Part of the reason for the similarities in stories and the "pattern" people are seeing in discoveries like these has to do with the ancient Mesopatonian cosmogony.
The cosmogony was the accepted "scientific" model of the time, so to speak. The ancients of the area believed that life and the earth came to exist by means of the cosmic oceans of which the universe consisted. In the minds of the ancients there was no void or vacuum of space. All there was existed in a cosmic soup of waters.
Deities were an accepted "reality" in this cosmic model. Where the heathens generally ascribed humans as an afterthought or closer to an accidental side effect due to creative projects or regular functions of the gods, the Hebrews believed humans were a direct creation. The center of the world was generally believed to be in the vicinity of the four major rivers known to these people, especially the Euphrates. While other models existed, this was the one shared by the inhabitants of the Mesopatmian cultures.
Instead of defying the "scientific" model of the day, the Jews merely inserted their mythology into it. This is why one reads in Genesis 1.6 that the waters had to be divided from waters to create the world and 2 Peter 3.5 states "earth was formed out of water and by means of water." All the elements known by these ancients that made up the universe were believed to have originated in this cosmic soup of waters.
There were two cosmogony myths, one in which the gods directly created the universe from the waters and another in which a previous existing humanity and world of animal life was birthed from the destruction of what previously existed by means of water and introduced into a new one created through the waters. The Hebrew texts kept both stories, interpolating their mythology and legends and history into it (not doing so would have made the Hebrew stories laughable had they rejected the common "science" of the day).
This represents only the Mesopotamian cosmogony however, and not necessarily that of other ancients who existed concurrently. The idea that life began in the "nearby" vicinity is to be expected of any ancient society whether on the western or eastern side of the planet. Too often people read the Mesopotamian cosmogonies as universal, when reality they are just the best known in Western society. Coincidences are usually seen only because people are often comparing Mesopotamian mythologies with other Mesopotamian mythologies instead of these with lesser known ancient cultures.
The Jewish pattern of mythology is not unique in that it used the shared Mesopatamian cosmogony as a backdrop for its stories. People often try to validate the details of the cosmogony when in reality the "truths" lie not in the backdrop but in the character interactions with G-d that take place over this backdrop. This is why it is somewhat silly to prove a global flood or make a search for a Garden of Eden, as these are not the original elements of the stories. The characters and dialogue are the central facets of the narratives from chapters 1 to 11, but they are merely set on this stage. Trying to prove that the "sets" and "backdrop" are true is like claiming sets on a Broadway stage are reality as well. The Jews merely used the "same stage" every other group around them used to tell their origin legends.
That is why I dismiss so much of this "science" that tries to prove the flood and those other ancient details of Genesis. It comes from reading these texts in a vacuum, ignoring their Jewish construct and seeking to support some literalist's need to validate their own fundamentalism, never bothering to check if their interpretations makes a mockery of the holy texts and the religion that gave birth to them.