Figure 5 (above). The history and Anthropology of the stone rings in Europe.
View the webinar on ‘copper mining kickstarting civilisation’ at; https://www.ausimm.com/videos/community-event/south-west-wa-branchgeoscience-society—digital-tech-talk-geo-archaeology-correlation-between-civilisation–mining/
The oldest known stone circles (figure 5 above) date to 175,000 years ago and were constructed 330 metres inside the Bruniquel cave in France https://www.newscientist.com/article/2090183-neanderthals-built-mystery-underground-circles-175000-years-ago/. These stone circles would have been built in pitch black (under the light of torches) and it is believed that they were ceremonial eating centres. The scale is about 10 to 15 m in diameter and the stalactites from which it was built were broken into standard lengths and built up to about 0.4 m height. There are two fireplaces built in the centre and a smaller stone ring on the side.
It has became very obvious that whatever one believed about the commencement of civilisation before about 2010 has completely changed with the advent of DNA research, genome tracing and new methods of dating.
We are now are able to get DNA, spatial distribution and timing of people from more than 100,000 years ago with much more accuracy.
The appearance of megalithic standing stones correlates with the movement of people in the R1b Haplogroup with current Europe, Africa and Central and West Asia characteristics (left-top plan).
These types of sites and the early cave paintings must have been built by the Neanderthal people as Homo Sapiens had not arrived in Europe at this time.
It has been suggested by many that the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens cohabited for perhaps 30,000 years as we have ~4-6% Neanderthal DNA in our makeup even after 40,000 years. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=when+did+neanderthals+die+out+in+europe%3F
Much of our civilization’s art and building skills may have been derived from the pre-existing Neanderthal occupants – yes?
Was there a flooded Ice Age precursor civilisation?
We will now look, in general, as to whether there was a flooded, precursor civilisation dating from before the end of the Ice Age.
This plan shows the >3,000 recorded Stone Age or early Bronze Age monolith sites researched by SPLASHCOs https://www.splashcos.org/ .
It is suggested that the Neolithic or early Copper Age underwater settlements most likely pre-dated end of the Ice Age and also the current land settlements and hinges.
The last glacial maximum was from 19,000 to 11,00 years ago (17,000 – 9,000 BCE) and then the Mediterranean and North Sea were flooded. This gives the absolute end chronology for the submerged civilisations.
It is interesting that the sea level shown on the right hand graphs, in figure 6, has been quite static for the last 9,000 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_sea_level . This may be a reason why we have been able to have an advanced civilisation and develop long established ports for trade.
From 12,000 years ago to 10,000 years ago the sea level was rising at 2 metres a century ! We are getting worried about a possible 0.5 metre rise this century!!
This global information tells us quite accurately when these flooded henges were built – before 9,500 BCE as they are often at depths of more than 40 metres.
An important thing to note is that many of the submarine sites are next to mountainous coastline where most of the ancient copper mines existed. The evidence is starting to come together!
We will now have a look at the Sicilian Channel Monolith which has been discovered 40 km from Malta in 40 m of water https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=37773 . This is just one of the .3,000 submerged monoliths that have been researched by SPLASHCO.
This monolith was submerged after 9,350 years ago (7,330 BCE) when the last ice age retreated.
The 12 metre monolith weighing 15 tons was mined from limestone outcrop 300 m away when the area was dry land.
The interesting thing about this particular monolith it is that it has a tunnel drilled up the centre of it. Why would they do this? And how did they do this using stone tools? They may have had the stone tool on the end of a long rod?
This evidence suggests that there was an advanced precursor civilisation existing immediately after the last Ice Age!
Follow up my initial exploration with your own to confirm (or otherwise) my hypotheses!
In the next post we will look at the technological features of these civilisations.
Follow these perambulations through history and share with your friends and colleagues.
Happy sleuthing 🙂
Bob Watchorn
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