The Correct Chronology of Dolmens and the Like (16 September, 2014, 21 Elul, 5774)
Megalith Time no.1
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Astronomical Consistency Requires a Date After 750 BCE.
3. Ireland. Stone Age New Grange Comes from the Iron Age
4. Jordan (i.e. eastern Israel) and the 2000 Year Long Cubby Holes that could have been built in one day
5. Preconceptions Cloud Judgements
6. Britain. Velikovsky and Stonehenge
7. The Circle of Giants in the Golan, Israel
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1. Introduction
Regarding megalithic monuments in Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, Malta, Gozo, Spain, etc, we are told that:
# Prehistorians, archaeologists, as well as historians presently hold that these monuments and artifacts attributed to them were created/raised during the Late Neolithic and down to the Middle Bronze Ageca. 4000-1500 B.C. # Ginenthal-iv p.1
We disagree with this. Most megalithic monuments may be dated to ca. 600 BCE to ca. 700 CE.
The Ten Tribes were exiled according to the conventional dates in the period ca. 730-720 BCE.
We understand that the dolmens delineate trails of migration from the Middle East to the West.
Dolmens in Israel and the area of Syria may be dated to before this time. Elsewhere they are to be dated after it.
Main Source:
PILLARS OF THE PAST Volume IV By Charles Ginenthal
http://immanuelvelikovsky.com/Pillars-IV.pdf
CHRONOLOGY OF THE AGE OF STONEHENGE AND THE MEGALITHIC WORLD
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2. Astronomical Consistency Requires a Date After 750 BCE.
The School of Emanuel Velikovsky says that in about 700 BCE there had occurred a change in the length of year from 360 days to the present 365.
Many megaliths are oriented to specific places in the sky such as the solstices which when retrocalculated indicate that the orientation of the Earth's axis had not changed catastrophically but was then in the same location as today. If so it means they must have been set in place AFTER the Ten Tribes were exiled.
The calendars of the Egyptians, Persians, Hindus, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Chinese, Greeks, or Romans all seem to indicate a former length of 360 days per year.
The Bible may also indicates that formerly a year of 360 days was in play: Noah entered the ark on the 17th day of the second month until the seventeenth day of the seventh month i.e. for five months which the Bible describes as 150 days.
This makes for a month of 30 days. With twelve months in a year this gives us a year of 360 days.
Velikovsky says that the change in the length of the year was due to astronomical events over the period 747-687 BCE.
He also relates the said changes to the sun going backward by 10 degrees on the sun-dial in the reign of King Hezekiah.
If there was a change in the earth's axis true and megalithic monuments are indeed astronomically aligned then in most cases they COULD NOT have been erected before 700 BCE!
The problem is that researchers have not found evidence to confirm the claims of Velikovsky. On the contrary. It is said that ancient records disprove his point. How exactly they date and interpret these ancient records is another matter.
The case appears to be open.
See:
Dating Dolmens. How Astronomy May Help Prove a Later Date for Megaliths
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/megaliths/chronology.html
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3. Britain. Many Monuments and Barrows etc date to Roman Times and Later.
In Britain, there are cases of barrows etc being opened for what is presumed to be the first time and finding evidence of Roman presence. The Romans came to Britain after ca. 43 CE. Similar observations have been made in Brittany (west France) where there is a strong concentration of megalithic findings.
The Roman findings are usually accompanied by the presence of flint and stone implements otherwise allocated to the so-called Stone Age. Throughout Britain there is no real sequence from Stone to Copper to Bronze to Iron. Different areas used varying materials. There was no real distinction from one age to another.
Arthur Hadrian Allcroft points out that:
The use of stone for various purposes continued long after the introduction of bronze and [after the introduction of] iron, but in ever-decreasing proportions as the metals supplanted the cheaper but less tractable [stone] material. There were parts of Scotland, for example, whose inhabitants remained to a great extent men of the Stone Age until the Middle Ages were elderly.
The introduction of bronze into northern Europe is thought to have occurred about 1800 B.C., that of iron about 500 B.C. The use of bronze or iron was certainly familiar to some tribes of southern England long before it became common to those in the interior, not to speak of the remote parts of the island of Ireland; so that even within the same area of Great Britain there existed contemporaneously communities of all three ages and there is no definite date at which any one of the three can be said to begin or end.
Madison Grant further remarks:
Neolithic polished stone implements which ultimately became both varied and effective weapons and tools continued in use long after metallurgy developed. ... In the ring [of warriors] that clusters around [King] Harold for the last stand on Senlak Hill [in 1066] many of the English thanes died with their Saxon king armed solely with stone battle-axes of their [Neolithic] ancestors.
Even when we reach the time of Caesars brief invasion, as explained by R.G. Collingwood and J.N.L. Myres:
'The westernmost fringe, was practically untouched by Iron Age influences. Devonshire, Wales, and the north-west were still occupied by a backward and poverty-stricken Bronze Age population, living in hut-farms and hut-villages and owning hardly any implements except of wood and stone.'
In the Cornish tin mines of Britain the miners did not use bronze tools to extract the ore; instead they used antler pick axes. Martyn Barber reports:
'[Richard] Carew wrote that the Cornish miners believed the streamworks they encountered to be very ancient and first wrought by Jews with pick axes of holm, box and harts horn, such items being found daily amongst the rubble in contrast to the less frequent metal objects, though it is the metal objects which have tended to attract attention. This is somewhat ironic, as it is the wooden and antler implements which probably represented the mining tools.
This shows that even when the Cornish tin mines were being exploited (in post-Roman times...) the miners were working with wooden and antler implements.
15 Barber, op.cit., p. 98
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3. Ireland. Stone Age New Grange Comes from the Iron Age
In County Meath, just north of center in Eastern Ireland are monuments claimed to have been built during Neolithic times around 3200 BCE . This is based on Carbon Dating which is unreliable. Previously they dated the complex to ca. 2000 BCE which is also unsubstantiated.
The Megalithic Passage Tombs of Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth, Fourknocks, Loughcrew and Tara are located in the present day County of Meath on the east coast of Ireland. The Boyne cluster includes Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth and Townleyhall. The other great clusters in County Meath are on the hills around Loughcrew. The Boyne cluster appears sometimes to be referred to as part of the one Newgrange complex. Otherwise the term Newgrange is applied to one famous particular edifice.
Newgrange is a large circular mound with a stone passageway and chambers inside. The mound is aligned with the rising sun and its light floods the chamber on the winter solstice. Newgrange also shares many similarities with other Neolithic constructions in Western Europe, such as Maeshowe in Orkney, Scotland and the Bryn Celli Ddu in Anglesey, northwest Wales. What applies to New Grange may also be pertinent to similar constructions elsewhere.
The Gavrinis passage tomb in Brittany, western France, has been described as remarkably similar to Newgrange. It is 60 meters in diameter and covers a passage and chamber which is lined with elaborately engraved stones.
One of the monuments, Cairn H, at Loughcrew is admitted to have been built during the Iron Age due to finds at its foundational levels. Otherwise Cairn H is no different from the other monuments. Apart from the Iron Age finds there is nothing to distinguish Cairn H from the other locations.
cf.
# The style of carving suggests they could be contemporary with the first passage tombs in the Boyne Valley, or even earlier. Most of the finds described by Conwell following his early excavations in the 1800's are typical Neolithic passage grave goods. #
Different solutions were proposed including the idea that the Cairn H had been disassembled and then put back together by Iron Age enthusiasts. Cairn H however is not an isolated case. Similar examples of the same phenomenon are tob e found in Brittany, West France, and elsewhere. It is now more or less accepted that such Cairns though first built in Neolithic times continued to be built right into the Iron Age.
Charles Ginenthal says:
'Possibly some of the most damning evidence of all comes from one of the mounds at New Grange [i.e. Loughcrew], Cairn H. Here archaeologists found a whole series of artifacts of clearly Iron Age date. These included amber and glass beads, various iron objects and bone plaques. It was the latter which caused the most disquiet.
'The ornament on these bone plaques is by very general consent agreed to belong to La Tene art and probably to date to the first two centuries AD. The problem presented by these objects of La Tene art together with iron objects was to explain their presence in a Passage Grave, the walls of which were decorated with typical megalithic art and which was assumed by people to have been constructed around 2000 B.C. It was argued by most archaeologists before Dr. Raftery's re-excavation that Carn H at Loughcrew had been used as a workshop in the Early Iron Age perhaps the atelier of a Celtic artist. Professor MacAlister, for example, believed the metal-workers of the Early Iron Age produced these plaques as samples for the ornamentation of luxury items of bronze. Dr. Raftery disagreed with this viewpoint and in 1943 reexcavated Carn H.
'The 1943 Raftery excavations found no objects characteristic of the normal megalithic assemblage; what was found, however, were blue, green and yellow glass beads, small bronze rings, pieces of iron, and 2000 bone plaques of which 200 were ornamented in the late La Tene style. Raftery argued that all these finds dated to the Early Iron Age; he found some of them in what he described as an undisturbed foundation layer, while some bone plaques were actually in the stone hole of one of the orthostats in the passage. In describing his excavations to the International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences in Zurich in 1954, he thought the evidence in his excavations susceptible to only two; first that the site was a normal passage grave constructed, say, in 2000 B.C., but entirely destroyed, removed and rebuilt in the Early Iron Age; or secondly, that it was an old style tomb still being used in the Early Iron Age. Having found no evidence for the first solution, he was put on record that Carn H was constructed in the Early Iron Age and that therefore, megaliths in Ireland survived not only to the end of the second millennium B.C. but to the beginning of the first millennium A.D.
Cianmccliam commented:
#Cairn H was excavated in the 1940's and many animal bones with Iron Age carvings on them made with metal tools were found. Because some seemed to come from pre-tomb levels Rafferty suggested a possible Iron Age date for this tomb. It is a bit of an odd one as the kerb is mostly dry wall unlike the other cairns which have boulders and slabs. It is possible the cairn was rebuilt and re-used in the Iron Age. I heard one speaker at the Tara conference in UCD a few years ago suggest that it was actually built in the Iron Age, the passage tomb cemetery having an unusually long tradition from the Neolithic on. #.
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4. Jordan (i.e. eastern Israel) and the 2000 Year Long Cubby Holes that could have been built in one day
The 2000 Year Long Pottery Hideaway: Tall el-Hammam (Jordan)
See Map for location of area along with photos of the dolmens.
http://www.britam.org/dolmenjordan.html
Tall el-Hammam is in Jordan just east of the Dead Sea opposite Jericho.
Over 500 dolmens were found in the area. The Archaeologists dated the findings as beginning in the Chalcolithic Era (ca. 4000 BCE) and continuing into the Bronze Age (ca. 2000 BCE). The Hammam Dolmen Field also has many standing monoliths (menhirs) and stone circles.
The following note was posted to the web dated 2010.
The Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project. A JOINT SCIENTIFIC PROJECT OF The College of Archaeology, Trinity Southwest University [NM, USA] AND The Department of Antiquities, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Dr. Steven Collins, co-Director, Chief Archaeologist; Mr. Khalil Hamdan, co-Director, Senior Archaeologist; Mr. Michael C. Luddeni, TeHEP Photographer; Photo Narrative
Hammam Dolmen 78 Excavation
http://www.tallelhammam.com/uploads/TeHEP_Discovery_3.pdf
Quote:
At approximately 1m x 3.2m, the chamber of HD.78 was
larger than average. It contained over 40 ceramic vessels
spanning almost 2,000 years, from the Chalcolithic Period,
Early Bronze Age, and Intermediate Bronze Age, including
jugs and small juglets, bowls and amphoriskoi.
Hammam Dolmen 78 Excavation
FIELD HDF. Constructed of vertical slabs .5m to 1.5m wide and/or tall, and 20cm to 40cm thick, Hammam Dolmen 78 had a table-slab 2+m x 1+m that was up to .75m thick. In the excavation process, it took six strong men, using a huge steel rod as a lever, over an hour to remove the largest of the top-stones. The chamber created by the vertical and horizontal (both top and floor) megaliths was 3+m long and about 1m wide. It contained over 40 pottery vessels (mostly small juglets and bowls), and an array of 'select' bones with no hint that any full burials had ever been placed the space. Indeed, the bones seem representative of individuals, perhaps important ones (from associated cave- or shaft-tombs?), accompanied by the ritual placement of a small sacred offering in the form of perfume or oil. Was this some kind of ancestor worship or generational celebration? Whatever is was, those 40+ vessels span nearly 2,000 years of history from the Chalcolithic Period through EB1/2/3 and the IBA. The Hammam Dolmen Field holds the answers to many anthropological mysteries, and will be the focus of much research for decades to come.
End Quote.
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Tombs cut into the rock were found close by but the dolmens themselves were not used as such.
Most of the dolmens had evidently been disturbed and robbed in the past.
Dolmen 78 had not. It contained 40 vessels said to span almost 2000 years?
Why this extended time range? It seems that the vessels were of different types. Different types are classified as belonging to different ages. Therefore it is assumed that for 2000 years people had nothing better to do but pry away a two ton capstone every now and again and add another little pot to the collection.
It could be.
But is it logical?
Does that seem the most likely scenario to you?
Looking at photographs of the area findings it all looks quite impressive and also homogeneous.
What would an archaeologist without previous preconceived doctrines as to when certain types of pottery were to be dated have said?
Judging by the photographs in situ of the findings he would probably have said that the pottery pieces pertained to the same people from the same time.
If this intermixing of finds ascribed to greatly different civilizations over very long periods was an exception then we might, with some effort, accept the possibility BUT it seems to be a common occurrence.
Archaeologists sometimes have set notions that the facts have to be fitted into.
Why not accept the logical and admit that all those pretty little ceramic pieces belonged to the same people from the same age?
Apart from the different ceramic vessels there does not seem to be any other indication of such longevity. The dolmens are all of the same types and belong to the same era. There is no evidence of longterm settlement, nothing.
We are better of concurring that the different vessels all belong tot he same time.
Present day methods of dating and classifying archaeological findings appear to be seriously in need of revision.
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5. Preconceptions Cloud Judgements
Researchers in Western Europe used to assume that Long Barrows preceded round barrows and that one was the work of a long-headed race and the other of a round-headed people. This is what research is made of and notions like these are worth looking into. At first findings did seem to substantiate these divisions. Nowadays numerous exceptions have been admitted.
In some places the roundheads made the long barrows and vice versa, or the builders were of mixed type, and one kind of barrow does not seem to have preceded the other though in some areas one of them was the predominant type.
The more sophisticated examples were not, as had been assumed the latest ones.
'[Davis argued that the large, round, supposedly Neolithic, mounds were far too advanced, stating] 'But to regard the colossal mound of Newgrange, and the elaborate galleries and chambers of Willow, Uley and other [round] barrows of this kind as the most primitive [and hence the oldest] is difficult if not impossible [to accept] unless support of other very convincing evidence can be adduced.'
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6. Britain. Velikovsky and Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in Wiltshire, southwest England, about 2 miles (3 km) west of Amesbury and 8 miles (13 km) north of Salisbury. In both Amesbury and Salisbury similar and realted finds have been found.
Stonehenge is the remains of a ring of standing stones set within earthworks. It is in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred burial mounds.
Archaeologists believe it was built anywhere from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. Radiocarbon dating in 2008 suggested that the first stones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, whilst another theory suggests that bluestones may have been raised at the site as early as 3000 BC.
Immanuel Velikovsky assigned Stonehenge to after 687 BCE instead of 3000 or 2000 BCE.
Hawkins writes:
'Velikovsky realized that Stonehenge worked today as it did when it was built... he is assigning Stonehenge to a later date, specifically one later than 687 B.C., arguing that the archaeological date was wrong, radiocarbon was unreliable, an old bone relic could have been dropped into holes during construction at a later period. Moving Stonehenge up to 600 B.C. would of course place it in the present earth-axis era, after the [last] great cataclysm. But I also pointed [out to Velikovsky that] the fitting of Stonehenge into prehistoric chronology was a specialized and difficult task and in my own research I left it to the archaeo-experts.
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7. The Circle of Giants in the Golan, Israel
Rujm el-Hiri (Rogem Hiri, Galgal Refaim) is Located in the Golan Heights, Israel.
Adapted from Wikipedia.
It is up of more than 42,000 basalt rocks arranged in concentric circles, it has a mound 15 feet (4.6 m) tall at its center. Some circles are complete, others incomplete. The outermost wall is 520 feet (160 m) in diameter and 8 feet (2.4 m) high. It is in the middle of a large plateau covered with hundreds of dolmens.
The establishment of the site, and other nearby ancient settlements, is dated by archaeologists to the Early Bronze Age II period (3000-2700 BCE).
This dating is wrong but it predated the Exile of the Ten Tribes in ca. 720 BCE.
It is made from 37,500 - 40,000 tons of partly worked stone stacked up to 2 meters (6.6 ft) high. It was estimated by Freikman that the transportation and building of the massive monument would have required more than 25,000 working days.
[Where did the manpower come from?
"the location of Rujm el Hiri is far from being central in the Early Bronze settlement pattern, which would be logical for such a monument." Not only would it have needed a great number of workers who probably would not have been available but even if they had been there would have lived too far away. An alternative dating, such as the Iron Age, might solve this problem.]
Rogem Hiri is often referred to as the "Stonehenge of the Levant."
It is believed to be an ancient observatory and stellar calendar.
At the times of the two equinoxes, the sun's rays would pass between two rocks, 2m in height, 5m in width, at the eastern edge of the compound. According to Anthony Aveni and Yonatan Mizrachi the entrance to the center opens on sunrise of the summer solstice. Other notches in the walls indicate the spring and fall equinoxes.
Researchers found the site was built with dimensions and scales common for other period structures, and partly based on the stars' positions.
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Comment:
It is believed that the site was aligned in accordance with an astronomical reality that has since changed.
Megalithic finds in Europe are consistent with the present relative configuration of the sun and other heavenly bodies.
The finds in Europe therefore cannot be that old.
To be continued.
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