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.