Prehistoric Sailors May Be Responsible for Stonehenge, Other Megaliths

[Judi Lynn]

By Yasemin Saplakoglu, Staff Writer | February 12, 2019 09:11am ET

Stonehenge and similar large, arranged rock structures around Europe may have a common origin.

Hunter-gatherers in northwestern France might have first created these megaliths around 7,000 years ago and spread them throughout Europe, according to a new study published yesterday (Feb.11) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It was previously thought that megaliths originated in the Near East, but nowadays more and more anthropologists agree that they were independently invented in various places across Europe, according to the magazine Science.

In this new study, Bettina Schulz Paulsson, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, searched through the literature to find radiocarbon data (a method that reveals ages of rocks and structures) for over 2,400 sites across Europe. She looked at megaliths, pre-megalithic graves, and any information she could find on how the rocks were crafted and the customs of the hands that crafted them. [In Photos: A Walk Through Stonehenge]

More:
https://www.livescience.com/64746-stonehenge-megalith-common-origin.html

[peacefreak2.0]

1. Went to temples in Malta

And Gozo. Wondered whether they were on ley lines. Still powerful in ruins.

[Ghost Dog]

2. I would dispute the origin claimed,

but not the theory of largely maritime diffusion.

The northwestern France origin appears to be based on earthen mounds, without any megalithic stonework. From the source study (Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).):

... There are ∼35,000 presently extant European megaliths, a term which is derived from Greek μέγας (mégas), “big,” and λίϑος (líthos), “stone.” These include megalithic tombs, standing stones, stone circles, alignments, and megalithic buildings or temples. Most of these were constructed during the Neolithic and the Copper Ages and are located in coastal areas. Their distribution is along the so-called Atlantic façade, including Sweden, Denmark, North Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium, Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland, northwest France, northern Spain, and Portugal, and in the Mediterranean region, including southern and southeastern Spain, southern France, the Islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta and the Balearics, Apulia, northern Italy, and Switzerland. Interestingly, they share similar or even identical architectonic features throughout their distribution. Megalithic graves were built as dolmens and as passage or gallery graves (Figs. 1 and 2). Thousands of anthropogenic erected stones either stand isolated in the landscapes or were arranged as circles or in rows. There is evidence all across Europe for an orientation of the graves toward the east or southeast in the direction of the rising Sun...

With the introduction of radiocarbon dates and processual approaches, the idea of an independent emergence of the same kind of stone architecture in several regions arose, because early C14 results did not support the diffusion model. Renfrew (7) was the first to exploit the new chronological results and proposed five independent nucleus centers, including Portugal, Andalusia, Brittany, southwest England, Denmark, and possibly Ireland for the emergence of megaliths in Europe. The model of an independent emergence of megaliths in several regions and sedentary, immobile farming communities has remained dominant in the research literature since then (8⇓–10). However, since the 1970s, the number of C14 dates of megaliths has expanded enormously. It is therefore timely to test the two prevailing interpretative models in the light of this new evidence...

The radiocarbon dates suggest that the first megalithic graves in Europe were closed small structures or dolmens built aboveground with stone slabs and covered by a round or long mound of earth or stone. These graves emerge in the second half of the fifth millennium calibrated years (cal) BC within a time interval of 4794 cal BC to 3986 cal BC (95.4%; 4770 cal BC to 4005 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M7-2 to M29-4), which can be reduced most probably to 200 y to 300 y, in northwest France, the Channel Islands, Catalonia, southwestern France, Corsica, and Sardinia. Taking the associated cultural material into consideration, megalithic graves from Andalusia, Galicia, and northern Italy presumably belong to this first stage (Fig. 3). There are no radiocarbon dates available from the early megalithic graves in these regions, or their calibrated ranges show an onset extending into the fourth millennium cal BC, as is the case for Galicia. Of these regions, northwest France is the only one which exhibits monumental earthen constructions before the megaliths (SI Appendix, Fig. S2). The Passy graves in the Paris Basin have no megalithic chamber yet, but are impressive labor-intensive structures with a length of up to 280 m. These graves seem to be the earliest monumental graves in Europe; the first individual buried in the Passy necropolis died in 5061 cal BC to 4858 cal BC (95.4%; 5029 cal BC to 4946 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M1-4). Somewhat later, the first monumental graves emerge in Brittany, and especially in the region of Carnac, in the form of round tumuli covering pit burials, stone cists, and dry-wall chambers...

In the northern half of the western Iberian Peninsula, there are early megaliths, concentrated mainly in Galicia. So far, these have been dated to the very end of the fifth millennium cal BC, if not later... On the western Iberian Peninsula, date ranges for the onset of accessible structures are calculated for the Estremadura at 3844 cal BC to 3383 cal BC (95.4%; 3658 cal BC to 3432 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M33-1), for the Alentejo at 3743 cal BC to 3521 cal BC (95.4%; 3673 cal BC to 3567 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M34-5), and for Beira at 3883 cal BC to 3782 cal BC (95.4%; 3837 cal BC to 3796 cal BC, 68.2%) (Dataset S3, M35-19). Similarly, the earliest megaliths with entrance in Britain and Ireland are also calculated to the first half of the fourth millennium cal BC. The earliest known megalithic grave in southeast England, Coldrum, is calculated at 3971 cal BC to 3805 cal BC (95.4%; 3960 cal BC to 3880 cal BC, 68.2%) (20), and Parknabinnia on the Burren in Ireland at 3885 cal BC to 3440 cal BC (95%; 3715 cal BC to 3530 cal BC, 68%) (21).

The subsequent centuries are a time of megalithic stasis and reuse of ancient megalithic graves. With the exception of the gallery graves in Belgium, there is no evidence for movements or new megalithic regions added at this time.

Finally, an even later megalithic expansion occurred in the second half of the fourth millennium in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia (22⇓–24). In the Mediterranean, there is a megalithic revival in the second millennium cal BC in the Balearic Islands, Apulia, and Sicily. These are associated with the Bronze Age and/or with the Bell Beaker phenomena (25)...

https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/02/05/1813268116

I do like this part of the conclusion:

The megalithic movements must have been powerful to spread with such rapidity at the different phases, and the maritime skills, knowledge, and technology of these societies must have been much more developed than hitherto presumed. This prompts a radical reassessment of the megalithic horizons and invites the opening of a new scientific debate regarding the maritime mobility and organization of Neolithic societies, the nature of these interactions through time, and the rise of seafaring.