Rosa Rubicondior: Refuting Creationism - Evidence That Would Not Be There If The Bible Is True History.

Excavation of a trench dug in about 5500 BCE, at the Podhajska site in southwest Slovakia.

5000 Years of (In)Equality in the Carpathian Basin

Buried beneath a thick layer of silt containing a chaotic mixture of fossils from both nearby and distant land masses — the expected deposit of a supposed global genocidal flood — is... nothing. Such a layer should be observable worldwide, of course, but like at the archaeological sites in the Carpathians, it simply isn’t there.

Instead, what we find is an unbroken sequence of historical deposits stretching far beyond the time when creationists claim the Earth was magicked into existence. In other words, the evidence contradicts the Bible’s timeline and strongly refutes the notion of a global flood.

Importantly, this evidence isn’t the result of an attempt to disprove the Bible. Rather, archaeologists have simply uncovered facts that are starkly different from what one would expect if the Bible were the inerrant word of a creator god. A case in point: a team from Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) investigating changes in social hierarchy associated with the introduction of agriculture in the Carpathian Basin.

According to expectations, the adoption of agriculture should have led to increased social inequality, as control of land and trade would concentrate power in the hands of a privileged elite. However, the researchers found no such evidence. Using house size as a proxy for social inequality — assuming that a ruling class would have built significantly larger dwellings — the team discovered that house sizes remained relatively uniform over the period.

The Geology of the Carpathian Basin. The Carpathian Basin (also known as the Pannonian Basin) is a large, geologically complex basin in Central Europe, bordered by the Carpathian Mountains to the north and east, the Alps to the west, and the Dinarides and Balkan Mountains to the south. It covers most of Hungary and parts of Austria, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Here's an overview of its geological history, structure, and significance:

Overview

Name: Carpathian or Pannonian Basin
Location: Central Europe
Area: ~200,000–300,000 km²
Geologic Setting: Intraplate back-arc basin formed in a complex tectonic environment

Tectonic and Geological History

Pre-Miocene Basement Rocks

The basin sits on a heterogeneous basement made of Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, and early Cenozoic rocks.
These include metamorphic rocks, volcanic arcs, and Mesozoic carbonates formed in Tethyan ocean-related settings.

Back-arc Extension (Early–Middle Miocene)

Around 25–16 million years ago (Ma), the area underwent back-arc extension due to the subduction of the oceanic lithosphere beneath the Carpathians.
This caused the formation of the Pannonian Basin as a rift or extensional basin, pulling apart crustal blocks and thinning the lithosphere.

Subsidence and Sedimentation

Following extension, the basin experienced rapid subsidence, creating accommodation space for thick sedimentary sequences.
Miocene to Quaternary sedimentary layers fill the basin, up to 7 km thick in some areas.
These include:

Fluvial and deltaic deposits
Lacustrine (lake) sediments
Evaporites
Volcaniclastics from nearby volcanic activity

The sedimentation preserves an excellent record of climate change, faunal evolution, and human prehistory.

Volcanism

The Inner Carpathian volcanic arc formed during and after the rifting phase, especially in the Neogene.
Volcanic centres (e.g., Bükk, Tokaj) were active from ~15 to 2 Ma.
Rocks include andesites, rhyolites, and basalts.

Neotectonics

Today, the region is still mildly tectonically active.
The Carpathian thrust belt to the east and the Alpine orogeny to the west still exert pressure, and faulting and earthquakes do occur.

Landscape and Surface Geology

Flat to gently undulating topography, due to the thick sediment cover.
Contains major rivers like the Danube and Tisza, which have shaped alluvial plains.
Fertile soils, especially loess, contribute to its importance in agriculture.

Palaeogeography and Palaeontology

In the Miocene, much of the basin was covered by the Pannonian Sea, an inland sea connected intermittently to the Paratethys.
Over time, the sea retreated and was filled in with sediments, leaving behind lacustrine and deltaic environments.
Rich fossil assemblages include:

Freshwater molluscs
Fish
Mammals
Plant remains

The basin offers important insights into Neogene ecosystems and mammalian evolution in Europe.

Economic Geology

Hydrocarbons: The thick sedimentary fill includes oil and gas reservoirs, especially in Miocene sandstones.
Geothermal Energy: High geothermal gradients due to crustal thinning make it one of Europe’s best regions for geothermal energy.
Mineral Resources: Includes bauxite, lignite, and salt.

Scientific Importance

The basin is a textbook example of a back-arc extensional basin in a collisional setting.
It’s a natural laboratory for studying:

Tectonic escape and crustal thinning
Sedimentation in rift settings
Palaeoclimate and palaeoecology
Early human settlement patterns (e.g. Neolithic archaeology)

Notable Geological Sites

Lake Balaton – the largest lake in Central Europe, lying within the basin.
Tokaj Mountains – known for volcanic rocks and wine production.
Great Hungarian Plain (Alföld) – vast flatlands, a major agricultural zone formed by Quaternary alluvial and loess deposits.

The study, led by Dr Fynn Wilkes, has just been published in Science Advances, and is also explained in a news release from CAU (translated from German).

5000 Years of (In)Equality in the Carpathian Basin
A study by the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS questions widespread theories on the emergence of social hierarchies in prehistory, using Southeast Europe as an example.
The global distribution of wealth is currently the subject of controversial debate. Against this backdrop, social sciences, humanities, and economics are intensively investigating how social hierarchies emerge in human communities and where these processes originate. A widely held theory to date is that the introduction of agriculture in Europe at the beginning of the Neolithic period, around 8,000 years ago, inevitably led to socially unequal communities. The introduction of the plow and the associated inheritance of agricultural capital further intensified this process.

A study now published in the international journal Science Advances contradicts this theory, using the example of the Carpathian Basin. "We show that over the course of five thousand years following the introduction of agriculture in Southeastern Europe, social inequalities did not increase, and that the use of the plough did not rapidly increase either the extent or the persistence of these inequalities," says the study's lead author, archaeologist Dr. Paul R. Duffy from the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence at Kiel University.

The Carpathian Basin, including sites used in the analysis.
Site numbers correspond to ID numbers in data S1; site numbers not visible have coordinates listed in data S1. Modern country borders in black and modern rivers in blue. Base maps from Esri’s ArcGIS 10.8.

Paul R. Duffy et al. (2025)

Good data on the prehistory of the Carpathian Basin
The study is based on several years of research into the prehistory of the Carpathian Basin, conducted by researchers in the ROOTS subcluster "ROOTS of Inequalities" together with colleagues from the USA. The Carpathian Basin is particularly well-suited to this question because it represents a stopover for the spread of early agriculture from the Near East via Anatolia and the Balkans to Central Europe.

There have been a large number of excavations in the region in recent decades. The rich archaeological data also make the Carpathian Basin ideal for studying the development of socioeconomic inequalities in prehistory.

Dr. Paul R. Duffy, first author
Cluster of Excellence ROOTS,
Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.

As an indicator of inequality, the researchers used, among other things, the archaeologically measurable size of houses. Their construction is costly and they represent tangible, inheritable wealth.

Changes did not automatically lead to tangible inequalities

Plans of sites in present-day Hungary and Serbia included in the study. Long, black lines represent ditches identified using remote sensing techniques. Black rectangles represent houses. Dotted lines represent the boundaries of the study areas. Inequalities in material wealth were calculated based on the differences in the size of houses within a settlement. The degree to which the houses form coherent, rule-based spatial patterns simultaneously allowed for the assignment of a score for "cultural conformity." The extent and depth of ditches at the sites were used to assess social cohesion, as the enormous amount of earth moved at these sites required the cooperation of many people over an extended period of time.
© Kata Furholt

However, the results of the study show that social inequality measured by house size did not change significantly between the early Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

The researchers also collected data on other aspects of prehistoric societies, including the size of settlements, their duration, and the extent to which people carried out earthworks and ditch construction together.

They found that people had been digging ditches for defensive or ceremonial purposes since shortly after the arrival of farmers in southeastern Europe until at least the first millennium BC; but it was not until the Late Bronze Age, around 1400 BC, that these ditches increased massively in size.

The duration of settlement also shows clear trends: earlier settlements in the Neolithic period existed much longer than the mega-fortresses and other settlements of the Bronze Age.

These results suggest that the capacity of societies to organize for collective action increased throughout prehistory. However, these changes did not automatically lead to tangible inequalities in material wealth. Only later groups exhibit a wider range of inequalities.

Dr. Fynn Wilkes, co-author Cluster of Excellence ROOTS,
Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.

Voting with your feet

At the same time, archaeological evidence, such as the shorter lifespan of Bronze Age settlements, suggests that people abandoned settlements where the first hierarchies were forming. "Apparently, they could vote with their feet, thus undermining the ability of ambitious leaders to impose their will on early communities," explains Dr. Duffy. The data therefore do not demonstrate a necessary connection between the introduction of agriculture and increasing inequality. The study thus confirms, using a detailed regional example, previous global studies that also question the long-postulated automaticity of social inequality from the Neolithic period onwards.

Further detailed studies in well-studied regions are certainly necessary to better understand the mechanisms that lead to or prevent inequality.

Dr. Paul R. Duffy.

The volume of trenches excavated at sites is counted as a measure of social cohesion. Communities in southeastern Europe have been digging long, deep trenches since the Middle Neolithic (c. 5500 BCE). Defense was likely the motive for some of this earthwork; however, this does not explain the entire extent. Regardless of the motives, which likely varied over time, hundreds of people had to join forces in a coordinated effort to plan the trenches and move earth over hundreds of days. During this time, feasts likely took place, marriages and alliances were formed, and social bonds were strengthened. The trench in the image comes from the Podhajska site in southwest Slovakia, which was excavated in 2023.
© Till Kühl

Both Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements exhibit deep, layered deposits. Radiocarbon dating shows that continuous occupation of up to 800 years was not uncommon at Neolithic sites. Despite the impressive ditchwork and sometimes very large area of Bronze Age sites, communities did not continue these activities continuously for more than about 300 years; people split more easily into smaller groups than in the Neolithic period. The tell deposits in the picture come from recent excavations at the Bronze Age settlement of Békés-Várdomb in Hungary.
© Paul Duffy

Publication:
Paul R. Duffy et al.
Five thousand years of inequality in the Carpathian Basin.
Sci. Adv. 11, eadu0323 (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adu0323

Abstract
The emergence of sedentary farming economies, especially in contexts intensified by plow agriculture, has been argued to underpin marked increases in economic inequality and its intergenerational transmission across Eurasia. To assess this presumed causal relationship, we examine relational (burials) and material (house sizes) inequalities in the Carpathian Basin, a large region in central Europe, from the time the first farmers arrived in southeastern Europe through the next five millennia to the Bronze Age. We find that although farming did increase the potentials for both relational and material inequalities, the potential was rarely reached and then only for short durations. We identify a series of leveling mechanisms varying over time, including the removal of material wealth from circulation through the placement in graves, community fission, and investments of surplus labor in infrastructural investments. In the Carpathian Basin, only after at least 5000 years were the intergenerational potentials of material wealth transmissions more broadly realized.

INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, a wave of research has explored the deep historical roots of inequality. Although inequality has different dimensions, researchers use the Gini coefficient as a key metric to probe wealth disparities, as they relate to house sizes in the Americas and Western Eurasia. The Gini coefficient uses income data or material wealth to produce a value between 0 and 1, which represents the degree to which resources in a society are concentrated in a few hands. Focused principally on Eurasia, one recent hypothesis links the onset of plow (or land-limited) agriculture to growing disparities in intra-settlement house sizes and so wealth (1–3). In one dataset, inequalities in Eurasia stabilized ~2500 years after farming was introduced and then ratchet up in a way that they do not in the Americas [(2); Fig. 1, top]. Researchers argue that once plow agriculture became entrenched, a “warrior elite” allowed expanded territorial control and inequalities blossomed. These foundational investigations provide support for the long-entrenched notion (4) that, once advanced agriculture was established, surpluses were regularly generated, private property became institutionalized (5, 6), and while regionally variable, there was an inevitable ratcheting up of economic inequality.

Fig. 1. Changes in inequality found in two recent studies.
(Top) Inequality values in house sizes since the local onset of agriculture; value 0 on the x axis [data from (2, 52)]. (Bottom) Inequality values from cemetery contexts in the Carpathian Basin since the local onset of agriculture [data from (10)].

However, empirical measures of inequality from later European prehistory are greatly underrepresented in these narratives. House size Gini values from fifth-millennium Ukraine indicate there were agricultural strategies and social mechanisms that reduced inequalities at a time when community sizes exploded (7, 8). Although inequalities in mortuary customs become more pronounced in the early second millennium BCE, these arguably constitute differences in aspirational power and variable densities of interpersonal social networks rather than demonstrable hierarchies (9). Moreover, mortuary findings from the Carpathian Basin illustrate a waxing and waning of inequalities from the fifth to second millennium BCE, such that the mean Gini value does not increase significantly over time [(10); Fig. 1, bottom]. These studies present clear contrasts to the predominant narrative outlined above and beg close consideration before the advent of farming and Malthusian demographic growth are seen as the inevitable prime movers of economic inequalities.

Here, we complement mortuary Gini data with variation in house sizes from the Carpathian Basin in central Europe to compare changes in different modes of inequality (11) over time. In addition to contrasting Gini measures, however, we seek to understand the leveling mechanisms that dampened inequalities across long temporal sequences. To this end, we use the framework, empirical foundation, and expectations of collective action theory and “bottom-up” perspectives to orient and interpret the data from the Carpathian Basin (12–15). We integrate the investigation of inequalities with measures of settlement density, site size, and longevity, long recognized as key parameters related to social stress and transformation (16). In addition, we introduce measures of social conformity and social cohesion as indices of prosocial or cooperative behaviors that fostered social interactions despite social stresses and the potential for social inequalities to increase. Although inequalities are ever-present, we find that over the course of 5000 years (~6000 to 1000 BCE), the sequence of change in the Carpathian Basin generally exhibits a limited increment in the disparities of house size within settlements. We argue that we can account for the repeated rise and collapse of inequalities in this sequence by invoking social institutions that promoted cooperation rather than accumulation, conflict, and social distinction, as illustrated by the persistence of community labor projects. We also point to the importance of the failsafe of “voting with one’s feet” in the trajectory, as our data highlight decreasing site longevity from the Late Neolithic (LN) onward. Dispersion acted as a pressure release for contexts of high conflict in which nascent hierarchies were rejected by local communities.

Paul R. Duffy et al.
Five thousand years of inequality in the Carpathian Basin.
Sci. Adv. 11, eadu0323 (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adu0323

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

What’s striking here isn’t just what the evidence reveals about prehistoric social hierarchies — though that in itself is fascinating — but that the evidence exists at all. The uninterrupted archaeological record in the Carpathian Basin tells a continuous story of human settlement, agriculture, and cultural development extending far beyond the supposed timeframe of "Creation Week" and continuing undisturbed through the period when, according to the Bible, a global flood should have wiped all of it away.

Yet the evidence remains precisely where it should be if the flood never happened — layer upon layer of sediment, habitation, and human history, undisturbed and unburied by any cataclysm. There is no sign of a universal deluge, no silt-choked destruction layer uniting the globe under a single moment of divine wrath. The sites studied by the CAU team, and many others like them across Europe and beyond, demonstrate a seamless historical progression with no break or reset that a worldwide flood would have caused.

This is not evidence selectively interpreted to disprove a religious narrative — it is simply what is found when scientists investigate the past using well-established methods. The fact that such data so consistently contradicts the biblical account is not the result of bias but of reality refusing to align with myth. And this is the fatal flaw in the flood narrative: not that we have evidence against it, but that we have evidence that shouldn't exist at all if it were true.

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