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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5711788" data-attributes="member: 463">According to<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas" target="_blank"> Wikipedia </a>the Younger Dryas cold period (which came after about 2000 years of warm climate at the end of the last big Ice Age) ran from about 10,800 BC to 9,500 BC, 11,500 ya.  There seems to be no evidence of agriculture, and little evidence of towns, before then.  Small-scale civilisation seems to have become firmly established as soon as it ended.  Sea level continued to rise quite fast for several thousand years subsequently, potentially flooding the earliest civilisations.During the last Ice Ace, until about 12,500 BC, climate was both too cold and too dry and variable for a Howardian Hyborean Age to be plausible IMO.  There may conceivably have been a brief flowering of culture in the very warm period ca 12,500-10,800 BC in coasts then flooded by the rising sea levels - the melting of  the ice sheets also caused the Younger Dryas cold period.  Strong evidence of agriculture and upland civilisation comes right after the Younger Dryas ended, and we now know for instance that civilisation in Egypt was well established for thousands of years before the unification ca 3,000 BC, at least back to 6,000 BC or so.The most scientifically plausible era for a 'pre historic civilisation' game would seem to be ca 9,000-6,000 BC, the 'flood' was probably a more localised flood event in the Middle East; AIR there are several candidates.  There's also the flooding that separated the British Isles from Europe, ca 6,000 BC AIR (haven't checked all dates).  Much of this period was notably warmer & wetter than today; we are approaching the end of our current Interglacial and the ice will be back any millenia now!Edit: I think the main change in recent thinking is this.  It used to be thought that civilisation sprung up pretty much fully formed ca 5,000 years ago, 3,000 BC, notably in Egypt.  We now know there was at least another 5,000 years or so of fairly substantial civilisation - townships, agriculture - before that, but at least some of the evidence must be underwater, what would have been the best land for the earliest civilisations is now under coastal seas, so that gives a GM a lot to play with.</blockquote>

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