(Excerpts taken from The Origins Solution) In 1928-29, Leonard
Woolley excavated the ancient city of Ur in Southern
Mesopotamia. At one point he found about 10 feet of water -laid
clay he attributed to the great flood. Elated by his find,
Wooley encouraged excavators at other sites to look for flood
layers. Sure enough, flood layers or more cautiously "sterile
stratum" of various thicknesses were found. At last, thought
Woolley, archeology had established firm evidence for what had
long been a controversial Bible story. But that euphoric feeling
was not to last. Dating archeological digs in the absence of
deposits of volcanic ash lacks the kind of precision
archaeologists prefer, but nevertheless, the thick flood stratum
Woolley found at Ur was placed at the early fourth millennium,
about 3800 BC. Notwithstanding, a higher flood level also was
uncovered dated to about 2700 BC, but it had been discounted as
too little and too late. 1 Langdon and Watelin excavated Kish in
1928-29. They dated the bottom layer wh