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Comment by Rooki | Hacker News Reader

If I'm reading Wikipedias article on glacial periods correctly it indicates that the last time sea levels lowered significantly would have been between 71k and 115k years ago. I wonder if language complex enough to have an oral tradition existed that far back.

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Relative sea levels can change because the land is rising as well as sea levels dropping - post glacial rebound means that areas that were heavily glaciated can actually be lifting at quite a rate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound

e.g. Here in Scotland you just have to look at a shoreline to see that relative sea levels have dropped quite a bit even though sea levels have risen. When I was a kid I can remember my father talking about legends of Vikings sailing round Roseisle in Moray - which is quite high and dry now.

Very likely. You may be interested in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language ("The results suggest that language first evolved around 350,000-150,000 years ago, which is around the time when modern Homo sapiens evolved") an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity ("Howiesons Poort, Blombos, and other South African archaeological sites, for example, show evidence of marine resource acquisition, trade, and abstract ornamentation at least by 80,000 years ago.")

Nope, more like 12-8k years ago. Check out the Holocene sea level rise [1]. Jeffrey Rose's Persian Gulf Oasis / Out of Arabia theory is especially intriguing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_glacial_retreat

The parent was talking about sea levels lowering.

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