A few years ago, an awesome archeological discovery was made in southern Turkey, just north of the border with Syria. Three megalithic stone circles that were deliberately buried thousands of years ago on a hilltop were located at Göbekli Tepe. What is astounding is the date and context. These megalithic stone circles are several thousand years older than the first stone circle built at Stonehenge, and they were built by a hunter-gatherer society.
It was always assumed that the workforce required to construct a megalithic stone circle could not be organized until human society had reached the village stage of development in the early Neolithic, when local chieftains need not have looked very far for enough serious muscle power to build a large stone structure. Most stone pillars at Göbekli Tepe weigh 10 to 20 tons, the largest are 50 tons and the most distant quarry was 500m distant. The stone T-shaped monoliths are 3m high, although the one in the center of each circle is taller. The largest pillar is 9m high and was found unfinished in the nearby quarry.
Göbekli Tepe is now under study by Turkish and German archeologists, having been first excavated in 1994. The hill had long been used for agriculture by local farmers and the site is on private land. Monolithic T-shaped pillars are connected by crudely built walls to form oval structures. A low bench runs around the exterior walls. Four such units with diameters between 10m and 20m are the oldest structures built at the site and are dated to ~9,000 B.C.
The second period of construction dates to 7500-6000 B.C. which places it within the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B era. Several rectangular rooms with floors of polished lime have been found dating to this period. Similar stone circles and T-shaped monoliths are found at Karahan Tepe located near Sogmatar on the Harran Plain c.9,000 B.C. and at Nevalý Çori which is 500 years younger than Göbekli Tepe. The T-shaped pillars supported a roof but there is much more to their story. Small domestic structures aside, the Göbekli Tepe hilltop appears to be a cult center that could accommodate a great many people.
The society that built these stone circles utilized a hunter/gatherer economy and must have lived in villages for at least part of the year. It is relevant to note that a few villages have been found in Upper Paleolithic Europe built by cultures of ice age hunters that lived long before the advent of agriculture. What likely did allow for a population concentration – and the necessary manpower – to build Göbekli Tepe were the enormous herds of game documented to exist in the Göbekli Tepe region at the time of megalithic stone circles. Large numbers of butchered deer, gazelle, pigs and geese at Göbekli Tepe suggest ritual feasting and testify to the huge herds of game. Although only a few domestic structures have been found at Göbekli Tepe, villages were built at this time in eastern/southern Turkey to preserve and store large amounts of game.
It is also not necessary to postulate a stratified class society, with elite royalty and priestly castes. One strong leader could mobilize the necessary workforce, and with a few respected friends organize the stone circle construction, particularly as we can assume community agreement as to the ritual and its meaning. A workforce of 500 strong men would have been needed to extract and move the stone pillars, then construct the ritual stone circles. Think of large, ritual stone circles as the ultimate Lego build out.
No traces of domesticated plants or animals have been found at Göbekli Tepe or in the adjacent region. Earliest proto-agricultural experiments are known from Upper Mesopotamia c.9500-10,000 B.C. and even earlier at 13,000 B.C. on the banks of the Upper Nile. A wild ancestor of domestic wheat has been found on a mountain only 20 miles away from Göbekli Tepe. Was wheat first domesticated in this region – an activity that promoted village life and population concentration from which a workforce for the hilltop sanctuary could be recruited? Earliest human activity at Göbekli Tepe may go back to 11,000 B.C., and the period of time when the megalithic stone circles were used is much earlier than evidence for the first agriculture in the region.
Ideas that Göbekli Tepe and the surrounding region is the historical reality behind the biblical Garden of Eden may not be as far fetched as they first seem. Archeology in Syria and Turkey has established that the region later known as the ‘fertile crescent’ was very lush immediately after the last Ice Age ended. The environment was exceptionally rich, herds of wild animals were huge, and plants and food were easily obtained. Gazelle herds might number 100,000, and permanent settlements were erected by 12,000 B.C. by nomadic hunters to store dried meat.
English archeoastronomy researcher Andrew Collins identifies Eden as a large region encompassing Upper Mesopotamia (Southeast Turkey, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq). He believes that the Biblical Garden of Eden in the Old Testament is a transformed memory that persisted throughout the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia. This memory of the extremely lush environment of this region of the fertile crescent immediately after the Upper Paleolithic ended and the glaciers retreated north may have been deliberately and carefully preserved by the priesthoods of Sumer, Egypt, Bablyon and Assyria. This ‘legend’ became the Garden of Eden in the Christian Old Testament.
Full article and pictures posted here: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/mystery-deliberate-burial-ancient-megalithic-stone-circles/9949
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Art for art's sake alive and well in the Neolithic
"Art history" typically begins to follow a prescribed course: Iron and bronze are discovered; then, ancient civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt arise, make art, and are followed by art in the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome.
After this, we civilized people of the world hang out in Europe for the next thousand years, eventually moving on to the New World, which subsequently shares artistic honours with Europe. This route is commonly known as "Western Art", and is often the focus of any art history and/or art appreciation syllabus.
However, the sort of art that has been described in this article as "Neolithic" (i.e.: Stone age; that of pre-literate peoples who hadn't yet discovered how to smelt metals) continued to flourish in the Americas, Africa, Australia and, in particular, Oceania. In some instances, it was still thriving in the previous (20th) century.
During the Neolithic period, the "new" arts to emerge were weaving, architecture, the construction of megaliths and increasingly stylized pictographs and so people were well on their way to writing.
The earlier arts of statuary, painting and pottery stuck with (and still remain with) us. The New Stone Age saw many refinements to each. Statuary (primarily statuettes) made a big comeback after having been largely absent during the Mesolithic age.
Its Neolithic theme dwelt primarily on the female/fertility, or "Mother Goddess" imagery, (quite in keeping with agriculture, and paganism). There are animal statuettes, however these weren't lavished with the detail the goddesses enjoyed. They are often found broken into bits.
Additionally, sculpture was no longer created strictly by carving something. In the Near East, in particular, figurines were now fashioned out of clay and baked. Archaeological digs at Jericho turned up a marvelous human skull (c. 7,000 BC) overlaid with delicate, sculpted plaster features.
Painting, in Western Europe and the Near East, left the caves and cliffs for good, and became a purely decorative element. The finds of Çatal Hüyük, an ancient village in modern Turkey, show lovely wall paintings (including the world's earliest known landscape), dating from c. 6150 BC.
As for pottery, it began replacing stone and wood utensils at a rapid pace, and also became more highly decorated.
After this, we civilized people of the world hang out in Europe for the next thousand years, eventually moving on to the New World, which subsequently shares artistic honours with Europe. This route is commonly known as "Western Art", and is often the focus of any art history and/or art appreciation syllabus.
However, the sort of art that has been described in this article as "Neolithic" (i.e.: Stone age; that of pre-literate peoples who hadn't yet discovered how to smelt metals) continued to flourish in the Americas, Africa, Australia and, in particular, Oceania. In some instances, it was still thriving in the previous (20th) century.
During the Neolithic period, the "new" arts to emerge were weaving, architecture, the construction of megaliths and increasingly stylized pictographs and so people were well on their way to writing.
The earlier arts of statuary, painting and pottery stuck with (and still remain with) us. The New Stone Age saw many refinements to each. Statuary (primarily statuettes) made a big comeback after having been largely absent during the Mesolithic age.
Its Neolithic theme dwelt primarily on the female/fertility, or "Mother Goddess" imagery, (quite in keeping with agriculture, and paganism). There are animal statuettes, however these weren't lavished with the detail the goddesses enjoyed. They are often found broken into bits.
Additionally, sculpture was no longer created strictly by carving something. In the Near East, in particular, figurines were now fashioned out of clay and baked. Archaeological digs at Jericho turned up a marvelous human skull (c. 7,000 BC) overlaid with delicate, sculpted plaster features.
Painting, in Western Europe and the Near East, left the caves and cliffs for good, and became a purely decorative element. The finds of Çatal Hüyük, an ancient village in modern Turkey, show lovely wall paintings (including the world's earliest known landscape), dating from c. 6150 BC.
As for pottery, it began replacing stone and wood utensils at a rapid pace, and also became more highly decorated.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Canaan - Land of Can - always an enigma
I saw this and thought I'd share it; by Kevin Gibbs, UofT:
In June and July of 2006, the University of Toronto's Wadi Ziqlab Project resumed excavations on an old terrace in Northern Jordan where there are buried traces of occupation during the Epipalaeolithic, Late Neolithic (c. 5800-5300 cal BC), and Early Bronze Age (c. 3500 cal BC). These follow earlier excavations there in 2002 and 2004 (Banning et al. 2003, 2004, 2005; Maher & Banning, 2001).
Large amounts of Late Neolithic material occur at the site, but architecture and features are rare and generally insubstantial, while apparently outdoor surfaces covered with flat-lying debris are extensive. Cobblestone floors and platforms occur in several places, but they are not associated with walls, suggesting the possibility of tents or other light structures.
Some segments of Late Neolithic stone walls or wall foundations do occur, one of which is curved and may belong to a circular building with a hearth. The distribution of features leaves an overall impression of somewhat extensive, not very dense occupation of the site in this period, although it is possible that more substantial buildings, similar to ones of the same period found at Tabaqat al-Bûma only 7km upstream (Banning et al. 1994), might simply lie in a different part of the site.
Late Neolithic artefacts from al-Basatîn include denticulated sickle elements, including several unfinished ones that indicate that denticulation took place before giving them their final shape (Kadowaki 2005). There are also flint axes, adzes, and chisels made by bifacial flaking, pecking, and battering, followed by grinding and polishing at their cutting edges. A cortical scraper found down slope at site WZ 140, made on a broad, nearly flat flake, is similar to ones from Tabaqat al-Bûma. Projectile points appear to have been rare or lacking at the site, apart from some that, like a few other tools we have found, are probably residual from some earlier Pre-Pottery Neolithic occupation nearby. Most of the grinding stones found at the site are handstones and pounders, although a large basalt quern or lower milling stone was found in the 2002 excavation.
The poorly fired and friable Late Neolithic pottery includes jars and bowls that are only rarely decorated. Some sherds are combed or roughened on the surface, occasionally with wavy or alternating patterns of combing. A few sherds show punctates, sometimes in conjunction with other decorative techniques. Red or black slip is not uncommon, sometimes accompanied by burnishing. A few bases show pebble or mat impressions on the bottom. Both ledge and loop handles occur.
Faunal remains from the Late Neolithic deposits indicate a reliance on sheep and goat supplemented by cattle (Bos taurus), and pig (Sus scrofa), while rarer instances of deer (Cervus sp.) and gazelle (Gazella sp.) indicate much less attention to hunting than in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Preservation of plant remains is poor on the site, but sickle elements and grinding equipment survive from harvest and processing of grain.
The overlying Early Bronze I level also seems fairly extensive with not very dense architecture. However, the 2004 excavation did uncover part of one apsidal house and several walls that could belong to others (Banning et al. 2005). The pottery, with many coarsely tempered holemouth and necked jars as well as some finer hemispherical bowls, sometimes shows simple decoration consisting of a row of oblique impressions just below the rim.
Radiocarbon assays on samples collected in 2004 have yielded two dates on organic residues from sherds found on a Late Neolithic surface of 6710±70 and 6650±140 BP. Eight of nine samples of charcoal or olive pits from Early Bronze contexts produced dates ranging from 4790±50 to 4400±60 BP.
In June and July of 2006, the University of Toronto's Wadi Ziqlab Project resumed excavations on an old terrace in Northern Jordan where there are buried traces of occupation during the Epipalaeolithic, Late Neolithic (c. 5800-5300 cal BC), and Early Bronze Age (c. 3500 cal BC). These follow earlier excavations there in 2002 and 2004 (Banning et al. 2003, 2004, 2005; Maher & Banning, 2001).
Large amounts of Late Neolithic material occur at the site, but architecture and features are rare and generally insubstantial, while apparently outdoor surfaces covered with flat-lying debris are extensive. Cobblestone floors and platforms occur in several places, but they are not associated with walls, suggesting the possibility of tents or other light structures.
Some segments of Late Neolithic stone walls or wall foundations do occur, one of which is curved and may belong to a circular building with a hearth. The distribution of features leaves an overall impression of somewhat extensive, not very dense occupation of the site in this period, although it is possible that more substantial buildings, similar to ones of the same period found at Tabaqat al-Bûma only 7km upstream (Banning et al. 1994), might simply lie in a different part of the site.
Late Neolithic artefacts from al-Basatîn include denticulated sickle elements, including several unfinished ones that indicate that denticulation took place before giving them their final shape (Kadowaki 2005). There are also flint axes, adzes, and chisels made by bifacial flaking, pecking, and battering, followed by grinding and polishing at their cutting edges. A cortical scraper found down slope at site WZ 140, made on a broad, nearly flat flake, is similar to ones from Tabaqat al-Bûma. Projectile points appear to have been rare or lacking at the site, apart from some that, like a few other tools we have found, are probably residual from some earlier Pre-Pottery Neolithic occupation nearby. Most of the grinding stones found at the site are handstones and pounders, although a large basalt quern or lower milling stone was found in the 2002 excavation.
The poorly fired and friable Late Neolithic pottery includes jars and bowls that are only rarely decorated. Some sherds are combed or roughened on the surface, occasionally with wavy or alternating patterns of combing. A few sherds show punctates, sometimes in conjunction with other decorative techniques. Red or black slip is not uncommon, sometimes accompanied by burnishing. A few bases show pebble or mat impressions on the bottom. Both ledge and loop handles occur.
Faunal remains from the Late Neolithic deposits indicate a reliance on sheep and goat supplemented by cattle (Bos taurus), and pig (Sus scrofa), while rarer instances of deer (Cervus sp.) and gazelle (Gazella sp.) indicate much less attention to hunting than in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Preservation of plant remains is poor on the site, but sickle elements and grinding equipment survive from harvest and processing of grain.
The overlying Early Bronze I level also seems fairly extensive with not very dense architecture. However, the 2004 excavation did uncover part of one apsidal house and several walls that could belong to others (Banning et al. 2005). The pottery, with many coarsely tempered holemouth and necked jars as well as some finer hemispherical bowls, sometimes shows simple decoration consisting of a row of oblique impressions just below the rim.
Radiocarbon assays on samples collected in 2004 have yielded two dates on organic residues from sherds found on a Late Neolithic surface of 6710±70 and 6650±140 BP. Eight of nine samples of charcoal or olive pits from Early Bronze contexts produced dates ranging from 4790±50 to 4400±60 BP.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Who Came Before The Egyptians?
According to them, the first advanced civilization is the Egyptian, dated back over three thousand years BC. The reason that no preceding civilization is recognized is that no recognized remains of a preceding civilization have been found.
Here comes the importance of the underwater finds to the fore. The most important problem of any archaeological investigation, and certainly of ancient archaeology, is the problem if dating. The underwater remains can be dated roughly, because we have knowledge about the sea levels through time. Regions that are now a few dozens of meters under water, like considerable parts of the Caribbean and in Europe much of the North Sea, were above water some eight to ten thousand years ago. If the Yogaguni remains form part of this unrecognized civilization, this civilization can be dated back to times preceding the rise in sea level from ten thousand years ago. The only way out here is the possibility of lowering of the land itself, but usually these processes play on a much larger timescale than changes in seawater levels.
The conclusion can only be that with the Yonaguni finds we do have the remains of a preceding civilization. The remaining question is: if these remains are of the introduced earth spanning civilization, why aren't there much more signs from it?
This problem is the one for which Hapgood's investigations are essential. The natural disasters described in Cataclysm strike anything on earth, but especially a possibly existing civilization. The coastal residences, often the most important, will be wiped out by the tidal waves, and all others will lose all of there buildings and much of their population due to the earthquakes. When this has passed, the sudden change in climate will ruin their harvests, and the quick rise in sea level will flood all what remains of their coastal settlements.
If this description is correct, it is clear that relatively little will remain of this suggested civilization, and the less will remain the more this civilization was concentrated on living near the sea. Subsequently, what remained of the civilization has to survive through about ten thousand years, in order to be found by us. This rules out organic material and normal metals, will leaves stone and precious metals. If the latter had no value to the civilization, the only possible remains are stones.
Almost all of the remarkable finds described here have been of features made in stone. They are from under water and from above, and from the latter we have indications of damage by Hapgood-like disasters, and/or the knowledge of these disasters.
So the position of regular history and archaeology, that no remains of a preceding civilization have been found, is under pressure from the growing number of remains that is being found.
The investigation of scientific progress has found a rule for how such a process develops: at first the data that doesn’t fit is ignored, when it gets a bit more it is suppressed by disqualifying its sources, and when finally the amount of data gets too much or some decisive fact is found, the overall community changes its opinion in the sense in that they say that they always silently supported the new view, but it was the collegues who held them back. This process is so widespread, that there is has gotten its own name: paradigm shift.
This shift is the recognition of a civilization preceding the Egyptian one, from antediluvian times.
http://www.altarcheologie.nl/
Here comes the importance of the underwater finds to the fore. The most important problem of any archaeological investigation, and certainly of ancient archaeology, is the problem if dating. The underwater remains can be dated roughly, because we have knowledge about the sea levels through time. Regions that are now a few dozens of meters under water, like considerable parts of the Caribbean and in Europe much of the North Sea, were above water some eight to ten thousand years ago. If the Yogaguni remains form part of this unrecognized civilization, this civilization can be dated back to times preceding the rise in sea level from ten thousand years ago. The only way out here is the possibility of lowering of the land itself, but usually these processes play on a much larger timescale than changes in seawater levels.
The conclusion can only be that with the Yonaguni finds we do have the remains of a preceding civilization. The remaining question is: if these remains are of the introduced earth spanning civilization, why aren't there much more signs from it?
This problem is the one for which Hapgood's investigations are essential. The natural disasters described in Cataclysm strike anything on earth, but especially a possibly existing civilization. The coastal residences, often the most important, will be wiped out by the tidal waves, and all others will lose all of there buildings and much of their population due to the earthquakes. When this has passed, the sudden change in climate will ruin their harvests, and the quick rise in sea level will flood all what remains of their coastal settlements.
If this description is correct, it is clear that relatively little will remain of this suggested civilization, and the less will remain the more this civilization was concentrated on living near the sea. Subsequently, what remained of the civilization has to survive through about ten thousand years, in order to be found by us. This rules out organic material and normal metals, will leaves stone and precious metals. If the latter had no value to the civilization, the only possible remains are stones.
Almost all of the remarkable finds described here have been of features made in stone. They are from under water and from above, and from the latter we have indications of damage by Hapgood-like disasters, and/or the knowledge of these disasters.
So the position of regular history and archaeology, that no remains of a preceding civilization have been found, is under pressure from the growing number of remains that is being found.
The investigation of scientific progress has found a rule for how such a process develops: at first the data that doesn’t fit is ignored, when it gets a bit more it is suppressed by disqualifying its sources, and when finally the amount of data gets too much or some decisive fact is found, the overall community changes its opinion in the sense in that they say that they always silently supported the new view, but it was the collegues who held them back. This process is so widespread, that there is has gotten its own name: paradigm shift.
This shift is the recognition of a civilization preceding the Egyptian one, from antediluvian times.
http://www.altarcheologie.nl/
Some Things Never Change
June 16, 2009--Inside France's 25,000-year-old Pech Merle cave, hand stencils surround the famed "Spotted Horses" mural.
For about as long as humans have created works of art, they've also left behind handprints. People began stenciling, painting, or chipping imprints of their hands onto rock walls at least 30,000 years ago.
Until recently, most scientists assumed these prehistoric handprints were male. But "even a superficial examination of published photos suggested to me that there were lots of female hands there," Pennsylvania State University archaeologist Dean Snow said of European cave art.
By measuring and analyzing the Pech Merle hand stencils, Snow found that many were indeed female.
-------------
June 24, 2009
A vulture-bone flute discovered in a European cave is likely the world's oldest recognizable musical instrument and pushes back humanity's musical roots, a new study says.
Found with fragments of mammoth-ivory flutes, the 40,000-year-old artifact also adds to evidence that music may have given the first European modern humans a strategic advantage over Neanderthals, researchers say.
The bone-flute pieces were found in 2008 at Hohle Fels, a Stone Age cave in southern Germany, according to the study, led by archaeologist Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen in Germany.
With five finger holes and a V-shaped mouthpiece, the almost complete bird-bone flute—made from the naturally hollow wing bone of a griffon vulture—is just 0.3 inch (8 millimeters) wide and was originally about 13 inches (34 centimeters) long.
Flute fragments found earlier at the nearby site of Geissenklösterle have been dated to around 35,000 years ago.
The newfound flutes, though, "date to the very period of settlement in the region by modern humans ... about 40,000 years ago," Conard said.
The mammoth-ivory flutes would have been especially challenging to make, the team said.
Using only stone tools, the flute maker would have had to split a section of curved ivory along its natural grain. The two halves would then have been hollowed out, carved, and fitted together with an airtight seal.
Music as a Weapon?
Music may have been one of the cultural accomplishments that gave the first European modern-human (Homo sapiens) settlers an advantage over their now extinct Neanderthal-human (Homo neanderthalis) cousins, according to the team.
The ancient flutes are evidence for an early musical tradition that likely helped modern humans communicate and form tighter social bonds, the researchers argue.
For about as long as humans have created works of art, they've also left behind handprints. People began stenciling, painting, or chipping imprints of their hands onto rock walls at least 30,000 years ago.
Until recently, most scientists assumed these prehistoric handprints were male. But "even a superficial examination of published photos suggested to me that there were lots of female hands there," Pennsylvania State University archaeologist Dean Snow said of European cave art.
By measuring and analyzing the Pech Merle hand stencils, Snow found that many were indeed female.
-------------
June 24, 2009
A vulture-bone flute discovered in a European cave is likely the world's oldest recognizable musical instrument and pushes back humanity's musical roots, a new study says.
Found with fragments of mammoth-ivory flutes, the 40,000-year-old artifact also adds to evidence that music may have given the first European modern humans a strategic advantage over Neanderthals, researchers say.
The bone-flute pieces were found in 2008 at Hohle Fels, a Stone Age cave in southern Germany, according to the study, led by archaeologist Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen in Germany.
With five finger holes and a V-shaped mouthpiece, the almost complete bird-bone flute—made from the naturally hollow wing bone of a griffon vulture—is just 0.3 inch (8 millimeters) wide and was originally about 13 inches (34 centimeters) long.
Flute fragments found earlier at the nearby site of Geissenklösterle have been dated to around 35,000 years ago.
The newfound flutes, though, "date to the very period of settlement in the region by modern humans ... about 40,000 years ago," Conard said.
The mammoth-ivory flutes would have been especially challenging to make, the team said.
Using only stone tools, the flute maker would have had to split a section of curved ivory along its natural grain. The two halves would then have been hollowed out, carved, and fitted together with an airtight seal.
Music as a Weapon?
Music may have been one of the cultural accomplishments that gave the first European modern-human (Homo sapiens) settlers an advantage over their now extinct Neanderthal-human (Homo neanderthalis) cousins, according to the team.
The ancient flutes are evidence for an early musical tradition that likely helped modern humans communicate and form tighter social bonds, the researchers argue.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Civilized Ireland
The key invention that ushered in the Neolithic Age was farming, fundamentally changing the fabric of Mesolithic society because people no longer had to spend all their time hunting. Additionally, they could built much larger, more permanent dwellings and, perhaps most importantly, had enough 'spare time' in which to innovate and think about things.
The practice of farming had spread from the Middle East, through eastern and southern Europe to reach Britain around 4000BC. One of the most important legacies left by the Neolithic farmers was their megaliths, or large earthen constructions, used primarily as burial places.
The Neolithic Age left a great mark on Ireland. The upland forests were cleared for farmland, and by the end of the age people were starting to clear the lower forests. Sheep, goats and cows had been imported into Ireland for the first time. Megalithic tombs peppered the landscape. By the time Bronze was introduced to Ireland around 2000BC, Neolithic culture was evident across Ireland.
Neolithic settlers cleared forests with stone axes, or by burnt them, in order to build farms. But as Ireland did not have many native cereal crops, and wild pigs were the only farm animals native to Ireland, these settlers introduced cows, goats and sheep - transported across the Irish Sea on wooden rafts towed by skin-boats or dugout canoes. They also brought wheat and barley.
The picture on the left shows Newgrange, a so-called passage tomb located in county Meath and is the most famous passage tomb in the world. The front half of the remarkable structure has been painstakingly restored to look as it did when built 4,500 years ago, which makes Newgrange at least as old as the Egyptian Pyramids and older than Stonehenge. Numerous other megaliths were also constructed in the Boyne Valley.
The beautifully carved stones at the entrance make it a worldwide attraction, as does the fact that the sun shines directly down the main passage at dawn on the winter solstice around December 21st. At the end of the main passage are three smaller chambers that may have been used for burying the dead.
The impact of why an ancient people buried a small room under 200,000 tons of rocks, so that a tiny ray of light might come in, can easily be lost on us. These people, a simple, Neolithic farming community, living nearly 5,200 years ago, with no concept of tools, set about to build a monument which would take over twenty years to complete, requiring a labor force of three hundred strong men, that would ultimately yield a single small room.
Each year for five days around the December 21 winter solstice - the shortest day of the year - the sun shines deep down the main passage, flooding with light a chamber where the remains of the dead were once laid. Newgrange was masterfully aligned by its builders so the sun only cuts through the gloom of the chamber at sunrise through a small window above the entrance. But if there is no midwinter sun, the solstice "clock" doesn't work.
When the tomb's solstice phenomenon was discovered in 1967, archaeologists were astonished Stone Age builders had the architectural skills and scientific understanding of the sun's movement that was needed to construct it.
The practice of farming had spread from the Middle East, through eastern and southern Europe to reach Britain around 4000BC. One of the most important legacies left by the Neolithic farmers was their megaliths, or large earthen constructions, used primarily as burial places.
The Neolithic Age left a great mark on Ireland. The upland forests were cleared for farmland, and by the end of the age people were starting to clear the lower forests. Sheep, goats and cows had been imported into Ireland for the first time. Megalithic tombs peppered the landscape. By the time Bronze was introduced to Ireland around 2000BC, Neolithic culture was evident across Ireland.
Neolithic settlers cleared forests with stone axes, or by burnt them, in order to build farms. But as Ireland did not have many native cereal crops, and wild pigs were the only farm animals native to Ireland, these settlers introduced cows, goats and sheep - transported across the Irish Sea on wooden rafts towed by skin-boats or dugout canoes. They also brought wheat and barley.
The picture on the left shows Newgrange, a so-called passage tomb located in county Meath and is the most famous passage tomb in the world. The front half of the remarkable structure has been painstakingly restored to look as it did when built 4,500 years ago, which makes Newgrange at least as old as the Egyptian Pyramids and older than Stonehenge. Numerous other megaliths were also constructed in the Boyne Valley.The beautifully carved stones at the entrance make it a worldwide attraction, as does the fact that the sun shines directly down the main passage at dawn on the winter solstice around December 21st. At the end of the main passage are three smaller chambers that may have been used for burying the dead.
The impact of why an ancient people buried a small room under 200,000 tons of rocks, so that a tiny ray of light might come in, can easily be lost on us. These people, a simple, Neolithic farming community, living nearly 5,200 years ago, with no concept of tools, set about to build a monument which would take over twenty years to complete, requiring a labor force of three hundred strong men, that would ultimately yield a single small room.
Each year for five days around the December 21 winter solstice - the shortest day of the year - the sun shines deep down the main passage, flooding with light a chamber where the remains of the dead were once laid. Newgrange was masterfully aligned by its builders so the sun only cuts through the gloom of the chamber at sunrise through a small window above the entrance. But if there is no midwinter sun, the solstice "clock" doesn't work.
When the tomb's solstice phenomenon was discovered in 1967, archaeologists were astonished Stone Age builders had the architectural skills and scientific understanding of the sun's movement that was needed to construct it.
Monday, January 5, 2009
The Megaliths
In Lebanon, in a place called Baalbek, are several huge carved stones. They are ancient. It's one thing to carve and shape rock without using metal, but it's quite another to then move said block of stone ...weighing over 1000 tons. Comprising a nearby wall in fact there are other stones weighing 800 tons each. This is truly puzzling. The largest land-based cranes in the world today can only lift 200 tons.
These cyclopean stones are certainly not Roman. The square cut Roman stones are heaped on top of them by the Arabs or Crusaders, whoever turned the ruins into a medieval fortress.
With respect to architecture and moving large stones, there is also the mystery of ancient Egyptian temples and famous monuments, such as The Sphinx, to consider. However, in the middle of the Mediterranean, is the island of Malta and its megalithic structures. Adding to their mysterious construction, and not to mention the strange Cart Ruts, are the thousands of elongated human skulls found originally deep inside - and now removed.
Across the ocean, in Costa Rica are the enigmatic Stone Balls, perfect spheres, weighing up to 30 tons each - now modern lawn ornaments. Further south and west, in Bolivia, in a place called Tiahuanaco, located on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and carved upon an ancient wall, comprising the famed 45 ton Sun Gate, is a calendar, which they claim dates this civilization as early as 16,000 BC. There are only ruins left now at Tiahuanaco.
Tiahuanaco is found at a height of some 13,000 feet, and lies on a plateau that looks like the surface of a foreign planet. Many of Tihuanaco’s buildings were constructed of massive finished stones, many tons in weight, that were placed in such a manner that only a people with advanced engineering methods could have designed and transported them.
According to Incan mythology, after a catastrophic flood, it was from Lake Titicaca that the creator god Viracoca rose up to create the sun, moon, stars, and first human beings. Recently, a large temple was discovered submerged in the lake, adding to its mystery and fascination.
The ruins at Tiahuanaco are intriguing. Between 10 to 20 thousand years ago, in the Neolithic era, Tiwanaku was apparently in its glory. The massive fallen stones which were used to build this massive city now lie oddly scattered about, seemingly tossed about. The stones are so large that even today, it would be a technological marvel to take them from the mountainous quarry they were brought from, fifty miles away.
Adding to the dilemma... there is evidence that Titicaca was once a saltwater sea. Its shoreline is littered with millions of fossilized seashells. The marine fishes and seahorses in the lake are all oceanic types found only in salt water. Some researchers are convinced that these 3-mile high ruins once lay at sea level.
These cyclopean stones are certainly not Roman. The square cut Roman stones are heaped on top of them by the Arabs or Crusaders, whoever turned the ruins into a medieval fortress.
With respect to architecture and moving large stones, there is also the mystery of ancient Egyptian temples and famous monuments, such as The Sphinx, to consider. However, in the middle of the Mediterranean, is the island of Malta and its megalithic structures. Adding to their mysterious construction, and not to mention the strange Cart Ruts, are the thousands of elongated human skulls found originally deep inside - and now removed.Across the ocean, in Costa Rica are the enigmatic Stone Balls, perfect spheres, weighing up to 30 tons each - now modern lawn ornaments. Further south and west, in Bolivia, in a place called Tiahuanaco, located on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and carved upon an ancient wall, comprising the famed 45 ton Sun Gate, is a calendar, which they claim dates this civilization as early as 16,000 BC. There are only ruins left now at Tiahuanaco.
Tiahuanaco is found at a height of some 13,000 feet, and lies on a plateau that looks like the surface of a foreign planet. Many of Tihuanaco’s buildings were constructed of massive finished stones, many tons in weight, that were placed in such a manner that only a people with advanced engineering methods could have designed and transported them.
According to Incan mythology, after a catastrophic flood, it was from Lake Titicaca that the creator god Viracoca rose up to create the sun, moon, stars, and first human beings. Recently, a large temple was discovered submerged in the lake, adding to its mystery and fascination.
The ruins at Tiahuanaco are intriguing. Between 10 to 20 thousand years ago, in the Neolithic era, Tiwanaku was apparently in its glory. The massive fallen stones which were used to build this massive city now lie oddly scattered about, seemingly tossed about. The stones are so large that even today, it would be a technological marvel to take them from the mountainous quarry they were brought from, fifty miles away.
Adding to the dilemma... there is evidence that Titicaca was once a saltwater sea. Its shoreline is littered with millions of fossilized seashells. The marine fishes and seahorses in the lake are all oceanic types found only in salt water. Some researchers are convinced that these 3-mile high ruins once lay at sea level.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Stone Age Medicine
According to archaeologists, the first time Stonehenge was used by humans was about 8,000 years ago - a short time after the glaciers had melted and retreated, and long before the Trypilians had built their cities north of the newly formed Black Sea. Thus, someone traveling through England 10,000 years ago set up a healing centre or an astronomy centre - for ancient ancestors who were our fabled 'watchers of the sky'.
These people were not entirely at the mercy of the elements. They understood the benefit of specific herbs and also could use a scalpel as was obviously required in those dangerous times. They, moreso, and based on evidence of trepanation, had skilled brain surgeons among them. Their patients in fact survived these painful operations without further infection.
The oldest trepanned skull, found at a neolithic burial site of Ensisheim in France, is more than 7,000 years old, and trepanation was practised by the Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Romans, Greeks and the early Mesoamerican civilizations.
When Otzi the Iceman had his 5,300 year-old stomach contents analized, scientists found six types of moss - some with apparent medicinal qualities. One type of moss found, Sphagnum Imbricatum, is a natural antiseptic.
Skulls dated to 7,000BC excavated recently in western Pakistan have been found to have holes drilled into their molars. At least nine people living in a village in Mehrgarh, near the Bolan river in Balochistan, had holes drilled into their molars and appeared to have survived the procedure, evidence of Neolithic dentistry.
China’s Neolithic archaeology began with the 1921 discovery of Yangshao culture in Henan Province. Since 1977, pre-Yangshao (10,000 BP to 6950 BP) cultures such as those at Cishan, Peiligang and Dadiwan have been found in the Yellow River Valley, filling the missing link in archaeological chronology and offering resources for the study of the origin of agriculture, animal husbandry and pottery production.
A pottery cauldron containing boiled medicinal herbs unearthed in 2001 in Zhejiang Province indicates that Neolithic people used natural herbal medicine as early as 8,000 years ago.
Several new studies have found that taking devil's claw (an herb used for
thousands of years by the Khoisan peoples of the Kalahari Desert) can substantially reduce pain and improves physical functioning in people with osteoarthritis. In a large, well-designed 4-month study including 122 people with knee and hip osteoarthritis, devil's claw root powder reduced pain and improved functional ability as effectively as standard doses of a leading medication for osteoarthritis.
Physical evidence has confirmed that ancient Chinese were producing fermented, wine-like drinks from rice, honey and fruit as early as in 7,000 BC according to scientists who are examining residues of the ancient shards of pottery from a Neolithic site in north China. Before the Jiahu discovery, the earliest evidence for an alcoholic drink in human history was the resinated wine inside two jars excavated at Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran, dating to about 5,400 BC.
These people were not entirely at the mercy of the elements. They understood the benefit of specific herbs and also could use a scalpel as was obviously required in those dangerous times. They, moreso, and based on evidence of trepanation, had skilled brain surgeons among them. Their patients in fact survived these painful operations without further infection.The oldest trepanned skull, found at a neolithic burial site of Ensisheim in France, is more than 7,000 years old, and trepanation was practised by the Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, Indians, Romans, Greeks and the early Mesoamerican civilizations.
When Otzi the Iceman had his 5,300 year-old stomach contents analized, scientists found six types of moss - some with apparent medicinal qualities. One type of moss found, Sphagnum Imbricatum, is a natural antiseptic.
Skulls dated to 7,000BC excavated recently in western Pakistan have been found to have holes drilled into their molars. At least nine people living in a village in Mehrgarh, near the Bolan river in Balochistan, had holes drilled into their molars and appeared to have survived the procedure, evidence of Neolithic dentistry.
China’s Neolithic archaeology began with the 1921 discovery of Yangshao culture in Henan Province. Since 1977, pre-Yangshao (10,000 BP to 6950 BP) cultures such as those at Cishan, Peiligang and Dadiwan have been found in the Yellow River Valley, filling the missing link in archaeological chronology and offering resources for the study of the origin of agriculture, animal husbandry and pottery production.
A pottery cauldron containing boiled medicinal herbs unearthed in 2001 in Zhejiang Province indicates that Neolithic people used natural herbal medicine as early as 8,000 years ago.
Several new studies have found that taking devil's claw (an herb used for
thousands of years by the Khoisan peoples of the Kalahari Desert) can substantially reduce pain and improves physical functioning in people with osteoarthritis. In a large, well-designed 4-month study including 122 people with knee and hip osteoarthritis, devil's claw root powder reduced pain and improved functional ability as effectively as standard doses of a leading medication for osteoarthritis.
Physical evidence has confirmed that ancient Chinese were producing fermented, wine-like drinks from rice, honey and fruit as early as in 7,000 BC according to scientists who are examining residues of the ancient shards of pottery from a Neolithic site in north China. Before the Jiahu discovery, the earliest evidence for an alcoholic drink in human history was the resinated wine inside two jars excavated at Hajji Firuz Tepe, Iran, dating to about 5,400 BC.
Friday, January 2, 2009
One Man's Treasure
Moving over time from the safety of caves and the risk of the hunt to a more sedentary lifestyle and an assigned daily task, mankind is an enigma during the Neolithic. A true mystery. We supposedly walked around clubbing our women for five million years, throating nothing more than "ug", and then one day 5,000 years ago we suddenly got smart. This was the advent of the divisive Bronze Age.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens have been sitting around the campfire for 130,000 years, and then about 17,000 years ago the earth suffered a mass catastrophe, unfortunately for mankind. It was an event that a few very hardy, and lucky, species would survive.
However, prior to the glaciers melting rapidly, along with many other natural calamities: earthquakes, volcanoes and tsumanis, not to mention the mile-high floods caused when massive ice dams eventually collapsed, men for a hundred thousand years had developed naturally in a warm and cosy Middle Earth.
The land was lush and fertile, providing ideal conditions for growth. So people, like you and me, grew up and shared their acquired knowledge. Then one day their world fell apart.
We teach our children that cavemen ruled until civilization suddenly arose between the Tigris and Euphrates about 6,000 years ago. This is about the same time in history that the enigmatic Trypilian culture erupted north of the Black Sea.
Scientists today who study climate change based on ice core samples know that another drastic and rather fatal event, occured 5,000 years ago. Now our own ancestors are found communicating and building, monumentally, in 3,100BC and not only along the banks of the Nile, but simultaneously around the world. This is when history begins in fact - and thus ending the Neolithic (New Stone) Age.
The Neolithic is a bridge through time. It links what once was and what is. Throughout the misunderstood Neolithic period survivors eventually stumbled upon ancient ruins. These rugged individuals did not know much, but they were quick learners and soon their newfound discoveries eclipsed a life in the caves.
In the UK, there are a lot of ancient ruins and plenty of evidence of a people who traveled the land leaving an occasional signpost for their descendents or simple rude grafiti to ponder, starkly acknowledging their reality and frustration. Maybe the most of what they left behind is under water these days.
On land, large carvings and mysterious pieces of so-called rock art have been discovered in the northern part of England. These artefacts, when combined with anamolies like the Glozel Alphabet - taken from the Glozel Stones, could prove as valuable as the Rosetta Stone connecting our ancient and modern civilizations. String has been found and dated to the Neolithic.
How apt therefore, that there remains a megalith in Rennes-le-Château.
On this rock dug from a natural basin, were realized, through hammering with flint, about ten cruciform signs: a cross on a triangle and 8 single crosses. They are anthropomorphic representations representing human stylized silhouettes, according to the conventions of prehistoric design. They are characteristic of the Neolithic of the south of France and date back to 4000 to 4500 years.
Near Stonehenge, a 4,500 hundred year-old skeleton of a man was unearthed. Buried with the bones was a treasure trove of gold and copper – the richest Neolithic grave ever uncovered in Britain.
Homo Sapiens Sapiens have been sitting around the campfire for 130,000 years, and then about 17,000 years ago the earth suffered a mass catastrophe, unfortunately for mankind. It was an event that a few very hardy, and lucky, species would survive.
However, prior to the glaciers melting rapidly, along with many other natural calamities: earthquakes, volcanoes and tsumanis, not to mention the mile-high floods caused when massive ice dams eventually collapsed, men for a hundred thousand years had developed naturally in a warm and cosy Middle Earth.
The land was lush and fertile, providing ideal conditions for growth. So people, like you and me, grew up and shared their acquired knowledge. Then one day their world fell apart.
We teach our children that cavemen ruled until civilization suddenly arose between the Tigris and Euphrates about 6,000 years ago. This is about the same time in history that the enigmatic Trypilian culture erupted north of the Black Sea.
Scientists today who study climate change based on ice core samples know that another drastic and rather fatal event, occured 5,000 years ago. Now our own ancestors are found communicating and building, monumentally, in 3,100BC and not only along the banks of the Nile, but simultaneously around the world. This is when history begins in fact - and thus ending the Neolithic (New Stone) Age.
The Neolithic is a bridge through time. It links what once was and what is. Throughout the misunderstood Neolithic period survivors eventually stumbled upon ancient ruins. These rugged individuals did not know much, but they were quick learners and soon their newfound discoveries eclipsed a life in the caves.
In the UK, there are a lot of ancient ruins and plenty of evidence of a people who traveled the land leaving an occasional signpost for their descendents or simple rude grafiti to ponder, starkly acknowledging their reality and frustration. Maybe the most of what they left behind is under water these days.
On land, large carvings and mysterious pieces of so-called rock art have been discovered in the northern part of England. These artefacts, when combined with anamolies like the Glozel Alphabet - taken from the Glozel Stones, could prove as valuable as the Rosetta Stone connecting our ancient and modern civilizations. String has been found and dated to the Neolithic.
How apt therefore, that there remains a megalith in Rennes-le-Château.
On this rock dug from a natural basin, were realized, through hammering with flint, about ten cruciform signs: a cross on a triangle and 8 single crosses. They are anthropomorphic representations representing human stylized silhouettes, according to the conventions of prehistoric design. They are characteristic of the Neolithic of the south of France and date back to 4000 to 4500 years.
Near Stonehenge, a 4,500 hundred year-old skeleton of a man was unearthed. Buried with the bones was a treasure trove of gold and copper – the richest Neolithic grave ever uncovered in Britain.
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