Assertions that Plato just made up the story are a modern invention. : ) Attempts to place Atlantis somewhere besides west of Gibraltar are also modern inventions. Looking for it in Antarctica, or Anatolia, or Santorini, the Andes, the South China Sea, and a host of other places amounts to looking on the sidewalk for the keys you lost in the tavern because the light is better. Regardless of whether the minutaie of the story are just made up -- as I suspect they are, in the same way Herodotus made up conversations in his account of the Persian wars -- there are stories of universal flood found throughout the world.
Settegast cites the example of Catal Huyuk, which was abandoned circa 5500 BC after a 3000 year occupation. The town started full blown on the site, indicating that the culture developed elsewhere. The probable explanation is that its ancestors lived on the now-flooded continental shelf. During glaciation the sea levels were hundreds of feet lower. The lower the altitude (other things being equal), the warmer the climate, and of course the seas would be a handy source of food. There is much more in her book about this, and beyond it.
