Doggerland

[Qoais]

Thanks for the link. That was a most enlightening article and I enjoyed it very much. Something I'll re-read a number of times.

[jmccr8]

Hello Abramelin,

Whales are interesting animals,Many years ago I had the opporunity to go out into the Hudsons Bay and the white sperm whales will come quite close to the boats.We were in smaller wood framed outboards and you could see them swim underneath and rise out of the water just in front of us than flip and go back under the boat again.They followed us clear across from Churchill to the old trading post at Fort St.James.I found it quite exciting and was in awe of these creatures,I can see where severel small boats would simply lure them in and how that people working as teams could hunt them.jmccr8

[Abramelin]

Hello Abramelin,

Whales are interesting animals,Many years ago I had the opporunity to go out into the Hudsons Bay and the white sperm whales will come quite close to the boats.We were in smaller wood framed outboards and you could see them swim underneath and rise out of the water just in front of us than flip and go back under the boat again.They followed us clear across from Churchill to the old trading post at Fort St.James.I found it quite exciting and was in awe of these creatures,I can see where severel small boats would simply lure them in and how that people working as teams could hunt them.jmccr8

Yes Jmccr8. that's how the Inuit still do it.

And here's something from the same time period as Doggerland, but from the other side of the world:

Stone Age people may have started hunting whales as early as 6,000 BC, new evidence from South Korea suggests.

Analysis of rock carvings at Bangu-Dae archaeological site in Ulsan in the southeast of the country revealed more than 46 depictions of large whales.

They also show evidence that humans used harpoons, floats and lines to catch their prey, which included sperm whales, right whales and humpbacks.

Details of the research are published in the journal L'Anthropologie.

"You have representations of dolphins and whales, with people on boats using harpoons and lines. It is a scene of whaling," co-investigator Daniel Robineau told BBC News Online.

For example, one scene shows people standing in a curved boat connected via a line to a whale.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3638853.stm

[Abramelin]

I have been saying here a couple of times that if anything grand will be found on the bottom of the North Sea, it will very probably be made from wood.

A - to me - logical precursor of stone circles like Stonehenge will be something made from (oak) trees, like the one found off the coast near Holme, Norfolk (England):

Although only speculation John Lorimer's ideas are based upon sound evidence and are tentatively shared by both historians and archaeologists. It is quite possible to conclude that what is appearing out of the peat at Holme is something more than just a simple circle constructed of ancient timbers. It may well be that Seahenge, Geoff Needham's circle, the wickerwork enclosure, the causeways, the riverbeds and the spirit goods all form part of one massive spiritual monument. Like Stonehenge, Avebury and the stone avenues that cover the Wiltshire countryside the area around Holme may have been just as large and just as important. Perhaps it was the religious site for the Bronze Age peoples of East Anglia: a place where they carried their important dead. A ritualistic landscape where the sea met the land and the bodies were ferried across to the sacred island in the marsh; an isle of the dead.

This is, of course, nothing but speculation. It is quite possible that future finds and further evidence will point to an entirely different conclusion. It may well be that the site proves to be nothing more than a place of funerary ritual, with no more spiritual significance that a modern hospital crematorium. However, at this moment in time it appears to be emerging as something more than just a place of crude biological death. Perhaps the site, against all my initial scepticism, really is a spiritual centre. Perhaps the Peddars Way, the ancient and mysterious trackway that stretches across the Norfolk landscape, does indeed lead somewhere after all. It leads to Holme

http://easyweb.easyn...ng/seahenge.htm

Location of Holme on the map (the red 'droplet' with the A inside):

And again, someone suggests this henge/circle has something to do with a death cult...

"A ritualistic landscape where the sea met the land and the bodies were ferried across to the sacred island in the marsh; an isle of the dead. " Hmmm... if they had ferried them a bit further, they would have ended up on Dogger Island, if it was still above the waters.

And someone in the "Stone Age Atlantis" documentary suggested that even long after Doggerland was gone, people still commemorated it by dropping stone axes (which must have been precious articles back then) overboard from their boats when they were near the socalled "Brown Banks" in the southern part of the present North Sea.

'Seahenge' was erected like 4000 years after the end of Doggerland (according to carbon dating the trees, the henge dates from 2049 BC), but I think that it would not be strange if similar and much older structures will be found on the bottom of the North Sea. Like I said in another thread, it's kind of fascinating to know that circular patterns, concentric circles, spirals and circle shaped labyrinths, dating from the Bronze Age to many thousands of year earlier, can be found the world over.

.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

More info on the socalled cup-and-ring markings (rock-art/petroglyphs):

Achnabreck, Scotland:

'cup and ring' marks of Fowberry Mains to the east of Wooler:

Anebjerg, Island of Bornholm, Denmark:

Here's rock-art from Norway (Stavanger): two boats, a footprint and an abstract design (enhanced):

In many upland and coastal areas of England, Scotland and Ireland [me: also in Scandinavia] exposed rocks are decorated with hollowed cup markings surrounded by concentric rings.

Archaeologists have studied these markings for decades and new ones are constantly being discovered. They bear no direct relation to known prehistoric settlement sites and are extremely difficult to date. Similar markings appear on rocks hundred of miles apart and with no obvious connection.

It is an abstract form of art, because there are never any representations recognisable as animals or people. They are often known as cup and ring marks, although sometimes the cups may appear in groups, or by themselves, or occasionally surrounded by rectangles rather than circles.

The different markings are often joined together by tails emerginging from the cups and cutting through the rings.

Where Rock Art is found

Sometimes whole rocks are covered, sometimes just parts of a rock, for example Roughting Lynn in Northumberland, northern England. Most of the rocks decorated are horizontal or nearly so, although markings do appear on vertical surfaces in some places. They normally appear in areas with poor soils where farmers would not have been able to grow successful crops, and often in positions where there is, or has been, a good viewpoint.

It is likely that many were alongside ancient trails, leading some archaeologists to believe that they are connected with areas used by nomadic hunters or herders.

How old are the markings?

It seems most likely that these markings were made in the Neolithic or New Stone Age, after agriculture had been introduced and life for most people became more settled. This means they date between 4000 BC and 2000 BC.

They are normally accepted as being associated with the religious beliefs of Neolithic people, although some archaeologists believe they are territorial markers. The only way of assigning a date is by looking at the carvings where they appear with sites of a known date.

Some decorated rocks were deliberately quarried and used as cist (stone coffin) covers in the Bronze Age, perhaps because they were considered to be a link with tribal ancestors. It is normally the underside, closest to the burial, that was decorated.

The Bronze Age started around 2000 BC. By this time people had probably forgotten why the carvings had been made in the first place. The slabs covered burials with pottery and grave goods which we know belonged to the Bronze Age, so the markings must be earlier than these burials.

Cup and ring markings also appear on stone circles such as Temple Wood in western Scotland. It is unclear whether the markings were made before or after the circle had been made, so they are of no help for dating. Archaeologists are also undecided about the link with rock art mainly spirals and triangles found in prehistoric tombs such as Newgrange in Ireland, as these seem to belong to a different tradition.

http://archaeology.s...d_ring_markings

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era/

This fascination with (concentric) circles is something we can see the result of in the countries surrounding the North Sea, Wales and Ireland.

And first came the petroglyphs, later came the wood and stone henges, and maybe even more later the socalled 'troys' or circular labyrinths.

What was going on back then ??

.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

Heh, well, I assumed we needed a bit of spectacle to spice things up a bit, and I think I have found something that might do the trick.

So, what might these petroglyphs ,that seem to be everywhere on the British Isles and Scandinavia (and on some other places in the world), actually represent??

Of course I googled like crazy again, and I found sites saying it were 'chakras', the rings of the city of Atlantis (of course, what else, eh?), solar symbols (but why scratch dozens in one rock??), pics based on drug-induced 'inspiration', and...... comets.

Comets? They don't look much like depictions of comets to me... but maybe I was wrong.

Well, look at this:

Pinwheels in the sky?

Surprisingly, comets do not always appear as sweeping brooms in the sky. When viewed at the correct angle and orientation, while the comet is outgassing appropriately, a comet can actually appear as a spiral "pinwheel." Below are some photos and a short movie of comet Hale-Bopp in 1997 when it was in spiral display.

Look at the next animation of the Hale-Bopp comet:

Hale_Bopp, 1997:

http://www.georgehow..._ancient_art.ht

Or here:

Simulated coma morphology as seen from Earth for the Earth-comet-Sun geometry of 1997 March 13 for dust jets having = 1, 5°, 15°, and 30° (clockwise from top left) for the Gaussian cross-sectional width. For all four cases, the other parameters were kept unchanged. Earth is inside the cone that is swept out by the axes of the jets. For each panel, the nucleus is at the center. North is up, and east is to the left. A single dust outflow velocity is assumed. The dust production rate is assumed to be proportional to (0.1 + cos ) during the daytime and 0.1 during the night, where is the solar zenith angle. This nighttime emission, which helps the eye to trace the spiral structure, is primarily confined to an approximately 90° sector in the westerly direction.

Now, would this heavenly spectacle impress people many thousands of years ago? I bet it did, like the Russian missile did over Norway, december 2009... technologically far advanced people as compared to the Stone Age people, but scared like rabbits anyway.

Here is what these brave 'Vikings' saw in the heavens, December 2009:

Was it a comet that hit Doggerland (trying to stay on topic here)?? Hmmm... I found several sites telling me that it may have been the cause for the myth of Ragnarok.

But some sites tell me it happened like 1500 years BC, ignoring the fact that many petroglyphs like the one above were created loooong before that time.

Now, if I am able to connect some comet/asteroid impact event with the Storegga Slide, and spice it up with the Ragnarok myth, then I think we got something.

EDIT:

The spiral that the Hale-Bopp comet created was only visible with telescopes. If the comet responsible for scaring the crap out of people many thousands of years ago by creating a huge spiral in the heavens was visible with the naked eye, it must have been huge.

And did it impact on Earth, west of Norway, causing an undersea slide of sediment (an area the size of Ireland), and thus creating as huge tsunami flooding Doggerland??

Tell me what you think about this.

SECOND EDIT (in my case, the dosenth edit):

For those who don't know, a comet creating a spiral like in the pics above (no, not the Russian missile itself, but very similar), can also leave a tail from the center to the other rings.... much like the ancient petroglyphs.

.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Abramelin

[SlimJim22]

I like it! As you probably know I have been into spirals for a while and from research into shamanism I would say they are found world wide in isolation but are much more frequent in the northern hemisphere. Some say that spiral stones were used to help induce a trance state like mandalas and the labyrinth. I had also considered how much the shape could have resembled a human brain but it is also a representation of zero point energy and phi. I can't see some of the earliest peoples having knowledge of such things so I am digging the comet theory. Comets are of course recurring so there would have been multiple oppurtunities for them to be recorded and of course potentially affect the Storegga slide.

Did I post about Ragnarok because I had been reading Donnely: Fire and Gravel. Not a bad read and the evidence of a layer of gravel in the archeological record makes a strong case. If the moon affects tides through gravity then in theory so could a comet I suppose but it would be much more like a surge or tsunami. A cloud of gravel and dust swallowing the Sun would be a convenient interpretation of Ragnarok also. I think you are really onto to something here and I look forward to reading more.

[cormac mac airt]

Now, if I am able to connect some comet/asteroid impact event with the Storegga Slide, and spice it up with the Ragnarok myth, then I think we got something.

You may want to search for another connection, Abramelin.

The hunter-gatherers who inhabited the southern coast of Scandinavia 4,000 years ago were lactose intolerant. This has been shown by a new study carried out by researchers at Uppsala University and Stockholm University. The study, which has been published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, supports the researchers' earlier conclusion that today's Scandinavians are not descended from the Stone Age people in question but from a group that arrived later.

and

"In the present case, we are inclined to believe that the findings are indicative of what we call "gene flow," in other words, migration to the region at some later time of some new group of people, with whom we are genetically similar," he says. "This accords with the results of previous studies."

Stone Age Scandinavians unable to digest milk

If the peoples of Scandinavia today are not descended from those contemporary with Doggerland, then it's highly unlikely, IMO, that any version of the Ragnarok story would have been passed between 2 unrelated groups to end up in the Viking mythos.

cormac

Edited April 27, 2010 by cormac mac airt

[Abramelin]

You may want to search for another connection, Abramelin.

and

Stone Age Scandinavians unable to digest milk

If the peoples of Scandinavia today are not descended from those contemporary with Doggerland, then it's highly unlikely, IMO, that any version of the Ragnarok story would have been passed between 2 unrelated groups to end up in the Viking mythos.

cormac

Yes Cormac, I read that a couple of weeks ago. But even if it appears now to be unlikely that the present inhabitants of Scandinavia are related to those who lived there after the ice age, it is still possible that legends may have been passed on from one people to the next.

And maybe those lactose intolerant hunter-gather guys really liked these new farmer girls arriving from the far south, making their offspring lactose tolerant?

I know that connecting the Ragnarok legend is a shot in the dark in connection with Doggerland, but how long can a a legend be passed on and be able to tell us of what happened long ago?

Edited April 27, 2010 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

I like it! As you probably know I have been into spirals for a while and from research into shamanism I would say they are found world wide in isolation but are much more frequent in the northern hemisphere. Some say that spiral stones were used to help induce a trance state like mandalas and the labyrinth. I had also considered how much the shape could have resembled a human brain but it is also a representation of zero point energy and phi. I can't see some of the earliest peoples having knowledge of such things so I am digging the comet theory. Comets are of course recurring so there would have been multiple oppurtunities for them to be recorded and of course potentially affect the Storegga slide.

Did I post about Ragnarok because I had been reading Donnely: Fire and Gravel. Not a bad read and the evidence of a layer of gravel in the archeological record makes a strong case. If the moon affects tides through gravity then in theory so could a comet I suppose but it would be much more like a surge or tsunami. A cloud of gravel and dust swallowing the Sun would be a convenient interpretation of Ragnarok also. I think you are really onto to something here and I look forward to reading more.

Well, if you look at the circles and spirals near and on New Grange, you do get the idea that someone there was using acid, lol.

However, I wouldn't go as far as you with these 'energies', I already think that any connection with comets is already far out.

You mention Ignatius Donnelly; wasn't he the one who started this thing about some comet and Ragnarok (or was it Velikovsky?) ? His ideas were copied so many times by others, it's hard to tell.

.

Edited April 27, 2010 by Abramelin

[cormac mac airt]

I know that connecting the Ragnarok legend is a shot in the dark in connection with Doggerland, but how long can a a legend be passed on and be able to tell us of what happened long ago?

We have something that is (currently) unevidenced as regards any peoples of Doggerland, namely writing. And we still don't know with any degree of certainty from where the Sumerians originated nor who, specifically, was responsible for the unification of Ancient Egypt. We don't even know what person, or combination of persons, were responsible for the legends of "King Arthur" or "Robin Hood". And these last two from within the last 1500 years. I'd say that that rather puts a damper on any kind of historically based legend lasting several thousand years.

cormac

[Qoais]

Donnelly wrote Atlantis the Antediluvian World.

[jmccr8]

Hello Abramelin,

I find the wooden henge from Norfork interesting as well as the spiral designs.I've seen the spiral designs in pitures that were taken in caves in Brittany,my family still travels there to visit relatives and some of them come here for reunions so I have seen many of the sites that they have visited.jmccr8

[jmccr8]

Abramelin there is some discussion going on with Atrios in the supressed artifacfs in New Zealand thread,he is interested in the worship of serpents and the movements of cultures that held this practice,if you could furnish any input with respect to genetics or religious practices of north European cultures fronm the neo-mesolithic cultures I am sure it would be appreciated,Thanks jmccr8

[SlimJim22]

We have something that is (currently) unevidenced as regards any peoples of Doggerland, namely writing. And we still don't know with any degree of certainty from where the Sumerians originated nor who, specifically, was responsible for the unification of Ancient Egypt. We don't even know what person, or combination of persons, were responsible for the legends of "King Arthur" or "Robin Hood". And these last two from within the last 1500 years. I'd say that that rather puts a damper on any kind of historically based legend lasting several thousand years.

cormac

It may not directly correspond to Doggerland but here is a link on the Vinca script that originated around the black sea around 5,500bce, which is the sort of time frame we are looking for isn't it?

http://www.black-sea-atlantis.com/black-sea-atlantis/

Legends innevitably get blurred over time but if you view myth in terms of symbols and mysteries things do rise to the surface. If the meaning behind the symbols is strong enough I think they could well last millenia.

I'd suggest Sumeria was the result of interaction between all races of the time but it was probably the flooding of the black sea and the start of the Ubaid period that led to the height of sumerian culture. I'll try and back this up later if I have the time.

On the issue of Arthur, any ideas as to what secrets the legends could hold? Does it help if I tell you the closest meaning is 'bear'? Robin Hood on the other hand was a legend that grew out of the green man tradition that was practised by a large group of druids in Sherwood forest.

Hey Q, yeah apparently he wrote Ragnarok the year after Atlantis. Here it is on sacred texts. I think you'll find the chapter interesting.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/atl/rag/rag18.htm

[Abramelin]

We have something that is (currently) unevidenced as regards any peoples of Doggerland, namely writing. And we still don't know with any degree of certainty from where the Sumerians originated nor who, specifically, was responsible for the unification of Ancient Egypt. We don't even know what person, or combination of persons, were responsible for the legends of "King Arthur" or "Robin Hood". And these last two from within the last 1500 years. I'd say that that rather puts a damper on any kind of historically based legend lasting several thousand years.

cormac

I know that of course. And I am not suggesting that Ragnarok is where we must look for a detailed account for what (might have) happened. If anything, Ragnarok may date to something that happened 1500 BC, not 6100 (or more) BC.

But I am not sure of anything here. Every myth has a core, but through time things get added, embellished and exaggerated ("How big was that fish you caught?")

The core of any surviving myth about Doggerland may be nothing but: -1- there was a land where people lived and had a good life; -2- it got destroyed by a flood; -3- the survivors fled. Al the rest is make-up to tell a nice story when you are sitting around a camp fire before going to sleep. And myths get mixed with myths from other people who arrive in the area where the original myth was being told.

Btw, there are myths of the Lenapi (North America) that tell they came from over the ice to Turtle Island (America). But I am not sure that was based on a hoax or not ( the myth was put on bark later, and was called Walam Olum or something). But if it was true, then they are talking about what happened many millennia before their own time.

And if I remember well, the Australian Aboriginals told about a flood that occurred centuries BC, in western Australia. It was always thought of as just a myth, untill they found deposits in western Australia that pointed to a tsunami centuries BC.

[Abramelin]

Donnelly wrote Atlantis the Antediluvian World.

I know, heh.I even bought a copy for my own brother, many years ago. Although being skeptic, he loves the topic.

[Abramelin]

It may not directly correspond to Doggerland but here is a link on the Vinca script that originated around the black sea around 5,500bce, which is the sort of time frame we are looking for isn't it?

http://www.black-sea...k-sea-atlantis/

Legends innevitably get blurred over time but if you view myth in terms of symbols and mysteries things do rise to the surface. If the meaning behind the symbols is strong enough I think they could well last millenia.

I'd suggest Sumeria was the result of interaction between all races of the time but it was probably the flooding of the black sea and the start of the Ubaid period that led to the height of sumerian culture. I'll try and back this up later if I have the time.

On the issue of Arthur, any ideas as to what secrets the legends could hold? Does it help if I tell you the closest meaning is 'bear'? Robin Hood on the other hand was a legend that grew out of the green man tradition that was practised by a large group of druids in Sherwood forest.

Hey Q, yeah apparently he wrote Ragnarok the year after Atlantis. Here it is on sacred texts. I think you'll find the chapter interesting.

http://www.sacred-te...l/rag/rag18.htm

Well, they still don't know if the Vinca scrypt was a real written language or nothing but isolated signs.

And the earliest Vinca signs are from 5500 BC; if they find anything a 1000 years earlier, then we are getting close. And even closer if those signs depict people screaming, hands in the air, watching a big wave or something, lol.

--

OK, so the Ragnarok thing is Donnelly's baby?

Edited April 27, 2010 by Abramelin

[Abramelin]

Hello Abramelin,

I find the wooden henge from Norfork interesting as well as the spiral designs.I've seen the spiral designs in pitures that were taken in caves in Brittany,my family still travels there to visit relatives and some of them come here for reunions so I have seen many of the sites that they have visited.jmccr8

Yes, I find it interesting too, and if any structure will be discovered on the bottom of the North Sea, I guess it might be similar to those wooden henges. And it was pretty close to Doggerland, AND someone said it was a death cult, ferrying the dead to some 'Island of the Dead'.

Something about those spirals and concentric circles: you will have noticed a resemblance with the later circular labyrinths that pop up everywhere. And those circular labyrinths (like the 'Troy Towns' in the UK) are always associated with death, the 'other world' and the afterlife, specifically the center of such a labyrinth. The center would be the comet itself, of course.

If what I posted about those spiralling comets actually happened thousands of years ago, and if these comets that appeared in the skies were huge and many, AND if one of them plunged into the sea west of Norway, then it's imaginable that they became signs of death and destruction.

==

Compare those labyrinths, concentric circles and spirals with the layout of those woodhenges:

One in England:

One in Germany:

Another one, in eastern Germany:

http://images.tribe....74-a2257c1dc50d

http://people.tribe....91-ad581afa24d0

http://en.wikipedia....i/Goseck_circle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goloring

==

Or maybe those spirals and concentric circles is nothing but what shamans saw after having a magic shroom-party, lol.

Abramelin there is some discussion going on with Atrios in the supressed artifacfs in New Zealand thread,he is interested in the worship of serpents and the movements of cultures that held this practice,if you could furnish any input with respect to genetics or religious practices of north European cultures fronm the neo-mesolithic cultures I am sure it would be appreciated,Thanks jmccr8

I think Cormac, Mattshark or Copasetic are the ones to ask about genetics, Jmccr8.

But I'll try to add anything substantial overthere, if I have any that is.

Edited April 27, 2010 by Abramelin

[SlimJim22]

Well, they still don't know if the Vinca scrypt was a real written language or nothing but isolated signs.

And the earliest Vinca signs are from 5500 BC; if they find anything a 1000 years earlier, then we are getting close. And even closer if those signs depict people screaming, hands in the air, watching a big wave or something, lol.

--

OK, so the Ragnarok thing is Donnelly's baby?

He was quite the prolific thinker it seems. Late 19th century I think wasn't he? Interesting time, Jack the Ripper, HPB and co, birth of Hitler and I recently read about Austin Spare. Curious character.

Anyway the bit I liked from Fire an Gravel was how he eqautes great heat with the great wave. A comet would be very hot and if it crashed into the sea as you suggested, a lot of water is going to evaporate and fall as rain causing flooding. There would I assume be a reactionary tsunami aswell and then there is the layer of gravel left by the tail of a hypothetical comet. The Midgard serpent could well be a symbol of the comet as could Typhon in the Med region. His book is a bit ambiguous as to whether there is proof of a layer of gravel or not but you'd think it would be common knowledge if there was.

Velikovsky does talk about the possibility of a comet as a big part of his research but he is a bit more out there than Donnelly. His theory was that Hyperborea was a comet that 'docked' at the pole and this looked like the world tree or baby's arm holding an apple (lol). He suggested that passing through a comets tail would produce gravel and days of darkness etc but I think he took it a bit far. There could be something in the Hyperborea legends but not as Immanuel makes it out. I think he was at those shrooms. Astrios explained that the spiral was usually a symbol of divinity or auspiciousness but he did make other connections that could have a link.

[cormac mac airt]

The core of any surviving myth about Doggerland may be nothing but: -1- there was a land where people lived and had a good life; -2- it got destroyed by a flood; -3- the survivors fled.

Your leaving out one possibility that's just as likely, Abramelin. That there may well have never been any myths about Doggerland.

cormac

[Abramelin]

Your leaving out one possibility that's just as likely, Abramelin. That there may well have never been any myths about Doggerland.

cormac

No, I am not leaving that out, but it cannot be part of the core of any myth, right?

The core of nothing is nothing, I got that long ago, thank, you , lol.

I just think if any myth was created, then it changed so much that it is hard to use it to pinpoint in the direction of anything Doggerland.

You must not forget that Doggerland didn't just sink quite fast over the millennia by rising sea levels and isostatic rebound, it actually got flushed by a huge tsunami. Things legends are made of, wouldn't you say so too?

I have to think of something: Schliemann found Troy, based on legends (Homer), many have tried to locate Atlantis based on a story told by an old Greek (but never found it).

I try to find legends, based on a known land that got submerged.

.

Edited April 27, 2010 by Abramelin

[lightly]

i've always thought it was interesting that spirals, in their simplest form, are found more or less globally and that our galaxy and most galaxies are spirals • ( just my 1.7¢ worth.. on spirals )

[Abramelin]

i've always thought it was interesting that spirals, in their simplest form, are found more or less globally and that our galaxy and most galaxies are spirals • ( just my 1.7¢ worth.. on spirals )

Heh, I doubt they used a Hubble telescope around 10,000 BP...

[Abramelin]

Concentric circles, once again:

Circles for Space

German "Stonehenge" marks oldest observatory

By Madhusree Mukerjee, December 8, 2003

A vast, shadowy circle sits in a flat wheat field near Goseck, Germany. No, it is not a pattern made by tipsy graduate students. The circle represents the remains of the world's oldest observatory, dating back 7,000 years. Coupled with an etched disk recovered last year, the observatory suggests that Neolithic and Bronze Age people measured the heavens far earlier and more accurately than scientists had imagined.

Archaeologists reported the Goseck circle's identity and age this past August. First spotted by airplane, the circle is 75 meters wide. Originally, it consisted of four concentric circles--a mound, a ditch and two wooden palisades about the height of a person--in which stood three sets of gates facing southeast, southwest and north, respectively. On the winter solstice, someone at the center of the circles would see the sun rise and set through the southern gates.

Although aerial surveys have demarcated 200-odd similar circles scattered across Europe, the Goseck structure is the oldest and best preserved of the 20 excavated thus far, and it is the first circle whose function is evident. Though called the German Stonehenge, it precedes Stonehenge by at least two millennia. The linear designs on pottery shards found within the compound suggest that the observatory was built in 4900 B.C.

Perhaps the observatory's most curious aspect is that the roughly 100-degree span between the solstice gates corresponds with an angle on a bronze disk unearthed on a hilltop 25 kilometers away, near the town of Nebra. The Nebra disk, measuring 32 centimeters in diameter, dates from 1600 B.C. and is the oldest realistic representation of the cosmos yet found. It depicts a crescent moon, a circle that was probably the full moon, a cluster of seven stars interpreted to represent the Pleiades, scattered other stars and three arcs, all picked out in gold leaf from a background rendered violet-blue--apparently by applying rotten eggs.

The two opposing arcs, which run along the rim, are 82.5 degrees long and mark the sun's positions at sunrise and sunset. The lowest points of the two arcs are 97.5 degrees apart, signifying sunrise and sunset on the winter solstice in central Germany at the time. Likewise, the uppermost points mark sunrise and sunset on the summer solstice. The sun's position at solstice has shifted slightly over the past millennia, notes Wolfhard Schlosser of the Ruhr University in Bochum, so that the angle between sunrise and sunset is now slightly farther apart than when the Nebra disk and the Goseck circle were made (by 1.6 and 2.8 degrees, respectively).

Nearby excavations of wood-and-clay houses have turned up a variety of grains and evidence of domesticated goats, sheep, pigs and cows. Farmers reached this part of the world some 500 years before they built the solar observatory. Although these earliest Neolithic agriculturists most likely measured only the sun's movements, over millennia they came to quantify the lunar cycle and the positions of constellations. The Pleiades, which depart the northern sky in spring and reappear in the fall, still mark crop cycles for many farmers around the world. The Nebra disk may have been a ritual object or, more likely--given its precision--a calculational tool used with observations at Goseck or a similar site to determine planting and harvest times.

The third arc on the disk, believes Francois Bertemes of the University of Halle-Wittenberg, is the stuff of legend. The ancients did not understand how the sun could set in the west and end up in the east the next morning. Representations of a disk in a ship, from Bronze Age Egypt and Scandinavia, reveal an age-old belief that a ship carried the sun across the night sky. The Nebra disk is the first evidence of such a faith in central Europe. That the land-bound cultivators knew of ships is no surprise: Bertemes points out that travelers spread the latest in Bronze Age technology as well as mythology.

http://www.scientifi...or-space&page=1

http://www.stonepage...ves/000475.html

lots of pics here

http://themanyfaceso...ngsOther11.html

About Stonehenge (concentric circles):

Before the monument (8000 BC forward)

Archaeologists have found four, or possibly five, large Mesolithic postholes (one may have been a natural tree throw), which date to around 8000 BC, beneath the nearby modern tourist car-park. These held pine posts around 0.75 metres (2 ft 6 in) in diameter which were erected and eventually rotted in situ. Three of the posts (and possibly four) were in an east-west alignment which may have had ritual significance; no parallels are known from Britain at the time but similar sites have been found in Scandinavia. Salisbury Plain was then still wooded but four thousand years later, during the earlier Neolithic, people built a causewayed enclosure at Robin Hood's Ball and long barrow tombs in the surrounding landscape. In approximately 3500 BC, a large cursus monument was built 700 metres (2,300 ft) north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the trees and develop the area.

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Stonehenge

Think: it is said that farmers needed to know when to plant and sow, and all that, and so they built these socalled astronomically aligned structures.

But around 8-7000 BC there were no farmers in Europe and Britain yet.

I tell you this: maybe they built these structures according to some astronomical alignments (it appears to be the hype these latest decennia to think along these lines), but I think they mainly built it to commemorate something spectacular and scary that happened many thousands of years ago. They started with these cup-and-circle marks on stone, went on building wooden henges, and later - maybe by the farmers who arrived millennia later and got impressed by the local legends - started using stone.

Another old place, in Ireland:

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Carrowmore

The dates people started building huge structures are getting pushed further back in time.

Edited April 27, 2010 by Abramelin