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Subject: Re: [O-W] “Stones that could be Britain's pyramids.“
Date: Tue, 29 May 2001 18:44:31 +0100 (GMT+01:00)

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Hi Mikey,

Fascinating stuff. It all starts to make much more sense now.
Particularly in view of the latest Celtic genetic studies. I guess the Atec=
otti live on, eh; hope there's not to many round your way. We're surrounded=
.

Roy

-----Original Message-----
>From : Mikey <>
To :
Date : 29 May 2001 15:55:29
Subject : [O-W] =93Stones that could be Britain's pyramids.=93
Hi all,
>
>At present being quiet, so forwarding a history pc'e.
>
>Regards,
>
>Mikey.
>Spectemur Agendo.
>
>Stones that could be Britain's pyramids
>
>Backwardness of ancient Britain is myth, says historian
>
>Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent
>Tuesday May 29, 2001
>The Guardian
>
>The history books tell us how the Romans brought civilisation to the
>barbarians of Britain.
>But yesterday an archaeologist turned that long-held belief upside down by
>claiming that the ancient people of these islands were far more advanced
>than any of the early Mediterranean cultures.
>
>More daring still, Barry Cunliffe, professor of European archaeology at
>Oxford, also disputes what he calls the =93established pseudo-history=93 t=
hat
>the Celts swept westwards through Europe until they reached the Atlantic
>seaboards of Spain, France, Britain and Ireland. =93There is simply no
>evidence for this,=93 he said.
>
>=93There was no great movement of peoples towards the Atlantic, because th=
ey
>were already there,=93 he told the Hay-on-Wye book festival yesterday. =93=
Only
>recently have we begun to discover that these people were far more advance=
d
>than those around the Mediterranean. We have underestimated dramatically t=
he
>complexity of these people.=93
>
>Professor Cunliffe said the view of Stone Age Britain as backward had been
>skewed by our historical reliance on Greek and Roman classical texts, whic=
h
>were thick with prejudice and ignorant of almost anything beyond the Pilla=
rs
>of Hercules (Gibraltar). =93For all these years we have been looking at Eu=
rope
>the wrong way round, and the idea that civilisation flowed out from the
>Mediterranean out to the barbarian edges of Europe has clouded our view th=
at
>it flowed the other way too.=93
>
>He said the Atlantic civilisations that began to develop on favoured
>stretches of coasts such as southern Spain, Galicia, Brittany, Cornwall,
>Ireland and the western |isles of Scotland during the Mesolithic period fr=
om
>6000 BC were the =93most advanced and stable communities in Europe=93.
>
>He went on: =93They were the first, for instance, to make what we call
>'careful burials' and to leave offerings for the dead, surrounding their
>heads with red ochre to symbolise blood. You find remarkable similarity in
>these coastal burials from Iberia right up to Ireland and even to Denmark.=
=93
>
>The huge shellfish middens on which Stone Age people lived, and later buri=
ed
>their dead, also contained hooks and bones of large deep sea fish which
>proved that they had seagoing vessels.
>
>Prof Cunliffe said it was from these middens that the huge megalithic tomb=
s,
>standing stones and circles that still pockmark Britain and Ireland, spran=
g
>up by 3000BC. =93Thirty years ago it was held that these great stone monum=
ents
>were influenced from the Mediterranean cultures, but carbon dating has beg=
un
>to prove that this building was happening here long before they began to
>appear in southern Europe.=93
>
>The =93astonishing complexity and daring=93 of these vast tombs, like thos=
e at
>Newgrange in Co Meath, Ireland, and Maes Howe on Orkney is as impressive a=
s
>anything in Egypt at the same time.
>
>The professor, who has developed his theories in his new book Facing The
>Atlantic, and a forthcoming volume which follows Pytheas the Greek's
>circumnavigation of Britain in 320BC, said it was =93very mistaken=93 to d=
ismiss
>these Atlantic civilisations because they did not develop early forms of
>writing.
>
>=93There is a tendency to say that the complex, urban societies that devel=
oped
>in the eastern Mediterranean were more advanced because they had writing,=
=93
>he said. =93But these Atlantic ones were innovative in other ways. They we=
re
>hugely more advanced in navigation, shipbuilding and their solar knowledge=
,
>and that of the seasons and the stars.=93
>
>But perhaps Prof Cunliffe's most extraordinary claim is that the Gaelic,
>Welsh, Cornish, Galician and Breton languages are not the last vestiges of=
a
>tongue carried by Celtic invaders from northern India, but were local
>languages which grew from the aboriginal population.
>
>
>
>
>
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=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>Search over 1 Billion names at Ancestry.com!
>http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist1.asp
>
>

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