February 24, 2003
Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology
Atlantis books are a dime a dozen, and most of them fail miserably to convince the reader that they have solved the riddle of the tale which Plato has preserved (or created?) for posterity in his dialogs.
Not so, with the scholarly entry in the Atlantis genre, by Mary Settegast, titled Plato Prehistorian: 10,000 to 5000 B.C. Myth, Religion, Archaeology. Settegast's book can be viewed as a broad overview of Mediterranean, Near Eastern and European archaeology of the Epipalaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic.
Her theory, which is admirably presented as a theory, not as the solution to the Atlantis riddle, is that the Platonic narrative can indeed be factual including its chronology, thus speaking about the contacts between the Magdalenian culture of Prehistoric Europe and the lost culture of Prehistoric Greece, most of whose remains are now lost to us because of the Deluges which Plato refers to, and which correspond to the rising of the sea level in the Aegean and Mediterranean.
The study is impeccably presented and illustrated, being accessible to the general reader without lacking in scholarly vigor. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
Amazon.com Link