**Breaking News**
England
Avebury is the site I have visited the most since I have lived very close to it my whole life. I’ve been there at least a hundred times, and most recently was a few weeks ago. These days I usually go around four or five times a year, but back in the 1990s it was a weekly occurrence during the summer for many years. It is a very special place, and certainly my favourite ancient site (BC). I know a lot about Avebury and have spent many years studying it, so to hear the sudden news of a stone square is a rather life-altering piece of information!
A stone square inside Avebury stone circle! I just cannot get used to that sentence.
The area within the southern inner circle was excavated in 1939 by Alexander Keiller, and what he found was a series of stones that appeared to be in a straight line. This finding had been dismissed as it was not seen as Neolithic, but rather a more modern building of some kind (Avebury circle is so large – the largest in the world – that most of the modern village lies within its ditches, so the stones were seen as a disused building). What these findings now show is that the stones were indeed in use during the neolithic period and, wham!, everything we thought we knew about Avebury is blown out of the window.
Why, you may ask?
Although no one has any clue as to what Avebury was built for, the general gist is that it was a ‘place of the dead’, and most theories centre around the idea of an area only used for ritualistic death worship. It’s even been thought that the area was used to allow the dead to be naturally defleshed by birds, by placing the bodies on wooden platforms. Once the birds had finished their meals, the bones were then removed and used in ritual. The reason this idea came about is because of the huge ditch and embankment that surrounds Avebury henge. In its heyday it was completely white due to the chalk that the land is made from, and the ditch itself was at least 90 feet (30 metres) deep. So, basically, it was assumed it was out of bounds to the living. There is a whole lot more to this theory and it would take me a week to write about it so I’ll leave it there. It is also one of many theories about Avebury.
Now we have an entire game changer. A complete spanner in the works.
Britain is covered in stone circles. There are thousands of them. But a stone square is a rather bizarre finding. So, to logically deduce this new discovery, the archaeologists come up with what they see as the only logical explanation they can come up with – this square must have marked the place where there was once a neolithic building. Of course I am going to dismiss that idea! I do not believe there was a 100-foot long building standing in that spot 4,500 years ago. If there was, then every theory about Avebury needs to be completely dismissed and we have to start all over again. So, my bet is that this square has some connection with the wider circles. I think we need to look into this a lot more before we assume any square structure must be a building, just because we build houses in that method and we have no other thing to relate it to. We have to stop applying our modern minds to ancient sites and, more importantly, stop the guesswork because it only muddies the waters and causes confusion. And just because ancient stone circles were used for ritual and square structures were used to live in does not mean we can apply that to Avebury.
Avebury is a very unique and special place, far more important than Stonehenge, and at least 1,000 years older.
The idea these stones simply marked the spot where a building once stood is clutching at straws in my opinion. Nope, this was definitely something else. Watch this space…
So, what am I going to do this weekend? I fancy a trip out somewhere, but I am not sure where to go… Er…
Thank you to Michael White for alerting me to this news today.
**Breaking News**
Turkey
You wait a while for some important discoveries to surface (excuse yet another pun) and then suddenly several turn up in one day, so forgive me while you all get pummelled with reports.
I would certainly be cautious about suggesting a “skull cult” with these findings, but they are astounding nonetheless. Personally, I have always seen Gobekli Tepe – the oldest site in the world – as rather special and somewhat benevolent in many aspects. Certainly the stone carvings on the T-shaped pillars suggest astronomical observations, but these skull fragments with cut marks and deep grooves do point to a more sinister element to the site.
The reason I am cautious of a skull cult is because clearly there was a lot more going on at Gobekli Tepe, and whatever the reason for these skull bone alterations it was but a minor element compared with everything else. In other words, this was not exactly the primary activity of those who were involved in the site.
It is clear that no one ever lived at Gobekli Tepe, but thousands of bones have been found, mostly of animals, some human, but generally they are too small to be put together. The implication here is that this was a “ceremonial centre” (I use the term very loosely), and feasting (or at least eating) was occurring at or near the site, and the bones then used in some way or discarded within the temple enclosures.
So rather than a skull cult, are we looking at cannibalism? These skulls were clearly defleshed, but for what reason remains unknown. Since many skull fragments have been found without cut marks, is the report correct in stating these individuals were singled out for some reason, or were the people eating each other only at times of low harvest? Or is there another reason entirely? Now, however, we can no longer look at the oldest temple in the world in the same way. We humans are a rather weird bunch, aren’t we…
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/carved-human-skulls-found-ancient-stone-temple
Pakistan / India
Although Mohenjo Daro is located in modern-day Pakistan, I always add India on the header since Mohenjo Daro was always in India until the recent partition. Mohenjo Daro is more about Indian history than Pakistan’s; the Indus Valley civilisation was without doubt the engine behind the country and its powerful expansion.
If I was a multi-millionaire, of all the places that require funding this is where I would funnel my money. Mohenjo Daro is without doubt the most important archaeological site in the world in my opinion, mainly because I am convinced civilisation began here. Forget Mesopotamia, Sumer and Egypt – the Indus Valley is where it all began. Can I prove that statement? Not yet, but it won’t be long before it is proven. At least it will if it gets the funding it deserves. Walls recently found in Harappa have been dated to 8,000 years ago, which already puts the Indus Valley civilisation at the top of the list. And you can forget what that stupid site Wikipedia tells you – it’s full of errors and written by people who have no idea what they are talking about.
Unfortunately Pakistan appears to be slipping towards a near civil war. Bombings are increasing and the death toll with it. Naturally this puts people off travelling, although the location of Mohenjo Daro is relatively safe.
Mohenjo Daro was a massive city, built with incredible technology including running water and toilets – the first civilisation to create such luxuries. The irrigation methods adopted there have not changed in that area since they were invented, since no one has been able to create a better system.
I could go on but I’ve said many similar things in previous posts. I shall on the odd occasion buy a lottery ticket, and hope that one day I can not only help to preserve this site, but to allow excavations to continue. But UNESCO have done very little to funnel funds towards Mohenjo Daro, and that in itself is criminal. The Indus Valley is where we all come from – our civilisation was born here, perhaps as long ago as 10,000 years. We all owe everything to these people. And although we constantly search for Plato’s fabled city of Atlantis, here we have one that is right in front of our eyes. Somehow we seem to be blind to what is right in front of us. No, Mohenjo Daro, nor Harappa, are Atlantis, but they are so old that they date to a similar time period. So, surely, the Indus Valley civilisation is already proof of the existence of Atlantis.
http://artdaily.com/news/96063/Saving-Pakistan-s-lost-city-of-Mohenjo-Daro#.WVJYtXmWzIX
Greece / Bulgaria
I was going to report on this the moment the news broke out, but I’ve been rather busy and have not had the time until now.
As you know I am a firm disbeliever in the “Out of Africa” theory of human evolution. I think it is one of the most ridiculous theories out there, and today’s scientists are not only clinging to the Darwinian model of evolution by the skins of their teeth, but are desperate to follow that rhetoric until their deaths. It has never, it does not, and it never will make any sense whatsoever. It is a Victorian idea that should have been discarded a century ago. And once again I am happy to say my views may be vindicated after all, for in Bulgaria and Greece evidence has been found of a human ancestor dating to 7.2 million years ago.
I am not surprised in the slightest, and when you think the “out of Africa” theory – that humans evolved in Africa and then left the continent to migrate around the world, and then evolved into white Europeans and Oriental Asians, basically from Black Africans – was recently stretched from 50,000 years to 100,000 years to fit around new findings, you can see how utterly comical it actually is.
In my book, The Evolution, I stated that human beings evolved in different areas of the planet, that we are not all one complete species, and that we have interbred. I think it is also looking more and more likely that a separate species may have even evolved on the American continent, rather than the model of humans migrating from Asia. And what if humans left the Americas and populated Asia, turning that model completely on its head? That’s a theory that now cannot be disregarded at all. Creating models based on genetics is a flawed method, but at least some of the findings from genetics are making about as much sense as the Darwinian model of evolution itself. Well, that’s a relief.
The findings from Bulgaria and Greece are an utter bombshell, although they surprise me little.
It’s about time scientists admitted that the Darwinian model is wrong, that we need to tear up the entire history of the human race and start all over again.
Please, science, stop clinging to the old ways, let go of it, and then we may be able to finally know the truth about what we really are and where we come from. And, interestingly, the religions of the world have gained a point while science has lost one, and that is an interesting thing indeed – if human beings evolved in different areas of the world, indepedently from one another, one has to question how “nature” would create such similar beings in different places, when the environments are totally different.
If you think humans were once fish that decided to crawl out of the sea, grew legs, started breathing air and then evolved into mammals, I am sorry but you are an utter fool! Honestly, even a three-year-old would laugh at that ridiculous idea. Is it possible we can grow up and evolve as fast as our technology, because, honestly, these ideas are so laughable it beggars belief. Why they still teach this in schools I have no idea.
UPDATE: I did report on this, on 24th May! Well, it’s a story worth writing twice!
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-fossils-idUSKBN18I2HX?
Britain
Britain’s neolithic population replaced by the invading Beaker population…
That just doesn’t sound right in the slightest. Something is clearly wrong here. This study seems to have been conducted in black and white only.
While genetics appear to show a “90% shift”, the archaeological artefacts suggest otherwise.
I just do not see an invading / migrating people arriving in Britain (along with their beakers of course!) and practically replacing the entire native population. Warfare would not account for such a mass disappearance, and the island natives would have already been exposed to any infectious diseases from the continent through trade networks.
I’m putting my money on yet another study conducted with the blinkers on…
England / Scotland
A very interesting three-page account of Hadrian’s Wall – much of which is still the land border between England and Scotland after 1,900 years.
An incredible feat of engineering, the wall spans 73 miles and was constructed in six years by around 15,000 Roman soldiers. It’s rather like a mini version of the Great Wall of China.
http://www.archaeology.org/issues/255-1705/features/5469-empire