  The report of the 2012 and 2015 excavations at Madjedbebe rock shelter in Arnhem Land:  twenty one-metre squares dug to 3.4 m, about 11,000 artefacts plotted in three dimensions, quartz grains from 56 sediment samples dated one at a time by optically stimulated luminescence (four re-measured blind in a second laboratory), and charcoal dated by radiocarbon.  It puts the start of occupation at about 65,000 years ago, with ground-edge axes and ground ochre in the lowest band.  The team includes Richard Roberts, who dated the same shelter by luminescence in 1990 and 1998.

    1. 37a.

      Page 309:  “The settlement of Madjedbebe around 65 ka (conservatively 59.3 ka, calculated as 65.0 ka minus the age uncertainty of 5.7 kyr at 95.4% probability) sets a new minimum age for the human colonization of Australia”. ↩

    2. 37b.

      Page 309:  “the upper dense band has a modelled start age of 7.1 ± (1.0, 1.1) kyr”.  The model's final phase, P7, ends at the present (Figure 3). ↩

  38. 38.

    O'Connell, James F. et al.  “When did Homo sapiens first reach Southeast Asia and Sahul?”  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(34):8482–8490.  Aug 21, 2018.  A review of the evidence for the first modern humans between South China and Australia, by archaeologists and geochronologists who favour an arrival about 50,000 years ago.  Its section on Madjedbebe argues that termites and other processes in the shelter's sand moved younger artefacts down among older grains.  Nigel Spooner, a co-author, also co-authored the 2003 luminescence redating of Lake Mungo.  Mirror:  PMC

    1. 38a.

      Section Abstract:  “We find that an age estimate of >50 ka for this site is unlikely to be valid.” ↩

  39. 39.

    Sibley, Andrew.  “Equivocal carbon dating of ancient footprints in Tularosa Basin, New Mexico.”  Journal of Creation 37(1):16–17.  Mar 2023.  A two-page young-earth commentary on the White Sands footprints, written after the critique of the seed dates and before the pollen, mud and luminescence results were published.  It is the only young-earth statement found that gives the prints a date.

    1. 39a.

      “Creation scientists would interpret the human footprint data as that of the post-Babel dispersion of people from the Middle East during the later stages of the Ice Age, with a timeframe of around 4,000 years BP.” ↩

  40. 40.

    Scientific Creationism.  San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers.  Edited by Henry M. Morris.  1974.  The Institute for Creation Research's textbook for teachers, setting a creation model beside an evolution model topic by topic.  Its chapter on the age of the earth gives the population argument in its first published book form, starting from two people 4,000 years ago, and adds the claim that a million-year human history leaves too few remains.

    1. 40a.

      Page 169:  “Even if the population were assumed to grow so slowly that it would only reach 3.5 billion in a million years, it is still true that at least a total of 3000 billion people would have lived and died on the earth in the past million years. Therefore, it is incredible that today there would be so little fossil or cultural evidence of ancient man preserved as is actually the case.” ↩

  41. 41.

    Morris, Henry M.  “Evolution and the Population Problem.”  Acts & Facts 4(1).  Institute for Creation Research.  Mar 1, 1975.  A short article by ICR's founder.  It works the growth formula forward and back, proposes the 1650 to 1800 rate of 1/3% as the long-run norm, dates human origin to about 6,300 years ago, and then gives the version starting from Noah's family at an Ussher Flood.  It is the clearest statement of the steady-rate premise this article tests.

    1. 41a.

      Paragraph beginning Now, although it is obvious:  “Now, although it is obvious that the present rate of growth (2%) could not have prevailed for very long in the past, it does seem unlikely that the long-time growth rate could have averaged significantly less than (1/2)%. Very little is known about the world population in earlier times, but everything that is known indicates the population has steadily increased throughout recorded history.”  The spaces in ( 1 / 2 ) are the web page's fraction markup. ↩

  42. 42.

    Zahid, H. Jabran et al.  “Agriculture, population growth, and statistical analysis of the radiocarbon record.”  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(4):931–935.  Jan 26, 2016.  An astrophysicist and two archaeologists treat the summed probability of thousands of radiocarbon dates as a population proxy.  From 7,900 dates in Wyoming and Colorado and data from other continents, they measure a long-run Holocene growth rate of 0.04% a year, the same for farmers and foragers, made of short-term swings ten times larger.  The rates rest on the calibrated radiocarbon timescale.

    1. 42a.

      Page 932:  “These short-term fluctuations correspond to annual rates of growth/decline (averaged over 100 y) that are substantially greater (a factor of >10) than the long-term annual growth rate of 0.04%.” ↩

  43. 43.

    Computed here from the front-loaded path in the Human Population Growth article:  eight people in 2348 BC growing continuously at 2.4 percent a year, the rate of French Canada's settlers.16  8 × exp(0.024 × 160) is about 370 people for the whole world in 2188 BC, and 8 × exp(0.024 × 248) is about 3,100 in 2100 BC.  On the same path the world passes a million people about 1860 BC, as that article reports.  No crash is assumed;  any crash lowers these figures. ↩