I find it hard to believe that the area draining into the Mediterranean while not filling it to sea level, would not create a large body of water, comparable to the great lakes in north america. Why don’t the great lakes dry up? The bulk of the land south is draining out to the gulf via the Mississippi river.
Well, for one, they interlink and drain out of the Atlantic. For another, they’re very young, less than 10,000 years old, as they are basically depressions gouged out and depressed by the ice pack of the last ice age – they are, in fact, rising up at a very slow rate. If not for this drainage, much like the Great Salt Lake and the enormous salt flats found in the US southwest, they would be salty, and growing saltier.
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Think of the Dead Sea, only thousands of times bigger. Quite possibly there were multiple hypersaline lakes in the former Mediterranean basin, each fed by different rivers.
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Much like the average boing boing poster 
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Man, I read the shit out of those books as a teen. I think they fell to bits eventually.
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Think of the constant turn-over of editions of Mediterranean Diet cook books in the stores!
(The first one with poisonous nettles and silica lizards.)
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The Pliocene was generally warmer than the current climate and the desert belt extended rather further north than at present, so much of the Mediterranean Basin was hot and received relatively little precipitation or inflow. Evaporation rates far exceeded replenishment.
It’s worth pointing out that even in the present, evaporation in the Mediterranean far outstrips inflow which is why there is a strong current bringing water from the Atlantic into the basin. Without it, sea level around the sea would rapidly begin to drop.
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Vulptexes would be at home there though.
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She presented a lot of really great ideas. And yeah like most series it did drop off after a few entries.
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video says this happened 6 million years ago.
wiki says people settled in the area starting in 8th millennium BC.
video says it took 2 years from ingress at Gibraltar to present water level.
so, this is the flood myth all these ancient cultures share?
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No, too old.
More likely the flood events around the Black Sea (for middle-eastern flood myths) or Dogger Bank (for Eurpoean legends)
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8th millennium BC = 9-10,000 years ago. MUCH closer in time than 6,000,000 years ago. Indeed, I believe that 6millian BCE predates Australopithecus, much less modern humans.
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I remember this; there were giant cats hanging with nomads. One of the plot points was that people had become accustomed to living in the bottom of the dry Med basin, and climbing out of it to live at (now) sea level caused severe health problems. Cue the flood.
Needs more @beschizza - please correct (ahem) ‘typo’, before others start to think this is correct usage. 
ah, right; millennium is a thousand years, if I’d remembered the talk around y2k back in 2000. terminology confused me and I derp’d.
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It happens to the best of us.
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Was about to post that.
One of those ideas that are ingeniously stupid.
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I remember this, BB gave it attention at the time: Astounding backstory behind XKCD's "Time" | Boing Boing
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I thought it was the crazy platinum blonde, Felice?
Anyway, loved these books and the prequels. Read them as a teen, and again about 8 years ago, and they still stand up as one of my favourite sci-fi worlds
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I was racking my brain to try to figure out where I’d read this before - thanks for reminding me
That’s something Jeremy Clarkson would witter about on Top Gear.
Torcs?
