We have no myths extending back 2.6 million years, of course, but myths have survived in some cultures for hundreds and even thousands of years (Consider Jason and the Argonauts). So it isn't outlandish to think that Holocene impacts might be reflected in the myths of nearby peoples. They might also have left archaeological traces. Masse began to compile the results of ethnographic, oral historical, and archaeological studies in areas surrounding known and probable Holocene impact sites, and he found evidence suggesting that such traces do exist. At Saaremaa Island in Estonia, for example, where a meteor is known to have struck sometime between about 6400 and 400 BC, myths speak of a god that flew to the island along the track the meteor is calculated to have taken, and of a time when the island burned.
Archaeological and paleobotanical evidence suggests a multi-generational break in human occupation and farming in the area beginning sometime between 800 and 400 BC, and a village about 20 km from the impact crater shows evidence of having burned at about the same time. At Campo de Cielo in Argentina, a crater field littered with small meteorites, dated to between 2200 and 2700 BC, myths recorded in the early 20th century reportedly tell of an impact by a piece of the sun. In most cases where impacts are well documented, however, no pertinent archaeological or ethnographic studies have been reported, and in most places where myths or archaeology suggest the possibility of cataclysms, no obvious craters or tektite fields have been yet documented by geophysicists.
But if myths can codify records of celestial phenomena, as Masse's Hawaiian work shows, then a consistent regional pattern of mythic accounts describing catastrophe from the sky might suggest the existence of an impact event that has not yet been identified geophysically, and indicate fruitful locations for geophysical investigation. To pursue this possibility, Masse and his geologically-trained brother Michael undertook a comprehensive analysis (reported in Myth and Geology) of over four thousand myths recorded throughout South America east of the Andes, conveniently gathered into a database by UCLA. What particularly stood out in the analysis were 284 myths describing cataclysms that, in the view of those reciting the story, caused more or less universal death, triggering a new creation of humanity.
Destruction Myths
The Masse brothers found that the destruction myths almost always described one or more of four phenomena--a great flood, a world fire, the falling of the sky, and a great darkness. When two or more of these phenomena were described by myths in the same culture, they fell into a consistent sequence. At least in the Gran Chaco, the flood was earliest, then the fire, and more recently the falling sky and the darkness. Their analysis suggested that the last two events--falling sky and great darkness--reflect aspects of volcanic eruptions. The world fire and great flood myths are different.
Some of the world fire stories quite explicitly describe the impacts of celestial objects. The Toba-Pilaga of the Gran Chaco, for example, speak of a time when fragments of the moon fell to earth, igniting a fire that incinerated the whole world, burning people alive and leaving corpses floating in the lagoons. Evidence suggests that this event may be associated with the Campo del Cielo impact crater field in northern Argentina dated around 4500 years ago. In the highlands of Brazil there are stories of Sun and Moon fighting for a red feather ornament, which fell to earth together with hot coals that started a world fire so hot that even the sand burned. The UCLA database contains a number of such stories.
Do these myths reflect one or more cataclysmic fires caused by cosmic impacts that devastated eastern South America? Masse thinks it likely enough to justify more research.
