The Stonehenge Enigma (Prehistoric Britain Book 1) Read online

  PREHISTORIC BRITAIN

  The Stonehenge Enigma

  by

  Robert John Langdon

  ABC Publishing Group

  Second Edition

  Published by ABC Publishing Group

  www.abc-publishing-group.co.uk

  Copyright © ABC Publishing Group 2013

  Printed and bound by: ABC Publishing Group, East Sussex, England

  Edited by Mike Davis and Annette Holliday

  This book is the conclusion to a chain of events,that started with a course in Archaeology at the Museum of London in the 1990s and ended in a thunderstorm at Stonehenge in August 2009

  Preference to the Second edition

  The publication of the first edition of this book was undertaken under some haste as considered opinion suggested that such ‘ground breaking’ evidence about one of the world’s most famous monuments, would cause a massive stir that the demand for further information would be overwhelming. So it would be wise to publish what we had to protect our copyright and then amend thereafter.

  What we did not expect was the total dismissal of the hypothesis and the refusal to take the matter seriously. Mainstream organisations and archaeologists ignored the publication or attempted to discredit the subject matter without even reading the book. Even so, the book sold in the thousands and it generated good publicity with those who appreciated to read and understand the new information.

  The facts in the book remain the same and the evidence clearly shows that Stonehenge was first built five thousand years before commonly accepted dates. It’s a sad indictment that such discoveries in the past have suffered the same academic dismissal such as the discovery of Doggerland at the start of the last century by Clement Reid in 1913.

  The archaeological establishment and most archaeologists dismissed his claims as pure fiction although Fishing boats and trawlers had constantly dredged up animal bones and stone tools from the bottom of the North Sea, for over 100 years. It was only by chance when gas and oil reserves were found in this area of the world and large corporations started to scan the sea bed and drill pilot holes in their search for wealth that this hypothesis was taken seriously and in 1990 – 75 years after Clement first published his book ‘Antiquity of Man’ that Prof Bryony Coles reinvigorated the subject and termed the name ‘doggerland’ for the region – by then Clement and his sceptics were long dead.

  This is a poignant reminder that discoveries that change the world’s view of history are not easily accepted by the establishment and particularly academics are judged against their past published literature, therefore their sceptical attitude towards my book was understandable. Therefore, the second edition has had the time and maturity to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and add even further information and evidence, which I believe now to be beyond refute.

  To this end, I have completely rewritten the first section on Geological Evidence, with extracts of new evidence that have come to light, including references from recently published books from recognised experts that now support my original hypothesis. My new location in the South Downs as also gave me a great opportunity to study the ‘dry river valleys’ in complete profile (rather than just borehole data) as they cut through the chalky cliffs, which are exposed to the sea. Not only can you see the significant colour and material change by the water that was once present, but you can touch and see the enormous turmoil that the chalk and flint experienced, showing the aquatic power and extent of these greatly misunderstood features.

  I have also decided to add the Stonehenge construction data which I was going to save for one of my future books, as the other parts of the trilogy that make up Prehistoric Britain have grown to such huge proportions in word and page size that it seemed sensible to place this ‘landmark’ information in this book, so that it is not out of context. This will include an illustration of how Stonehenge really did look once the large Sarsen stones were introduced, and the extraordinary mathematics our ancestors used for its construction.

  Yet I can assure you, that the ‘truth is still out there’ and is ready to be discovered by persons with an ‘open mind’ and a sound judgement, which my dad used to call ‘common sense’. Enjoy the book and for those how find enlightenment, as Pink Floyd once said, then ‘I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon’.

  RJL

  Rottingdean 2012

  Prologue

  I love prehistory; I think it should be called pre-mystery. In my mind, it’s the greatest ever ‘who done it’. Agatha Christie or even Dan Brown would have been proud of leaving so many tantalising clues and artefacts about what happened so long ago in mankind’s ancient past.

  So who am I then? Holmes, Poirot or Indiana Jones?

  Well hopefully a combination of all three as I love to solve puzzles, and this book answers the most captivating of all questions – who built Stonehenge and why? Just think of the clues on offer: strange stone monuments; relics of a bygone age; scientific evidence that seems to contradict each part of the puzzle as it’s discovered and an overwhelming realisation that this is not a game - this is reality!

  I want to solve the mysteries from the dawn of our civilisation. If that fails to excite you to the bone, I guess nothing in history ever will.

  To understand our ancestry, you must be able to detach your mind from the 21st century. You need to picture the land that archaeologists call the ‘stone age period’ - the problem is that your mind has already created a mental picture of either hairy fur covered men dragging their women into the cave for fun or Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble going for a drive in their stone-mobile. Of course, neither of these images is correct or helpful.

  As you read this book you will journey with me back in history. You will need to remember that for a considerable time, the people you will read about, may have only possessed wood and flint as tools yet they still had the foresight, capability, tenacity and organisational skills to build monuments that would last 10,000 years. I really don’t think even our best known recently built structures – the O2 Millennium Dome, Wembley Stadium, Canary Wharf Tower - will survive for one tenth of that time period. I would strongly argue that we must give our ancestors the respect they deserve and be proud that our forefathers created such a great civilisation.

  The story starts with a car journey, driving home from a family holiday in the summer of 2009. I had previously studied Archaeology at the Museum of London in the early 1990s. During my course the standard format of materials was poorly photocopied archaeological texts and illustrations - the use of an available overhead projector was far too modern for this type of dusty establishment. The illustrations provided showed that mankind originally moved from Africa to the Middle East and then finally, onwards to Northern Europe and eventually Britain. This was the sacred proven pathway of our civilisation, and if anyone dared to write an essay even hinting at an alternative suggestion, they were branded a heretic and would be marked down accordingly – as you may begin to imagine, I fell into this category.

  I have always found this ‘traditional’ model of our civilisation’s pathway difficult to accept or understand. In my mind, civilisations are incredibly old and diverse and need many tens of thousands of years to develop the characteristics we see around the world today - therefore to suggest that the first farmers were migrants from Africa who travelled to the Middle East and who then transferred their knowledge onto Europe over only a few thousand years, seems totally unbelievable, naive and somewhat simplistic because in my view, that’s not how civilisations develop. I also found it surprising that the literature and teaching provided, failed to include any
references to the even more diverse civilisations of the Far East – so, I guess, according to traditional theories provided, the Chinese must have never discovered farming and therefore they must still be living in caves today?

  Out of Africa

  Nonetheless, it is true to say that the antiquated lesson structures and information to which I was exposed did give me an insight into how Archaeology itself has evolved – via a group of amateur enthusiasts, whose dated theories somehow still remain prominent today. Many of these old academics have little to no engineering or practical skills, let alone the empathy to understand the true nature of hunter-gatherers or the issues surrounding self sufficiency in a hostile environment (thinking a little more like Ray Mears would have helped them considerably).

  I am often amused by watching archaeologists spending hours on the most boring, labour intensive work such as drawing an excavation plot on an A3 board with strings as guides. On a few occasions, I’ve approached the poor student conscript allocated this God forsaken task and mentioned the marvellous new invention called a digital camera – which not only takes high resolution shots, but if used to take photographs from different angles and heights, they can then be turned into a 3D map on a PC. The poor students usually look at me as if I’m mad to suggest such a device and some well indoctrinated ones have suggested that “cameras can miss things”.

  This is a clear indication of how the whole archaeological process has developed - more as a ‘club’ rather than a progressive scientific subject. Hence the quiet distain showed to the utterly engaging TV series Time Team in which a site is excavated in 3 days. The archaeological establishment sees this as ‘popularist’ and not ‘true archaeology’ which, in their view, should take years and eventually reach the same old, tired but established conclusions that are automatically accepted as being correct - and certainly wouldn’t allow a theory that would take them out of their academic comfort zone.

  There are many examples of this - archaeological political correctness - even within the Time Team television programme. When they find something unusual or not easily identifiable, the word ‘religious’ or ‘ceremonial’ is suddenly produced as an obvious explanation, rather than a more truthful admission of, ‘Tony, I ain’t got a clue mate!’

  This is what I call ‘archaeological self regulation’. It’s a way of guaranteeing your future career as an archaeologist.

  As will be revealed later in the book, often when archaeologists are given scientific evidence from carbon dating that contradicts the ‘traditionally’ held view, it’s dismissed as an ‘anomaly’ - this is the usual response when scientific evidence conflicts with the archaeological accepted belief system.

  This ‘strange’ approach to the science of archaeology can also be seen when sites are dated. A majority of sites are dated by broken pottery or flint finds discovered within the site. This tenuous link is based on a premise that ALL pottery and flints can be dated by its design or structure. In some sites, it’s absolutely true to say that these type of finds can be a good source of evidence if it is found ‘in situ’ with other items such as coins or other carbon dated material.

  However, to rely on this as a form of evidence when pieces are found on the surface is problematical, as ALL it shows is that this type of pot was used on this site – AT SOME POINT after this type of pot was made – not necessarily at the SAME TIME.

  For example, if an archaeologist in the future finds the ruined remains of St. Paul’s Cathedral (and imagine that all written records for the site were lost) he or she would attempt to date the site by the artefacts found on site. Say, for instance, a Coca-Cola can crammed into the base of a remaining wall was discovered – using current accepted practice, the archaeologist would conclude that, because the can was found ‘in situ’, the construction date of St. Paul’s would be approximately 1950 to 2000 – the practice simply doesn’t work.

  Even a child would realise that dating an item found at a site, doesn’t automatically mean that the site shares the same date. Sometimes, complete sites are dated just by fragments of pottery without any other evidence, other than a ‘gut feel’ or ‘tradition’. This can readily be seen by the number of ‘iron age’ encampments found on OS maps. Most of these sites are on hills and have ditches surrounding them; archaeologists automatically classify these monuments as ‘iron age’ as the perception is that they are fortifications, built at a time of extreme violence – the Iron Age. There is not one piece of true evidence to support this claim, yet we have thousands of monuments incorrectly classified as ‘iron age’ all over Britain. This type of unsupported evidence would simply not be deemed acceptable by any other ‘science’ (apart from Geology - and we’ll talk about that later).

  Frustratingly, however, it is accepted practice in archaeology. So the next time you ask an archaeologist “what’s that” and they mention either the ‘religious or ceremonial’ word, stamp really hard on their foot or ask “what religious group or ceremony would that be?”

  I witnessed at first-hand, this kind of blanket prejudice when I submitted my final essay during my archaeology course in the 1990s. The essay was about Stonehenge and highlighted the conflicting evidence throughout the site. This particularly applied to the car park post holes that had been ignored by archaeologists when discovered in the 1960’s and in so doing, they missed how this find could have helped to establish the true dating of Stonehenge instead of relying on the ‘loose’ pottery and antler evidence that’s currently taken as the absolute truth.

  I will never forget the comments my lecturer wrote on my marking sheet, which seem even more poignant today as I write this prologue: “Would make the basis of a good book, but has no credibility for serious archaeology today”. I suppose I should have been happy to have received a pass mark, even if it was only just!

  Anyway, back to the plot. I was driving to London via the A303 which takes me past Stonehenge, when suddenly, day turned to night and a cold eerie storm ripped across Salisbury Plain. I watched in the slow traffic as the poor tourists, in their summer clothes, ran as best they could for shelter while the traffic crept to a halt. At that point, my mind started to drift, and I looked around at the grassy fields as they started to become waterlogged.

  I was driving past a point called ‘Stonehenge Bottom’, a deep ravine adjacent to Stonehenge. The hills were now feeding water down to the lowest point of the valley and the water was very quickly becoming very deep as it reverted back to being the river it once had been. “You idiot!” I said out loud to no-one in particular.

  House M.D.

  It was a phrase I had started to use a lot in everyday life, as I had become a great admirer of Hugh Lawrie’s ‘House’ – I could identify with the same stubborn, rebellious and analytical qualities of the TV personality. (If you haven’t managed to catch any of these enthralling programmes, I’d highly recommend them).

  The reason for my outburst was that I had driven and walked past this same spot more times than I care to remember but I had never realised that this was a huge clue to the ‘post hole puzzle’ I had considered so many years before, in my essay.

  I got off the road and returned to Stonehenge. As I entered the car park, I was guided to the auxiliary car parking spaces on the grass behind the tarmac section. There was some chaos as attendants were busy trying to fence off a large central section of the grassy car park as it had started flooding. Most drivers found this naturally quite annoying, but I had such a huge smile on my face that I’m sure the attendants must have thought I was insane.

  You see I had been told, as are all archaeologists that have studied the site, that the riverbed where the car park lay was pre-ice age (at least 400,000 years ago if not more) so consequently it’s always been ignored by archaeologists.

  But….what if this was wrong?

  As I stood in the rain watching the river return to Stonehenge, I asked myself ‘why is the car park, still flooding?’ – If the experts were right, despite this extraordinarily h
eavy rainfall, should not be flooding as the ‘dry river valley’ (in which the car park was situated) had supposedly dried up hundreds of thousands of years ago. Only a significant rising of the water table would cause it to flood now – not this relatively small level of rainfall I was witnessing. Yet the evidence I saw with my own eyes told me otherwise. I knew I had to go back and look at the evidence from the start, and this time, I would question everything, not assume that so called ‘accepted’ theories were correct and would literally leave no stone unturned.

  If the experts were wrong, this small piece of the jigsaw would suddenly reveal not only the darkest secrets of Stonehenge, but the true date of the great civilisation that had created the stone monuments of Britain.