Exploring a correlation between the "human markers" of innovation, belief systems and conflict, and fault zones

Shaping Faults | Part 1.2

Oct 29, 2024

Human “markers” are used to capture the broad range of contemporary and historical experiences that accompany the development of human life. Markers in particular interest to our question, How have fault lines influenced the conscious human experience? will include:

1) Cultural and Technological (Cult-Tech) Innovation - elements that speed up our history, underlying most of our species geo-political and social dynamism.

2) Belief Systems - how we thought then might still reflect how we think now; a record that says so much of a time that we know so little about, one foundational to our species global flourishment.

3) Conflict and Instability - if there are only two things that our species knows how to do well, the first is fight, fight ourselves; fight eachother, the second is to build something, until someone or something tears it back down.

Each realm of human experience will be viewed under a novel spatial correlation with global fault lines, the underlying causal chains - the why? - then explored further.

Correlation vs Causation: Don’t Shoot the Messenger

“Correlation is not causation, but it sure is a hint.”

- Edward Tufte

As it turns out, correlating things can be a slippery slope. Take an example from something we all love: ice cream. What if I told you that a spate of tragic boating accidents are all your fault. Why? Because recently you have been eating a lot of ice cream. Well, that might be the case if we took all correlation at face value. Luckily in our cold case we can now deduce from modern observation that no, your 99p Flake does not cause boat captains to spontaneously lose control of their vessel. Instead, the causation behind a correlation in a rise of boating accidents and increased ice cream consumption comes from an increase in local temperature, and its subsequent effect on human behaviour. In other words: more ice cream means it is probably summertime, and summertime means there are more people and boats on the water than usual. Beauty and danger; correlation and causation. No extra sauce, thanks.

Having said all that, I immediately want to take some of it back because, as it turns out, some correlations are more than useful. Straining his head Johannes Kepler rubbed his neck as he noticed a correlation between the positions of planets in the sky and their orbits over time, dousing fuel on the flames of Copernicus’ heliocentric revolution. Aren’t our ancestors glad that Dr. John Snow (his actual name) correlated national water sources to outbreaks of cholera? Equally, anyone who has ever caught an infection is quite pleased that Sir Alexander Fleming saw a correlation between mould growth and lack of bacterial growth in a few dirty petri dishes. I mean, if it was not for “Silent Spring’s”Rachel Carson who noticed a correlation between the use of pesticides like DDT and environmental and human damage like birth defects, who knows what state we would all be in today. Thus, at least as launching pads into abstract ideas, and when paired with other meaningful observations, correlations turn out to be the insights needed for a breakthrough, especially when the thing being thought about sits between disparate fields of research.

It is not like the correlations about to be presented are as ground-breaking as those above. I am not completely hubristic. But I would like you to hear them out before you draw your pitchforks and chase me off your property.

Correlation 1: Fault Zones - Cult-Tech Innovation

Note on Cult-Tech Innovation:

Culture, society1 and technology are bound within constant tension.2 Synergistically, from the point of view of a “civilisational stack”, we can think of three nested levels - infrastructure (technology), social structure (organisation) and superstructure (culture and belief) - as all implicate, both individually and collectively, in the emergent order needed for a group of people to develop into something resembling a cohesive, innovative social system - a civilisation.3

To most extents I agree with the opinion that, for a group of people to be considered “innovative”, they do not necessarily need an innovative (or even advanced) “tech-stack”.4 Cultural complexity does not always need technology to flourish.5 However, given “culture” is nested within the superstructure atop the civilization stack, it seems empirically accurate to also assume that if a given culture has self-innovated in accordance to modernised “contemporary standards”6 it most likely has had time to innovate whatever modern tech-stack it uses to maintain function of the social system writ large. Therefore, cultural innovation requires co-creation.7

Co-creation presupposes technological innovation. So it can be proposed that areas with high rates of co-creation (e.g. areas exhibiting complex cultural innovation) would also correlate to areas of technological innovation. Parsing out cultural and technological innovation is understandably very hard. Whilst it is not my intent to do so, this must be considered as we explore the following correlations.

Areas of Cultural Significance

Above you have two maps: the top one shows the eastern continental Ring of Fire map with the corresponding half of the UNESCO world heritage site map superimposed on top, and the second is a fault line map of the western continental zones superimposed onto the other half of the same UNESCO map. Fault zones and lines are signified on by red zones and thick white lines respectively, whilst UNESCO sites are signified by green, yellow and red dots and diamonds.

For a site to gain UNESCO status, it must meet several criteria, including historical, cultural, and environmental significance. Qualification for UNESCO recognition includes “outstanding universal value” and “intactness” - the latter making it immediately obvious that not all culturally significant sites are recorded by UNESCO. However, as a general marker for the spatial distribution of areas of cultural and historical significance, investigating the spread of UNESCO recognition can get our foot in the door for understanding fault lines influence on historical cult-tech innovation.

Without digging very far we immediately notice the dense congregation of UNESCO sites in and around Europe. Indeed, as of 2023, Europe accounts for over 47% of all World Heritage Sites. In part this can be explained through the history of UNESCO: the European continent was home to a disproportionate amount of early assignments (e.g. most cafes in Vienna are UNESCO sites…). Europe is also home to the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and UNESCO was founded in 1945, a time when many former European colonial powers had resources and access to research programmes, preservation, and political connections to promote their local sites for global recognition.

Once we factor this in (and then average it out), we notice that still, large clusters of cultural heritage sites exist along the seismic hotspots. It appears that the density of culturally and historically important sites increases on top of and around fault rich zones.

Displayed in the above two maps are biodiverse regions (red zones), fault zones (white, red and blue lines respectively) and sites of ecological heritage (represented by green and red dots - the latter indicating a risk of losing the site).

For one, we must remember that UNESCO assigns world heritage to natural sites. Geological and tectonic conditions produce very interesting ecological features, like the creation of hot springs, mountain ranges, fertile basins, and rift valleys. Geological features of fault zones influence the formation of unique and diverse environmental niches by altering topography, microclimates, and water availability. For example, fault-induced valleys can create fertile areas that attract a diverse range of flora and fauna, becoming niches that attract wildlife and dense eco-systems into their seismically-altered folds.

Often, throughout history, interesting ecological niches have tempted our species into their depths. Humans historically gravitate towards regions with favourable ecological conditions, which provide natural resources like access to water, and fertile soil, or feature defensible terrain so that strategic trade routes can develop. History reveals civilizations emerging along fertile river valleys (such as in Mesopotamia and Egypt) or volcanic regions with high agricultural output (such as Guatemala and Peru).

Above is the same UNESCO map, displaying sites of cultural heritage only.

Once we spend a bit of time in one of these ecological folds, our species has a tendency to get a bit restless and, if we are able to accumulate enough excess resources and labour, we undertake projects with increasing complexity and scale. Consistent societal projects can result in the emergence of “cultural pockets” (e.g. distinct languages, architectural styles, religious practices, and social structures), often developing unique identities due to isolation, trade, or interaction with specific environmental factors. A well-established cultural pocket can lead to monumental architectural projects and historically significant structures, like temples, pyramids and fortresses, that reflect the local environment and cultural values. Our collective output is exactly what the other types of UNESCO heritage sites represent: human made structures, with important cultural information wrapped up in their material existence. In some sense it is obvious that there should be a positive correlation between fault lines and sites of world heritage. It follows a simple chain of causation, for example:

Does this causation explain the correlation? I am always weary of talking in absolutes, and sometimes you can look down onto the surface and see all you need to see. Other times, whilst it can be dark and a little scary, we must take a deep breath and stick our head below the surface. Today requires us to be a wee bit braver.

Demarcated fault lines on the maps above can be viewed as one fingerprint - a single component of Earth’s total underlying geological system.8 Seismic activty is like a wave: it will peak with an earthquake, then it will trough as everything subsides again. Sometimes dormant for tens, even hundreds or thousands of years. Within these “cycles within cycles… large cities may be built, complex civilizations instituted, and a world concerned with itself precariously exists on the surface.”9 UNESCO represents many of the sites where cultures, caught in cycles outside of their immediate control, have left their unique physical marks on the world. Thus we can safely say that UNESCO sites mark areas where some form of cultural innovation has taken place.10 On average, UNESCO sites also mark where seismic activity has taken place.

Tectonic movement accompanies these ecological niches. Local cultural pockets settled within seismic bounds are forced to either “restart” or “remember”. If said culture is a direct lineage of the one that inhabited the same geographic space before it then it may already have a collective memory of these destructive peaks. If not, it may have found quiet comfort in the trough.

Using terminology from Stuart Kauffman, the dynamics of Earth’s geological system when expressed through seismic activity becomes quite literally a kinetic “push” into a new adjacent possible. For most species this newly forced future is less important: they continue on in their existence unperturbed, unknowing to the larger cycles of force at play all around them. But for a species like us, a species who seeks to understand, one who greatly adapts and alters the surrounding environment, who is able to conjure up innovations through the substrate of society and technology, a species who is equal parts resilient and fragile, this new adjacent future is not just important; it is fundamental to our existence. It forces a change in direction. And the cyclical interplay between “remembering” and “restating” may have some very interesting connotations within the context of cult-tech innovation.

Areas of Technological Innovation

Broadly speaking, “technology” can be described as “the application of scientific knowledge to the practical aims of human life". Invention both supports, and is a result of, technological innovation.11 Technological innovation is symbiotic with invention; where we see invention, we also see technological innovation. A somewhat subjective inquiry shows how 15/20 (75%) of the most impactful inventions for human life (ten pre-and ten post-industrial revolution) were invented along active fault zones.12 A more objective look shows 65/107 (61%) of the most influential inventions from the 1500s to present day originating from seismically dense areas.13 Could this be because, as we have seen, areas of cultural significance, which coincide with areas of technological innovation, are located along fault zones due to geographic determinism (e.g. attraction to ecological niches)? Or is there something more subtle within the correlation between fault zones and technological innovation?

Written language is one of the things that separates our species from the millions of others. Written language follows symbology; symbolism and belief systems (proto-writing) lay the foundations for the development and spread of writing around the world.14 Thus, a simplified multidirectional causal chain may look like:15

Symbology (+ Proto-Writing + Belief Systems) → Written Language ↔ Science ↔ Technological Innovation

If we use the above chain as a guiding framework, the basis of technology, thus technological innovation, is indebted to written language. The written word can be both a “tool”16 and a “technology”17 in its own right. Interesting then, that along with a correlation between inventions, instances of innovation and fault lines, we also see a correlation between seismically dense areas and the earliest known writing systems. All three “cradles of writing” - Mesoamerica, China and Mesopotamia - exist along highly active fault zones. Nine out of the ten earliest known writing sites sit along fault lines.18

Could this be one causal reason why areas of revolutionary inventions (especially pre-industrial and ancient sites) correlate to fault zones? Because of early writing systems? I mean, no doubt a group of people wanting to develop innovative culture, let alone technology to augment that culture, would seek to develop a coherent system of writing. Writing and innovation go hand-in-hand. It is no real suprise that we see the same cradles of writing also adorned with UNESCO sites. Society, culture and technology: as thick as thieves. But before we get too far into written language and belief systems let’s think a bit more deeply about the potential causal chains connecting fault lines and technological innovation. Then we will circle back. I promise.

Above is a map of the development of written language, overlaid over global fault zones (white areas). Notice the high correlation around the Middle East (Mesopotamia) and Far East (including China and Japan). Note: early Mesoamerican writing systems are not included.

Everytime a fault moves, the surrounding area is immediately changed forever. Resulting seismic activity can be cataclysmic. Forcing a “restart”, such seismic activity drives the culture(s) settled within the fault's ecological niche to cyclically rebuild themselves from the ground-up. While seismic events can contribute to cultural collapse (e.g. earthquakes destroying cities or causing resource shortages), this is not a deterministic outcome. Many societies adapt or integrate seismic events into their cultural narratives, using them as catalysts for transformation rather than collapse. Over time, this constant tearing down of the old and rebirth of the new essentially becomes a “forcing function” resulting in two adjacent possibles: either the seismic activity is so bad the culture is unable to recover and collapses, or the local culture enters into cyclical states of technological and societal iterative design out of survival-based necessity.

Could survival-based iterative design play an underlying role in the correlation between fault zones and innovation?

If no resilience is found or successful adaptation generated, the first adjacent possible will be taken: cultural collapse. The ecology of the niche overgrows the remains, and many years later archaeologists armed with brushes and optimism clear it all away to speculate on what could have been and what is now lost to time. Time is such that, eventually, all cultures collapse. The charred foundations of history explain to us that other groups will form, organise and build upon the sacred yet hallowed ground. So the cycle within cycles continues.

Progression towards the second adjacent possible is typically linked to the need for resource management, conflict resolution, and leadership in the face of environmental challenges. Societies facing dynamic environments or recurrent seismic activity often develop technological innovations (including seismic-resistant structures and water management systems) as part of a broader cultural adaptation strategy. Those societies able to form effective leadership and adapt are hotbeds for innovation in architecture, engineering, and disaster preparedness. Written language, used as a tool or seen as a technology, also contributes towards the development of cultural identity and complex social and political systems. Cult-tech innovation, in this sense, may follow a simplified multi-directional causation chain like:

No doubt there is a spectrum of destruction and be under no illusion: certain seismic activity has brought about the abrupt and definitive end to many historic cultures. Just ask the Minoans over 3,000 years ago, or the Helikes near the Gulf of Corinth in 373 BCE, or look at the role incessant seismic activity played in the downfall of the classical Maya civilization in Guatemala and Mexico. After a while something has to give, and Mother Nature19 gives as good as she gets. However, most civilizations rise and fall, so to some degree eventual abandonment is to be expected.

What is not necessarily to be expected, and what we also see in these fault line-adjacent word-heritage sites, are examples of early, dare I say “ancient” innovation.20 One example I have studied first hand is the polygonal masonry found all across the world. Take one specific case - perhaps the most famous - residing in the ancient Incan capital Cuzco and its surrounding sites (e.g. Sacsayhuaman & Tambomachay, or Ollantaytambo & Machu Picchu further along the Sacred Valley).

Nested in the Andes Mountain range, stunning megalithic architecture with breathtaking backdrops immediately spring to mind. But what is less likely to come to mind is the fact that the monumental sites and the mountain range itself is nested within the Atacama Trench system, itself part of the large subduction zone between the Nazca-South American plate boundaries. Because of this nesting, when the Nazca plate decides to subduct under the South American plate, massive seismic activity can reverberate throughout the mountain range. And by “reverberate” I mean “shake the whole bloody house down”.

Whilst experts are still not quite sure how they did it,21 many researchers22 agree that the polygonal23 (literally meaning “many-sided”) masonry featured across countless Peruvian megalithic sites was designed in order to remain stable during these bouts of intense and destructive seismic activity. Archaeoseismology suggests that, large or small, hefty or dainty, the polygonal nature of the superstructure itself proved to be the most efficient way for ancient masons to construct fault-resistant sacred sites. Whatsmore, we only seem to be beginning to now, in the 21st-century, catch up and utilise such interlocking and mortarless systems of construction in seismically high-risk areas. And this architectural and material innovation did not just occur along the fault zones of Peru. Pattern-matching, we notice ancient polygonal masonry in many other earthquake-prone fault zones across the world, as far flung as Egypt and Japan to Greece. And it clearly works, because even after thousands of years many of these enigmatic sites are still there, for you and me to go and place our hands on, feeling the cold touch of stone that has remained in place through everything human and mother nature could hurl at it.

Being constantly forced to restart either forces you to move on or forces you to remember. It is in the invocation of this memory that innovation can flourish. Forced innovation is another way in which fault lines have had a hand in the human experience - the construction of polygonal megalithic architecture being one example of technological innovation appearing along globally disconnected fault zone regions.

One of many polygonal megalithic walls of Saqshuayman, Peru. A tiny piece of the massive megalithic puzzle I have been fortunate enough to explore on a few occasions. The walls behind me have survived many seismic and other catastrophic events. Whether due to their sheer mass, or the system of joinery that characterise them, no doubt these walls where built to withstand the toughest elements nature could test them with.

Another example of a surface-level correlation - this time between megalithic sites and fault lines across vast geographic regions. (Accessed via my Substack - designed just in case anyone visiting a place wants to see what ancient, culturally significant megalithic sites are about. If you do use it and find a megalithic site, drop me an email (apif.research@gmail.com) as it would be cool to discuss for a future project.)

Correlation 2: Fault Zones - Belief Systems

Remembering that we are not long for this world is sadly never more apparent than when everything is ripped away. Homes, spouses, parents, children - everything. One unfortunate but very real consequence of living along these fault lines is exactly this risk. Many do not have an option to move. Even with modern technology mitigating some risk,24 we continue to see year-in-year-out that ultimate destruction is always hovering just out of sight but close to the surface.

A Word on Resilience and Antifragility

Revering our own mortality is something every individual, let alone every culture, has their own unique way of doing. When you are cyclically reminded in the most humbling and helpless of manners that life should be treasured, and that life is short, some interesting things begin to occur in the collective psyche of large groups of people. (A truism is still true:) mental health is important. It has been observed that after destructive earthquakes and the proceeding physical cascading effects subside, markers in mental health also decline.25 From Fukushima post-2011, Haiti post-2010,26 Szechuan post-2008, Kashmir post-2005 or Southern Thailand post-2004, the story remains the same: mental health plummets following intense seismic disasters. But if you flick through any of the linked literature you will also notice something else: fault-born disasters are also met with “resilience”.

Resilience is an interesting word, taking many forms depending on who is using it. For the purpose required here, think of resilience as the adaptive and innovative reaction to structurally-damaging risks,27 in many ways equated to “antifragility”.28 Whether adaptability is driven by the many global disaster relief organisations and scientific institutions learning how to deal with contemporary and future events, or whether that be the behaviour of the everyday people caught in the disaster - those displaced, those that have lost everything - wherever the qualities of resilience and antifragility come from the very fact that it exists suggests our species is good at adjusting to severe calamity. And resilience comes in many forms.

Current Psychiatry Reports of Haitian children who were caught in the 2010 earthquake determined that those individuals who had a distinct spiritual belief, or more generally a stable belief system, were able to build psychological resilience to such a horrific and traumatic ordeal quicker than those that did not. Insights like this make sense psychitecturally29; our species is quite unique in our ability to formulate mental models that promote resilience and support antifragility. Belief systems may emerge as adaptive strategies to help people psychologically process disasters, framing them as part of a divine plan or natural cycle.30 Forced adaptation might not only result in technical innovations but also in shared spiritual systems that help societies cope with the constant threat of destruction.

Regular exposure to destruction fosters a collective awareness of risk and an understanding of cyclical time, which manifests in both ritualistic and spiritual practices. “Religion and faith influence vulnerability and resilience, and how people perceive disaster risk, respond to disaster, and recover from their impacts.” Belief systems are founded in community. In Japan, following the 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami, resilience was witnessed not only at the level of the individual, but also on the larger-scale community setting.

Communities facing repeated destruction from natural disasters may develop shared belief systems that ritualize disaster recovery and reinforce social bonds. In Japan, Shinto rituals centred around natural disasters reflect a cultural framework that reveres nature, accepts cyclical destruction, and integrates it into the community's spiritual worldview. Consistent experience of natural disasters becomes a selective pressure for resilience, as only communities with the ability to recover, rebuild, and adapt will persist. This pressure incentivizes the development of social cohesion, community cooperation. In essence, cyclical destruction like earthquakes act as a forcing function that accelerates human resilience. Of course, this is not always the case. But when it is, this destructive process not only fosters the development of novel innovation, but further influences the emergence of shared belief systems and community practices that reinforce resilience and antifragility. Such a simplified multi-directional causal chain may look like:

Connecting Foundation Mythology

If we want to look at systems of community and belief, the further we go back the more we stumble into “foundation mythology”.31 Comparative analysis of mythology along fault zones reveals some distinctive patterns within the mythos and symbolism of early belief systems. Geographical determinism is one explanation, where physical environments - particularly those prone to earthquakes, floods, and volcanic activity - play a formative role in shaping culture, belief systems, and even social structures of any local group of people. However, one thing to note right off the bat is that there is an element of ancient myth that largely goes unrecognised or unacknowledged in modern recollections.

I do not want to turn this into an endorsement for catastrophism, but when the layers are peeled back there is a strong case to be made that ancient myth-makers understood certain underlying mechanisms that caused, and connected, various natural disasters. At the very least they felt it appropriate to record it in their symbology, proto-writing and associated mythology. In fact, it seems that there is a correlation between the symbology used to signify natural disasters wherever we look along worldwide fault zones.

Figure 1: Comparison Between Fault Zone Foundation Symbology (from left-right, top-bottom: Shesha (Naga) of India; Ainu of Japan; Thunderbird of North America; Poseidon’s Hippocamp of Greece; Bakunawa from the Philippines; Quetzacoatl/Kukulkan (Feathered Serpent) of Mesoamerica; Rainbow Serpent of Papua and Greater Oceania; Serpentine Symbology of Turkey. (See Table 1 in the Appendix for additional details.)

Now we not only have cult-tech innovation added to the correlation; after a little more digging, we notice that certain key symbols also hold up between cultures situated along fault zones. Remembering the correlation between written language and fault zones from before, bear in mind that symbology precedes proto-writing. Therefore, examining correlations in symbolism could lead to a better understanding of the correlations between fault zones and early writing systems.

Amongst fault line cultures, the major recurring symbol is that of the snake, serpent, bird or dragon.32 From the Ainu of Japan - descendents of the Jomon, the oldest inhabitants of Japan - we see the dragon Hoyau33 whose early archetype most likely influenced later belief systems within the Kojiki and the Nihongi records. In these Japanese chronicles these dragon-like entities immortalised land struck down by natural disaster. Fuxi and Nuwa, two survivors of a massive flood who repopulated China and sit at the heart of the nations foundation myth, are depicted in serpentine form. Similarly, the ”Bakunawa in the Visayas” and “the Arimaonga of the Maranaos”34 all represent only a small portion of serpentine forms connected to the flooding and intense natural phenomena originating from pre-colonial Filipino mythology. Tens of thousands of years ago the earliest inhabitants of Australia would have rowed across the ocean from islands like Papua New Guinea or, with sea levels fluctuating, travelled overland, what is now islands connected then by land bridges. Given this connection between the islands of Oceania, the foundation myths across this seismically dense zone35 can be embodied through the figure of the “Rainbow Serpent”. Australian “Dreamtime” tells of the serpents central position in the creation of the world, of the flood that started everything, and the subsequent cycles (destructive or otherwise) contained within natural life.36

In North American cultures like the Haida, Tlingit, Chippewa, Lakota and Cherokee, the “thunderbird” is used to discuss stories surrounding natural disasters, including terrible flooding and storms. The Maya and Aztec cultures from Mexico revered the feathered serpent - Kukulkan and Quetzacoatl respectively - as a symbol for cataclysmic cycles. The Yuma Creation myth of Arizona tells of Bakotahl, a destructive god associated with birds and fish, who emerged out the earliest water, who returning underground would twist and turn violently shaking the ground in the process. In the West, the “Earth-shaker” Poseidon, responsible for earthquakes, was always depicted as riding the back of the hippocamp - a winged serpentine, dragon-esque creature. Similarly, in Norse mythology Jörmungandr is the serpent of the ocean, biting its own tail in representation of great cycles, the son of Loki, the Norse god of earthquakes. Back east, over ten thousand years ago one of the oldest and most historically valuable archaeological sites in the world - Göbekli Tepe in Anatolia, Turkey - circular enclosures lined with massive T-shaped pillars carved in detailed high-relief - depicts, nestled amongst other animal iconography, certain snake symbology. Whilst the serpentine symbology is still being decoded, it is believed by some prominent scientific figures to be a part of a system of iconography designed to commemorate a prehistoric global catastrophe - a series of major natural disasters - at the end of Earth’s last ice age around 12,800-11,600 years ago.37

Whilst it is not my intention to get into a comparative analysis of global mythology here, nor is it my intention to give an argument for the catastrophist interpretation of ancient archaeological remains and belief system symbology, I do find it interesting that many of these fault line-based cultures use the same system of symbology revolving around core components of dragons, serpents and birds to record events relating to natural disasters. Disasters, at least in part involving seismic activity. The common denominator being the fault lines beneath everyone's feet.

Deity-Disaster Network Mapping

A deity-based framework was generally employed by ancient people to examine such a correlation, hence the attribution of animals and personified gods as the harbingers of calamitous forces. This makes intuitive sense; religion and belief are largely born out of our innate capacity to attribute causal events to abstract forces, whilst being able to construct mental models in order to bind these abstract forces within a clear space of existence.38 But these mental models also provide a means to map the causal structure of interconnected disasters. By attributing certain causal factors to specific deities (e.g. Zeus to thunder), the natural dynamics which arise within families and other groups of people, as well as the patterns of behaviour exhibited by different animals, could be used as an ancient means of examining the relationship between various observed natural phenomena, in this case, catastrophic events stemming from fault zone activity.

In some cases we can imagine deity-based family trees and mythological ecosystems recorded in foundation myths as an ancient network map of causal relationships between different observed disasters.

Suddenly deification becomes a very clever way of ensuring this network map is passed from generation to generation in order to preserve the knowledge held within certain familial or social connections. We know how much ancient Greece was shaped by seismic activity,39 so why don’t we explore the family and social dynamics within their pantheon: Poseidon, bringer of earthquakes and tsunamis, has an overt sibling rivalry, as well as a fundemantal relationship, with his brothers Zeus (the Sky) and Hades (the Underworld). These tensions mirror the interaction between atmospheric conditions, oceanic forces, and seismic activities that can produce destructive natural events. Mythology surrounding Deucalion and Pyrrha, two survivors of a great flood sent by Zeus, who enacted the help of his brother Poseidon (god of earthquakes & tsunamis), mirrors ancient global accounts of catastrophic flooding events - akin to tsunamis caused by undersea earthquakes, whose devastation would have been felt by those lucky enough to survive.

Of course, whether or not you take Plato’s account of Atlantis literally or metaphorically, in Critias and Timaeus the ancient philosophers' dialogues no doubt express the mechanism by which myth can contain remnants of ancient knowledge about floods and geological change. Perhaps the great thinker was playing with “catastrophist euhemerism” - suggesting that certain elements of myths derive from real historical events and natural phenomena, supporting the idea that gods and their stories encode important observations about the environment, specifically catastrophic natural events like earthquakes and flooding. Or perhaps it was a metaphorical thought experiment, a way of thinking about how the causal reasons why civilisations rise and fall.

Whatever the case, evidence of catastrophist euhemerism goes back further than we tend to think. Continuing along the Greek thread, evidence of pantheonic worship has been shown as early as 600 BCE, with a group of twelve gods intimately connected to the twelve zodiacal constellations.40 Zodiacal connections are mirrored in mythological traditions from the Vedas to the Americas. Evidence has even linked some of the earliest known symbological systems at archaeological sites in Turkey, some 10,000 -11,000 years prior, to zodiacal constellations as well. Archaeoastronomy returns us back to the repeating connection between the sky (zodiac constellations/storms/Zeus), water (flooding/tsunamis/Poseidon) and ground (humanity/death/Hades). Ancient symbology - including the serpent and the bird - may have been used to signify cataclysmic events that took place before, during and after our last major ice age, which ended around 11,500 years ago - a mere generation before the creation of archaeological sites exhibiting such symbology.41

Is it that hard to see why our ancient ancestors would obsess over recording such events? What better method of transmitting knowledge than myth passed generation to generation. Stories woven with the thread of natural phenomenon, into the very fabric of society. And only now we are beginning to scientifically observe the interrelated mechanisms behind such phenomena ourselves. Whether that be newly discovered “stormquakes” or understanding the interplay between fault lines and magma chambers, regardless of the depth of understanding, the cataclysmic connection was certainly felt all those thousands of years ago. By viewing mythological figures as representations of physical phenomena, it’s possible to see how their familial and social connections became a network map of observable natural forces. Interpersonal relationships between gods, their domains, and their symbolic roles mirror the interactions between geological, atmospheric, hydrological, and cosmic phenomena.

Through the lens of the collective unconscious these recurring symbols suggest a universal grammar of myth-making, reflecting humanity's subconscious efforts to grapple with the chaotic forces that govern the natural world. In this sense, fault lines seem to affect the part of the collective human psyche that is involved in the production of foundation mythology and early systems of belief. When considering symbolism and belief systems are upstream of proto-writing and more advanced writing systems, the causal relationship this infers between fault lines and innovation is also apparent.

So far, an “aesthetic” or “physical” connection across symbolism from these vastly disparate fault zones can be seen in Figure 1, and a more subtle connection can be seen through their “symbolic” or “meta-physical” connection to natural disasters is seen in Table 1 (see Appendix). If any thread connects these two correlations it is stitched within a serpentine and bird-like form. They say function precedes form, so to look at the symbolic representation we must look at the manner in which the corresponding animals “function”, or in other words, “behave”.

For a long time researchers have been asking whether or not abnormal animal behaviour can be a preemptive indicator of oncoming seismic activity. Whilst the findings are mixed, some research seems to suggest that animals with a high sensitivity to the electromagnetic spectrum - creatures including snakes, birds and reptiles - act very strangely in the time surrounding fault line-related events. Occam’s Razor in hand, the threads of animal form connecting ancient foundation myths could be based on the simple observation of how other life forms around us react to disasters. Why not use their enhanced sensory functions to improve our own?

Confirmation bias means it is nice to think of animals as helping in some way to save human lives. It is interesting; compelling yet not conclusive. But, whatever the case, just as the universe winks, the light must be balanced by the dark. Into the darkness we go.

Correlation 3: Fault Zones - Conflict and Instability

Following on from our causal chains from the previous two correlations, one feature of human settlement and societal expansion is conflict vis-a-vis war. As we can see from the above map of “every war ever”42 - otherwise known as the Geography of Violence (red and yellow dots) - overlaid onto a map of worldwide seismic activity (blackened areas), there seems to be another correlation: this time between fault zones and areas of historical conflict.

Civil Unrest & Societal Collapse

Historically, we can see how environmental factors, including natural disasters like earthquakes and tsunamis, along with the resulting cascading catastrophes like famine and plague, exacerbate an already complex web of conflictual challenges facing a society, even one as large and powerful as the Western Roman Empire.43 More recently, the earthquake, subsequent tsunami and fires that rocked Lisbon in 1755 allowed the Prime Minister of Portugal at the time to consolidate power, implementing swift and authoritarian measures to rebuild Lisbon and reform the Portuguese state. Sure the Prime Minister's effective management of the crisis allowed him to gain more control over the government, centralise power, and diminish the influence of the nobility and the Church, but the catalyst was the seismic shock and subsequent destruction that allowed him to implement the steps necessary for a full societal take-over. A nudge into a new adjacent possible. In the wider context of the European political arena, Portugal suddenly found themselves in a very precarious, yet completely new position at the hands of seismic shock.

One embodiment of brutality: the infamous Spartan regime, suffered at the hands of a massive earthquake in 464 BCE. The “helots” (a completely enslaved social class) used the ensuing chaos to their advantage and mounted a bloody rebellion, the internal strain of which eventually led to Sparta’s fall from the top of the Greek Game of Power. In fact, the entire Greek “Dark Ages” that preceded the Classical Greek era was, in part, brought on by a series of natural disasters, no doubt including seismic activity which ended the reign of the Mycenaean civilization, creating a power vacuum, ushering in the formation of new city-states who would become the vessel for dēmokratia as we know and love to this day.

From within the folds of the already encroaching modernity, China provides another striking example of how social and cultural unrest can follow intense activity along fault lines. In 1556 the Shaanxi (Jiajing) earthquake - the deadliest earthquake on record, with the estimated death toll peaking at 830,000 - unsurprisingly resulted in mass confusion, panic and anger amongst the Chinese people. Many government buildings, administrative offices, military sites and temples were flattened, their contents and occupants destroyed. In conjunction with increasing natural threats (often a result of seismic activity) like flooding from the Yellow River, mass social and economic instability were quick to follow.44 Because of the desperation, because of the massive loss of life and because of the destruction of structure in every sense of the word, instances of anti-social behaviour such as banditry spiked, with local conflicts erupting as communities competed for scarce resources. The entire Ming Dynasty was put under great strain trying to recover from this faulty episode.

Pushing ever closer to modernity's polished surface, 1976 saw the industrial city of Tangshan struck by a massive seismic event, killing over 250,000 people. Combined with a period of political instability - the earthquake hitting a mere few months before the death of the leader of China’s communist party Mao Zedong - the aftermath led to widespread looting and even a crisis of confidence in the Communist Party.45 Helping to break apart the power structure of the “Gang of Four” and their brutal campaign of “cultural revolution”, the Tangshan earthquake appears to have had a hand in changing the political landscape of China, at least for a little while.

No doubt the resulting second and third-order effects of seismic activity can shape human nature in such a way that, when occurring around times of societal and political instability, where the citizenry are not being represented well and where the local governance is failing, people will organise themselves into smaller factions and begin competing against one another. Against those they would not normally have entered into open-competition with. Open-competition always holds the potential for violence; conflict is never too far. Society fractures from internal and external instability. Fractal chaos strikes from the ground-up.

Having said that, please do not misunderstand me. I am not saying all people react in a net-negative way following destructive seismic events. As described in the previous two correlations, I actually think these destructive cycles can bond communities, bring about innovation in fields such as material technology and architecture, and even invoke complex belief and writing systems in their wake. In fact, this is more a critique of power-hungry individuals' response to natural disasters than it is to the everyday human reaction to it. All I am pointing to is the way in which fault lines, when coupled with other causal factors, can shape the human experience, and in this case the shape is moulded around the cold-steel of conflict. The sharp angles of negative-sum games rest upon the socio-political level, not the everyday individual.

Games of Power

Power-hungry individuals,46 spurred on by the frenetic events caused by fault movements, have learned to either use the ensuing chaos to manoeuvre themselves into a better vantage point for control, or use the disaster to ignite their people in the name of conquest and glory. The result? Hobbesian human nature at its finest.

Individuals seeking only to advance in this Game of Power will attempt to use the mechanism of society to further their ambitions. As societies expand, they come into contact with other groups, leading to potential conflict or cooperation. Expansion could be driven by the need for more resources, population pressure, or ideological motives. Following the development of unique cultural identities and limited resource availability in-group/out-group dynamics can worsen, especially in isolated or resource-scarce environments. Conflict alone is never the sole response, and trade and cooperation can occur.

Yet power-hungry individuals will often favour open conflict if they deem it in their best interest. Under certain stress conditions like resource depletion or territorial expansion war will be a step these leaders are more than willing to take. While war can lead to cultural collapse, it’s not the only (nor the primary) cause. Cultural collapse often results from a combination of factors, including environmental degradation, economic instability, disease, and political fragmentation, all of which can be a result of intense seismic activity. In this sense, we can map a new causal chain, like:

Historically we can see that conquest is often correlated to cultural innovation. Largely this is because war drives the need for innovation.47 Conquest accumulates capital, resources, labour and space. All of the above breed the creation of cultural marvels in their own right, something we tend to look past, because seeing the esteemed foundations covered in blood and stacked upon suffering does not exactly make for the best Instagram pic’. But in a ruthless and cruel way, a lot of human nature has been governed by these extreme experiences, and we tend not to bat an eyelid.

Remembering our own mortality can be a double-edged sword. On one hand it can seed a collective feeling of unity, appreciating the fragility of life, encouraging us to set roots in the present and to grow in harmony into the future. Then you turn the palm of the other hand: a thin red line streaks down it, leaving a contrasting fault in its wake. History also proves that kleptocratic thieves intent on stealing power and proffering corruption use the instance of destruction and the memory of death to fulfil their own selfish, megalomaniacal desires. That, again, is human nature.

Either case, the light or the dark, both go some way in adding a little more context to a glaringly positive correlation between the delineation of fault lines and the location of sacred, revered and culturally important sites. Alongside the influential historical events that play out in these various regions and the figures within these global niches that drive most of the historical dynamic, the underlying causation points a fault-provoking finger back to, yes, you guessed it, those pesky fault lines.

Perhaps geographical determinism is at play, or cultural innovation through forced iteration is what really matters, or maybe it all boils down to symbolic anthropology and conflict dynamics because they are a fundamental emergent result of human nature. Perhaps all of these things play an important role. Perhaps alongside all of this, other, even more fundamental, even more mysterious, even more energetic layers of causation are waiting to be examined. Electromagnetism; that, my friends, is where we are heading next.

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Appendix

Table 1: Comparative Analysis of Fault Zone Mythology

Psychitectural Model - Adapted from Bush, 2021.

Where “culture” is the shared values, beliefs, history, religion etc of a group of people, and “society” is the way in which this group of people structurally organise themselves.

See: Efrat, 2014, Combi, 2016, Salehan et al, 2018, Pozzo et al, 2020, Consilience Project, 2021, Tverskoi et al, 2022, Ramankutty, 2023 & Slapakova et al, 2024

However, given the loaded connotations of the term, the use of civilisation is largely avoided throughout this article series.

“Tech-stack” is used in the sense of both the personal “individual” and “group” technology used at the level of the infrastructure that sits below social structure, including things like access to healthcare, public housing, education, use of crime databases, internet access, transport, water, energy and other communication and information technology.

For historical examples see: Buddhist and Hindu traditions of the Indian subcontinent, the Inuit of the Arctic, Hopi and Zuni “Pueblo People” of the American Southwest, and the Kingdom of Kongo in Central Africa. Of course, in the examples of Pueblo People and the Kingdom of Kongo, these groups were eventually displaced by outside groups who had adopted a modernised tech stack, but this does not take away from the point that these cultures were complex regardless of their use of technology.

Including “net-positive” elements e.g. morality, ethics, sociological understandings, philosophy of mind, and “net-negative” elements e.g. biases, memetic viruses, corruption.

Pozzo et al, 2020

The meta-system which includes the lithosphere, asthenosphere, mantle, core, tectonic plates, plate boundaries, fault and fracture zones, volcanic systems, seismic systems, rock cycle and mineral and ore systems.

Persinger & Lafreniere, 1977, P. 205

Again, I must stress: whilst by no means exhaustive, perhaps even a little bias, UNESCO mapping provides an interesting spatial perspective from which to explore the influence of fault lines on the human experience.

Arthur, 2007

Top 10 pre-Industrial Era inventions: Agriculture/Plough (Fertile Crescent and Italy - fault zone), The Wheel (Mesopotamia/ Iraq - fault zone), Writing Systems (Sumer, Mesopotamia/ Iraq - fault zone), Mathematics (Mesopotamia/Iraq and Egypt - fault zone), Paper and Papermaking (China - fault zone), Compass (China - fault zone), Printing Press (Germany - no active fault zone), Gunpowder (China - fault zone), Concrete (Rome - fault zone), Clock Mechanisms (Italy - fault zone).

Top 10 post-Industrial Era inventions: Steam Engine (United Kingdom - no active fault zone), Electricity Generation and Transmission (USA - fault zone), Telephone (USA - fault zone), Vaccination (England - no active fault zone), Automobile (Germany - no active fault zone), Airplane (USA - fault zone), Internet (USA - fault zone), Antibiotics (UK - no active fault zone), Semiconductors and Microprocessor (USA and Japan - fault zones), Contraceptive Pill (USA - fault zone)

List taken from Inventions by Category. Original number of inventions = 294 (when edited down for impact, applicability and influence = 107). Unedited list saw 198/294 (75%) of inventions originating from fault zones.

This point is explored in the next section Correlation 2: Fault Zones - Belief Systems

This model is multidirectional because the stages are often overlapped and influenced by each other cyclically (e.g. technological innovations occasionally preceded or inspired scientific inquiry, belief systems continually influenced scientific perspectives and scienftific discovery influencing the use of written language).

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