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.