Archaeological evidence that a late 14th-century tsunami devastated the coast of northern Sumatra and redirected history

• Main Authors: Daly, Patrick, Sieh, Kerry, Seng, Tai Yew, McKinnon, Edmund Edwards, Parnell, Andrew C., Ardiansyah, Feener, R. Michael, Nazli Ismail, Nizamuddin, Majewski, Jedrzej
• Other Authors: Earth Observatory of Singapore
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Science::Geology; Tsunami; Sumatra
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/137353
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Archaeological evidence shows that a predecessor of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami devastated nine distinct communities along a 40-km section of the northern coast of Sumatra in about 1394 CE. Our evidence is the spatial and temporal distribution of tens of thousands of medieval ceramic sherds and ov...