Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know

Episode: Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal?
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Date: February 7, 2026
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

Overview

In this classic, "good old-fashioned" Stuff You Should Know episode, Josh and Chuck dive deep into the question: Why are stories of a great flood so common across world cultures? They examine the mythology, history, geological science, and anthropology behind flood myths, connecting ancient stories to possible real events while exploring how humans remember and interpret catastrophic natural disasters. The episode explores how these stories function as both moral parables and potential records of actual geological events, highlighting the emerging scientific field of geomythology.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Ubiquity of Flood Myths

• Noah’s Flood as a Template (04:04)

  • Discussion begins with the biblical story of Noah’s Ark—one of the most familiar flood myths, likely known by everyone “you and I have ever met.”
  • Emphasizes how flood myths appear not just in Abrahamic religions but in numerous cultures worldwide.

• Ancient Parallels: Epic of Gilgamesh (05:23)

  • George Smith, a 19th-century Assyriologist, discovered flood narratives in "The Epic of Gilgamesh," predating the Old Testament by hundreds of years.
  • Quote from the cuneiform:
    "Build a boat, abandon wealth and seek survival. ... Take on board all living things, seed animals." (05:43)
  • In Gilgamesh, the god Enlil orders Utanapishtim to build a boat because humans became “too noisy,” contrasting with the Bible's reason of wickedness.

• Other Cultural Myths (11:34)

  • Flood myths appear in Chinese, Native American, British Isles, and many other cultures.
  • Some studies have cataloged up to 50 cultures with their own flood story.

2. Scientific Views: Did a "Great Flood" Happen?

• Diluvialism and Disproval (09:07)

  • The 18th and 19th centuries saw scientists attempt to tie geological evidence to a literal global flood—a theory called "diluvialism."
  • Modern geology disproves this:
    "The geological record ... supports the exact opposite ... the earth wasn’t created in a deluge. It was created over incredibly long distances of time ... layer by layer." —Josh (10:17)

• Why So Many Myths? Explanations (12:24)

  • Possible reasons:
    • Real catastrophic floods happened locally, but for isolated societies, these seemed "global."
    • Flood myths spread via culture—Proto-Indo-Europeans carried the myth as they migrated.
    • Some regions (sub-Saharan Africa, South Pacific) lack flood myths, supporting the "migration" theory.
    • Missionaries and colonists exported biblical stories, influencing native myths (esp. in the South Pacific after 1814).

3. Geomythology: Flood Myths as Historical Record

• Geomythology Defined (20:54)

  • New scientific field asserting that myths may encode eyewitness accounts of ancient natural disasters.
  • “...they actually contain eyewitness accounts of natural disasters ... cloaked in the language of mythology ...” —Josh (21:19)

• Examples of Geomythology at Work

  • China: The Legend of Emperor Yu (26:14)
    • Flood myth matched to sediment records from a catastrophic dam-break about 4,000 years ago.
  • Black Sea Deluge (28:29)
    • 7,000 years ago rising Mediterranean waters flooded the Black Sea, possibly inspiring the Gilgamesh/Noah stories.
    • "Created a waterfall 200 times that of Niagara Falls ... enough water in one day ... could have flooded Manhattan by 3,000 ft." —Chuck (29:10)
  • Persian Gulf & Doggerland (30:31, 31:38)
    • Disappearance of land due to sea level rise sparked migration and possibly advanced societies.
    • Doggerland's submersion likely caused post-glacial archeological changes in Europe.
  • Pacific Northwest Native Myths (33:33)
    • Indigenous stories of Thunderbird and Whale tied to a real 1700 AD earthquake and tsunami recorded in Japan.
  • Desert Fossil Legends (35:20)
    • The Zuni people interpreted marine fossils in the desert as evidence of a primordial flood.

4. The "Myth" Side of Flood Myths

• Common Elements Across Stories (37:49)
  • A pair (often man and wife) tasked with saving the species.
  • A divine warning is issued.
  • Survival and repopulation follow disaster.
  • Nearly all flood myths have a “reason” for the flood: punishment, apocalypse, a reset to chaos or primordial state, purification, or simply capricious gods.
• Themes and Variations
  • Apocalypse & Punishment
    • Humanity is wiped out due to wickedness/noisiness.
    • Survivors get a second chance and their descendants retell the story.
  • Return to the Primordial Ocean
    • Flood resets the world to a watery origin, as in Egyptian, Norse, and Japanese mythology.
  • Purification
    • Flood as a means to rid the world of evil, keeping only the "good."
  • Industriousness and Rebirth
    • Some myths, like Emperor Yu’s or the Goongani story (rolling boulders to save the land), highlight heroism and community effort.

5. Unconventional Theories

• Psychoanalytic Approaches (43:33)
  • Suggest myths are merely dreams, or expressions of subconscious (e.g., “dreaming of floods because people peed at night” or jealousy of childbirth).
  • Hosts are skeptical—they prefer the geomythology model as more plausible.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "It's our bad...who are mistaking...these cultures' use of the word 'world' ... they mean 'their world', which is much smaller than...today." —Josh (14:47)
• "Just because [a myth] sounds crazy doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the fact that an actual volcano eruption might have happened then." —Chuck (22:38)
• "Before science came along...all humans did from the moment they could form thoughts was try and explain what was going on around them—from rain and thunder to volcanoes and floods." —Chuck (23:45)
• "If you ever hear the mountain starting to make rumbles, it means the god is waking up and you should run ... that's a way for a culture to pass this really important information over deep time." —Josh (23:03)
• "The best explanation is that their original settlement is down there beneath the Persian Gulf. We just haven't found it yet." —Josh (31:30)
• "We’ve been ignoring this to our own detriment ... we are covered up in historical accounts just waiting for us to unravel if we learn how to read these correctly." —Josh (22:14)

Timestamps by Segment

• 02:34 – Show intro, context setting with Noah’s Ark as the best-known flood myth.
• 05:23 – Gilgamesh discovery and the ancient Assyrian flood story.
• 09:07 – Early scientific attempts (diluvialism) and why geology disproved a global flood.
• 12:24 – Theories for universal flood myths; the dynamic between local and global perceptions.
• 15:07 – Role of Christian missionaries and colonialism in spreading and shaping flood myths.
• 20:54 – Introduction to geomythology: combining geological evidence and oral tradition.
• 26:14 – Chinese flood myth and sedimentary evidence.
• 28:29 – The Black Sea deluge hypothesis (possible inspiration for Noah/Gilgamesh).
• 31:38 – Doggerland (North Sea), submerged prehistoric settlements.
• 33:33 – Indigenous Pacific Northwest tsunami stories and real quake evidence.
• 35:20 – Zuni fossils and deserts as mythological evidence.
• 37:05 – Analysis of archetypal flood myth elements and mythological purposes.
• 43:33 – Out-there psychoanalytic theories and why geomythology is preferable.

Tone & Style

Casual, witty, conversational, and full of good-natured riffs—Josh and Chuck keep the material approachable while clarifying scholarly research. They punctuate facts with jokes, self-deprecation, and the occasional tangent.

Further Listening

• Related Episode: "Was There a Real Atlantis?" (Geomythology theme)
• Suggested Inquiry: Seek out more geomythology scholarship for a deeper look at the nexus between myth and geological events.

Final Thoughts

The universal flood myth is not just a coincidence or collective dream—it may be rooted in both shared ancient disasters and the human urge to explain, warn, and memorialize. Whether these stories started as cautionary tales, oral histories, or a little of both, new research fields like geomythology show that legends can be keys to understanding our environmental past—and ourselves.