There's Rocks and Then There's Rocks

From Stone Pages Archeo News5 October 2011

A massive prehistoric monument under the Loch of Stenness?

[Excerpted] Survey work in the Loch of Stenness (Ortkney, Scotland) has revealed what could be a massive prehistoric monument lying underwater to the south of the Ring of Brodgar. The underwater 'anomaly' has come to light in a project looking at prehistoric sea level change in Orkney. The project, The Rising Tide: Submerged Landscape of Orkney, is a collaboration between the universities of St Andrews, Wales, Dundee, Bangor and Aberdeen.

Although it is tempting to speculate that the ring-shaped feature, which lies just off the loch's shore, is the remains of a henge or perhaps a prehistoric quarry, at this stage the project leaders are urging caution. Orkney-based archaeologist, Caroline Wickham-Jones, a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, explained: "The preliminary results are suggesting that there is an unusual 'object' in the shallow water just off the shore, but more work is needed before we can identify it or even confirm whether it is a natural, perhaps geological, feature, or something man-made."

Dr Richard Bates from the School of Geosciences, St Andrews University, added: "The character and size of this feature - approximately 90m in diameter - are about the size of the main Ring of Brodgar. If it turns out to be artificial, the massive anomaly has to predate the influx of the sea into the Stenness Loch basin."

Ancient Mzora Stone Ring in Morocco Linked to European Continent

Very interesting article!  Excerpted from article, which in itself is edited from Lost Cities & Remote Places (13 January 2011), The Heritage Journal (27 January 2011).

Archeo News
31 January 2011
The enigmatic Mzora stone ring in Morocco



Mzora stone circle, Morocco.  Photo from gearth.blog.

 In Morocco, not far from the Atlantic coast and away from major tourist attractions, lies a remarkable and enigmatic megalithic site. The Mzora stone ring (also spelled variously as Msoura/Mezorah) is situated roughly 11km from the nearest town of Asilah and about 27km from the ruins of ancient Lixus. It is not easy to reach and a small display in the archaeological museum at Tetouan is the most the majority of visitors see or hear of this very interesting site.

The site itself is a Neolithic ellipse of 168 surviving stones of the 175 originally believed to have existed. The tallest of these stones is over 5m in height. The ellipse has a major axis of 59.29 metres and a minor axis of 56.18 metres. At the centre of the ring, and quite probably a much later addition, is a large tumulus, today almost disappeared. The bulk of the damage to it seems to have been done by excavations undertaken in 1935-6 by César Luis de Montalban. The only professional survey of the site was conducted in the 1970s by James Watt Mavor, Junior of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts, USA. It is this survey that revealed Mzora to be not only remarkable in its own right but to have implications for the history of megalithic sites in Britain.

Mzora, incredibly, appears to have been constructed either by the same culture that erected the megalithic sites in France, Britain and Ireland or by one that was intimately connected with them. The ellipse is constructed using a Pythagorean right angled triangle of the ratio 12, 35, 37. This same technique was used in the construction of British stone ellipses of which 30 good examples survive including the Sands of Forvie and Daviot rings.

Mzora isn't the only stone circle in Africa to share its construction methodology with British sites. The Nabta Playa stone ring in Southern Egypt conforms to Alexander Thom's 'Type I egg' geometry. But at present Mzora is unmanaged, exposed and vulnerable, so this monument surely deserves better protection and further study.

Further information on Mzora:

Lost Cities and Remote Places:
The Mysterious Moroccan Megalithic Menhirs of Mzora
01/14/2011

Stone Circles in Syria

"Syrian Stonehenge" - an exciting discovery that needs to be thoroughly investigated (before the looters get there). At its oldest, it may be a couple thousand years older than the oldest part of Stonehenge in England.  We sure do have a lot to learn yet, don't we... (Photo courtesy Dr. Robert Mason. One of the corbelled stone structures found in the Syrian desert. Archaeologists suspect that its an ancient stone tomb. In the front of it are the remains of a stone circle.)

From the Independent.co.uk
Syria's Stonehenge: Neolithic stone circles, alignments and possible tombs discovered
Monday, 1 March 2010

For Dr. Robert Mason, an archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, it all began with a walk last summer. Mason conducts work at the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery, out in the Syrian Desert. Finds from the monastery, which is still in use today by monks, date mainly to the medieval period and include some beautiful frescoes.

Dr. Mason explains that he “went for a walk” into the eastern perimeter of the site - an area that hasn’t been explored by archaeologists. What he discovered is an ancient landscape of stone circles, stone alignments and what appear to be corbelled roof tombs. From stone tools found at the site, it’s likely that the features date to some point in the Middle East’s Neolithic Period – a broad stretch of time between roughly 8500 BC – 4300 BC.

It is thought that in Western Europe megalithic construction involving the use of stone only dates back as far as ca. 4500 BC. This means that the Syrian site could well be older than anything seen in Europe.

At a recent colloquium in Toronto, Canada, Mason described his shock at discovering the apparent tombs, stone circles and stone alignments: “I was standing up there thinking, oh dear me, I’ve wandered onto Salisbury Plain,”

At the southern end of the landscape there are three apparent tombs. They are about eight metres in diameter and each of them “actually has a chamber in the middle”. The roof is corbelled which suggests that beneath them is “something you would want to seal in.” Each of these corbelled structures had a stone circle beside it, which is about two meters in diameter.

Dr. Mason cautioned that the team did not have the chance to do more than survey the area, so it’s still possible that these corbelled structures could have a purpose other than burial. More work also needs to be done to get a precise date of construction.

Dr. Mason set out to look for more stone circles and chambered structures. This time he brought a monk with him, from the monastery:

“Lurking around in the hills above a Syrian military base with a digital camera in one hand and a GPS unit in the other is the sort of thing that makes you want to have a monk in your presence,” he explained.

The two of them went to a rock outcrop – a place that would have been a good source of flint in ancient times – where he found the remains of several corbelled structures. In the valley below they found another corbelled structure with a stone circle right beside it.

The monk who travelled with him sensed that this high outcrop would have been of great importance to the people who lived here. “This is a high place” he told Mason.

As Mason gazed at the landscape, from the height of the outcrop, he saw stone lines, also known as alignments, going off in different directions. Dr. Mason has a strong background in geology, and knew immediately that these could not be natural features.

“I know what rocks look like, where they belong - these rocks don’t belong in that.”

One of stone lines was “very bizarre,” snaking its way up a hill. Mason followed the line and found that it led to the “biggest complex of tombs of all.”

This particular stone structure has three chambers and was probably the burial place for “the most important person.” In the front of the tomb are the remains of a stone circle. Dr. Mason can’t confirm for sure that this was used as a tomb, until further archaeological work takes place.

The lithics the team found in the landscape are also quite unusual – they don’t seem to be made from local material. Mason explained that local flint is white or dark red, but the material they found is “very good quality brown chert.”

The Neolithic period is a time period when people in the Middle East were beginning to grow crops and adopt farming. They didn’t live in settlements larger than a village. There were no cities in the Middle East or anywhere else in the world.

Professor Edward Banning is a University of Toronto anthropology professor and Neolithic period expert, and has done extensive fieldwork in the Middle East, including Jordan. He said that we need to be careful about drawing conclusions before more fieldwork is done.

“Virtually all the burials that archaeologists have ever discovered from Neolithic sites in that part of the world come from inside settlements – in fact even below floors and houses,” he said. If the corbelled structures are confirmed as burial structures, then this site will represent something new.

“It’s possible that this landscape that Dr. Mason has identified could be an example of off-site burial practices in the Neolithic which would be very interesting.”

This would help settle a mystery that archaeologists have long faced. Banning said that while burials have been found in Neolithic settlements, “Those burials are not high enough in number to account for the number of people who must have died in those settlements. So a number of us for many years have assumed that there must have been off-site mortuary practices of some kind.”

Dr. Mason goes a step further. He says that this site “sounds like Western Europe” and he wonders if this could be an early example of the stone landscapes seen at places like Stonehenge.

Dr. Julian Siggers of the Royal Ontario Museum, another Neolithic specialist, pointed out that it has been argued that agriculture spread from the Near East to Europe. This find creates a question - could these stone landscapes have travelled with them? [Well - duh! Of course they did!  Connect the dots!]

“It’s such an important hypothesis if it’s right that it’s worth telling people about now,” said Mason. “We’ve found something that’s never been found in the Middle East before.”

Professor Banning is sceptical about this idea. He said that stone structures are found throughout the world, pointing to the dolmens found in East Asia. He claims that people in Western Europe could have developed the techniques independently of the people who built the landscape near the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery. [Here's the old argument of 'independent invention' versus 'diffusion.'  As if diffusion would take a kajillion years, instead of just a thousand, or a couple of hundred, along well known and well travelled ancient trade routes (both land and sea).  Geez!]

Prof. Banning also said that Mason’s site may not be entirely unique in the Near and Middle East. He said that archaeologists have detected, via satellite photos, what appear to be cairns and stone circles in other areas, including the deserts of Jordan and Israel. However, he admits that most of these things have not received a lot of archaeological investigation.

That situation is about to change. Dr. Mason plans to return to the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi site this summer with a team of Neolithic experts. The results of their investigations may well put Britain’s Stonehenge in the shade.

Maltese Historian Shut Out of Credit for Discovery

Why? That's what I want to know. What's going on here - what is the story behind this story for such crappy treatment of Mr. Tabone? Whatever it is, shame SHAME on these people who shut him out of receiving the credit that he deserves. Wednesday, 06 January 2010 Megalithic spin? Brockdorff Circle report literally rewrites history Raphael Vassallo The long-awaited official report into the excavations of the Gozo Stone (aka Brockdorff) Circle in Xaghra – a unique underground prehistoric burial site near Ggantija temples – may have rewritten Maltese history in more ways than one: by failing to properly acknowledge that the site was originally discovered by Gozitan historian Joseph Attard Tabone, whose extensive research led to its precise relocation in 1965.Launched yesterday at the Gozo Ministry, Victoria, and edited by Caroline Malone – wife of archaeologist Prof. David Trump, who oversaw the initial excavations – the 521-page volume purports to be an exhaustive collection of articles and papers related to this unique underground Neolithic burial complex. Among the contributors are: Caroline Malone; Prof. Trump; Prof. Anthony Bonanno (Malta); Prof. Simon Stoddard (Cambridge); former Archaeology Curator Tancred Gouder; and the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage, Anthony Pace. But a seminal paper written by Attard Tabone in 1965, detailing the precise circumstances of the burial site’s discovery, was neither included nor even mentioned in the entire book. Instead, the official report into the history of the Brockdorff Circle appears to have minimised Attard Tabone’s entire contribution to its discovery – limiting its only allusion to a single, fleeting line in Chapter 1 (page 5) – while concentrating almost entirely on the contributions of the Trump-led excavations from 1965 onwards. And yet it was Attard Tabone who first alerted Trump to the discovery of three previously unidentified menhirs (standing stones) in a farmer’s rubble wall in 1959; and it was also Attard Tabone who later understood the significance of the find, recognising them as the only external remnants of a stone circle that had been described in historical writings, but subsequently lost. “In 1959 I reported this megalithic wall to Dr David Trump, then Curator of Archaeology,” Mr Attard Tabone said in a 2002 interview with journalist Karl Schembri. “We inspected the site together and he included it in the 1959/60 Museum Report; but we did not realise then, that under our feet lay a great wealth of archaeological material and that this wall was part of the Gozo Stone Circle. The secrets of the site were still hidden in libraries, archives and underground.”It took Attard Tabone another five years to identify the site as part of the lost underground ruin, having established the location through visual evidence in the form of an 18th century illustration by French artist and writer, Jean Houel. Attard Tabone wrote about his discoveries in 1965, detailing the research and surface observations that led him to identify this field as the site of the complex later named the ‘Brockdorff Circle’. But he limited his contribution only to making public the exact location, leaving the actual excavation to professional archaeologists. Surprisingly, however, his crucial paper was ignored altogether by a report supposedly detailing the discovery and excavations of this unique site. Furthermore, the rubble wall in question is passed off in the text as a recent discovery, when in fact there are no fewer than three mentions in Attard Tabone’s historic 1965 paper. To add insult to injury, Attard Tabone himself was not even included in the list of official acknowledgements: only mentioned very casually in a single sentence of the introductory chapter. “How do I feel about it? Hurt, mostly,” an aggrieved Attard Tabone said when contacted yesterday. “After all that hard work - not just to discover the monument, but also to conserve it: I have had to put up with years of abuse by builders who would willingly have reduced it all to rubble, if they had their own way.... And then, after all this, to be left out completely... it’s a great disappointment.” Attard Tabone, who was awarded the Gieh ir-Repubblika medal in 2002 for his outstanding contribution to Maltese history and archaeology, did not attend yesterday’s launch (for though he was omitted from the acknowledgments, he still received an invitation). His absence did not pass unnoticed, and four of the books’ contributors – including its editor, Caroline Malone – took the initiative to pay him a visit at his residence in Gozo afterwards, to hand him an autographed copy of the book. “Their handwritten dedication does acknowledge me as the discoverer of the Gozo Stone Circle,” he confirmed yesterday; but while he admitted that this gesture, which took him completely by surprise, “changes things slightly”, he remains disappointed at the fact that official history left him out of its calculations insofar as the Brockdorff Circle is concerned. Efforts to contact Ms Malone through the offices of Heritage Malta proved futile all day yesterday. An interview with Joseph Attard Tabone from (I believe) 2005 highlights the clash between "developers" and preservationists (such as Mr. Tabone) -- could money possibly have anything to do with the petty treatment of Mr. Tabone's contributions to Maltese archaeology by the authors of the "official" report on the Gozo Stone Circle? I found this image, ironically enough, in a summary of a "pod" lecture description page (Queen's University, Belfast), lecturer: Caroline Malone (see above) identified as: Brochtorff Circle, Gozo Malta -figurine PAIR. Note: I also saw Brockdorff spelled Brochtorff, and also identified as the Xagħra Stone Circle, although the Brochtorff Circle is the second one discovered there, and as I understand it (doing on the fly research), Brochtroff is the younger of the two circles.

Mystery of the Narara Caves

From Fiji Times Online Fred Wesley Sunday, December 13, 2009 Thirteen stones sit hidden in the dense jungles of the range of mountains that make up Nakauvadra in Ra. Caves with drawings sit below them. They remain a mystery for the people of Narara Village. Deep in the jungles above the village of Narara in Ra stand 12 stones of similar size and shape. The thirteenth is a little longer then the rest. They stand as monolithic reminders of an era the people of Narara are struggling to understand. It takes about six hours on foot to get to these ancient monuments at the top of the range of mountains that make up Nakauvadra. The climb through dense foliage is demanding, tough and tiring. If the long distance and height of the mountains don't get to you, the high altitude kicks in after a few minutes. The stones sit in a rough circular formation on the very top of a steep mountain. The dense jungle has overwhelmed the stones, blocking out the rays of the sun, and allowing a thick blanket of green lichen to coat them. . . . The interesting part about the Narara story is that the stones stand on a steep mountain overlooking a number of caves. One of them shelters unusual drawings on the wall. Kemueli Penisoni, 60, was one of four men hunting for pigs who discovered the caves about 30 years ago. "One of the caves had unusual writing on the wall," he remembers. He recalls being awe-struck when he made the discovery. Interestingly, over the years, he never got to see the caves again. "They were just too far away and way off the range of mountains we'd roam when hunting for wild boars. We only came across the caves accidentally in the first place." I'd made the journey to the heart of the mountain range last year and again a fortnight ago with fellow scribes Jone Luvenitoga and Anare Ravula, and a few villagers of Narara led by Miniroti Sarewa, keen to discover what Kemueli had seen as a young man. There was no cave with writing on the wall. But we saw a cave with drawings that captured my imagination, especially considering the fact they were not scratched on the wall but appeared to be chiselled into it. The mouth of the cave faces a little stream and the remains of a cooking spot sits in front of the cave opening. The cave faces the 13 stones hidden high up in the mountains. While villagers like Kemueli can only guess what the monuments and drawings mean, Jone Wailevu, a researcher in ancient Fijian culture, believes they are important for the people of this country. He believes the Narara site is an ancient worship plateau dedicated to the oldest religion in the world, the worship of nature. "The indigenous inhabitants probably chose the site for its height, with its panoramic view of their world, especially the eastern seaboard. The significance of the east for the ancient people is that it is the front of the Earth where the day and night begin, the rising of the sun and moon." "The Narara cult would have been prominent in its day as the mount of the gods. Its seclusion, non-accessibility and panoramic view denote its role as the place from which the gods bless the whole of Fiji. "At the foot of the mountain would probably reside the various social groups that define their culture in terms of the cultus. "Visiting worshippers from the whole of Fiji would probably present their gifts at that point and receive in return a blessing from the priestesses. Solutions to problems and methods of traditional etiquette would also probably be expounded there. "So, Narara would have been a very busy commercial centre with travelers coming from faraway places. "In fact, ancient roads like the tualeita (legendary ancient Fijian route) receive new meaning under the Narara cult as sacred pathways to the gods. "Also the fundamental ideal is the close relationship of those ancients to nature. The Narara cult was probably a part of nature and not a conqueror of nature. "That would have been the drawcard of the cult until nature changed. "The discovery of the cult is a cultural heritage of immense importance as it ridicules history enforced from colonial times. What about Fiji's hidden history waiting to be discovered? "We have been overtly reminded by our cannibal and war past, but Narara speaks to us of another rich and undiscovered culture that time can no longer hold in bondage. It wants to be heard and speak to this generation. We can learn from Narara as time is not yet up." He believes the stones held a lot of meanings for the ancient people of Narara. "The 12 stones arranged in a circular formation probably depicted the 12 complete cycles of the full moon from one harvest to the next. "Usually, upon the completion of the 12 full moons, the harvest had not been reached probably by a week, days or hours and the normal practice was to add on another moon - the 13th. "The 12 stones being a complete number but to enable rebirth or the continuation of the circular motion, the 13 or the number of rebirth had to be added on." Kemueli believes the monuments stand for something important. What message they hold though, he does not know. "It would be good to know what they all mean," Miniroti says. For now, the stones and caves sit silently as reminders of an ancient past.

* * * * *

It is sad that serious study of the Narara site and the associated caves and their carvings (?) has not been undertaken. I want to add that the circle may have been depicting a lunar calendar of 13-cycles of 28 days each (equals 364 days), and was not related to "12" months plus a little extra. After all, if their were priestesses attending the site as the article mentions, they would have been well attuned to their menstrual cycles of approximately 28 days average and they may well have experienced the well-established phenomenon that women who are closely associated with each other tend to "sync" their menstrual cycles together! They may also have discovered the close association of their menstrual cycles to the well-known cycles of the Moon. It is very sad that the descendants of the original settlers have lost so much of their history. I could not locate any photographs of the caves, the carvings or the standing stones on the internet. I was shocked. I thought something would be out there.

Michigan Underwater "Stonehenge" Back In the News

Origins of underwater stones a mystery Last update: 12:09 p.m. EST Feb. 9, 2009 TRAVERSE CITY, Mich., Feb 9, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- An archaeologist says it remains a mystery how a circle of stones initially arrived at the floor of Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay. Underwater archeologist Mark Holley said while he first discovered the underwater stones in 2007, no one has been able to prove whether the rocks were placed there by nature or by mankind, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday. "The first thing I said when I came out of the water was, 'Oh no, I wish we wouldn't have found this,'" Holley said of his discovery. "This is going to invite so much controversy that this is where we're going to be for the next 20 years." In fact, several state officials and members of native tribes have expressed interest in the stone formation since it was discovered. Holley is hoping to put the growing mystery to rest this summer when he and a Northwestern Michigan College student perform laser scans of the underwater image. The Tribune said the scans will allow the researchers to make a computer model of the site, which is currently protected as a potential Native American site. www.upi.com

"Stonehenge" in Lake Michigan?

This may be one of those "don't eat that, Elmer" stories. From NBCChicago.com: Stonehenge in Lake Michigan? Potentially pre-historic stone formation discovered deep underwater By MATT BARTOSIK Updated 8:36 AM CST, Thu, Jan 8, 2009 The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales… and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan. According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon—an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years ago. Archaeologists had been hired to survey the Lake's floor near Traverse City, Michigan, and examine old boat wrecks with a sonar device. They discovered sunken boats and cars and even a Civil War-era pier. But among these expected finds was a potentially-prehistoric surprise. "When you see it in the water, you're tempted to say this is absolutely real," Holley told reporters at the time. "But that's what we need the experts to come in and verify." Specialists involved in the case are skeptical and want to gather more info before making a judgment. The problem? "They want to actually see it," said Holley. "Experts in petroglyphs generally don't dive, so we're running into a bit of a stumbling block there." The formation, if authenticated, wouldn't be completely out of place. Stone circles and other petroglyph sites are located in the area. While Chicago has an interesting and colorful history of its own, it's exciting to think that a North American version of Stonehenge could be sitting just over 200 miles away. Copyright NBC Local Media / NBC Chicago First Published: Jan 8, 2009 7:50 AM CST

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I'll say this for Dr. Holley - he's a cutie in the publicity photo (but he probably doesn't look like that anymore, he looks about 12 in that photo). If this is the same Dr. Mark Holley as referenced in the article, he's got credentials so he's not necessarily blowing smoke when it comes to his reported discovery of a stone circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. Okay - did a little digging, found a photo. Hmmm, doesn't look like a stone circle at all, just a bunch of rocks and stones in no particular order. And here's a photo of the "mastadon" carved rock. Come to think of it, I do recall something about this mastadon carving story, I don't remember if I blogged about it or not - or if we posted the story at Random Round-up at Goddesschess. I guess one has to be a trained archaeologist to see the mastodon in that rock, even with the helpful red outline drawn on the image!

Göbekli Tepe - Oldest Constructed Place of Worship Yet Discovered

From Archaeology Magazine: The World's First Temple Volume 61 Number 6, November/December 2008 by Sandra Scham Turkey's 12,000-year-old stone circles were the spiritual center of a nomadic people [Image: carved pillar, two boars and what the article calles "ostrich-like" birds on the top] At first glance, the fox on the surface of the limestone pillar appears to be a trick of the bright sunlight. But as I move closer to the large, T-shaped megalith, I find it is carved with an improbable menagerie. A bull and a crane join the fox in an animal parade etched across the surface of the pillar, one of dozens erected by early Neolithic people at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. The press here is fond of calling the site "the Turkish Stonehenge," but the comparison hardly does justice to this 25-acre arrangement of at least seven stone circles. The first structures at Göbekli Tepe were built as early as 10,000 B.C., predating their famous British counterpart by about 7,000 years. The oldest man-made place of worship yet discovered, Göbekli Tepe is "one of the most important monuments in the world," says Hassan Karabulut, associate curator of the nearby Urfa Museum. He and archaeologist Zerrin Ekdogan of the Turkish Ministry of Culture guide me around the site. Their enthusiasm for the ancient temple is palpable. By the time of my visit in late summer, the excavation team lead by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute has wrapped up work for the season. But there is still plenty to see, including three excavated circles now protected by a large metal shelter. The megaliths, which may have once supported roofs, are about nine feet tall. Göbekli Tepe's circles range from 30 to 100 feet in diameter and are surrounded by rectangular stone walls about six feet high. Many of the pillars are carved with elaborate animal figure reliefs. In addition to bulls, foxes, and cranes, representations of lions, ducks, scorpions, ants, spiders, and snakes appear on the pillars. Freestanding sculptures depicting the animals have also been found within the circles. During the most recent excavation season, archaeologists uncovered a statue of a human and sculptures of a vulture's head and a boar. As we walk around the recently excavated pillars, the site seems at once familiar and exotic. I have seen stone circles before, but none like these. Excavations have revealed that Göbekli Tepe was constructed in two stages. The oldest structures belong to what archaeologists call the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, which ended around 9000 B.C. Strangely enough, the later remains, which date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, or about 8000 B.C., are less elaborate. The earliest levels contain most of the T-shaped pillars and animal sculptures. Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt downplays extravagant spiritual interpretations of Göbekli Tepe, such as the idea, made popular in the press, that the site is the inspiration for the Biblical Garden of Eden. But he does agree that it was a sanctuary of profound significance in the Neolithic world. He sees it as a key site in understanding the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from tribal to regional religion. Schmidt and his colleagues estimate that at least 500 people were required to hew the 10- to 50-ton stone pillars from local quarries, move them from as far as a quarter-mile away, and erect them. How did Stone Age people achieve the level of organization necessary to do this? Hauptmann speculates that an elite class of religious leaders supervised the work and later controlled the rituals that took place at the site. If so, this would be the oldest known evidence for a priestly caste--much earlier than when social distinctions became evident at other Near Eastern sites. [Typical assumption, that the ancient people used an organizational structure similar to our hierarchal way of thinking! Why not just admit the truth, WE DON'T KNOW, and leave it at that.] Before the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, archaeologists believed that societies in the early Neolithic were organized into small bands of hunter-gatherers and that the first complex religious practices were developed by groups that had already mastered agriculture. Scholars thought that the earliest monumental architecture was possible only after agriculture provided Neolithic people with food surpluses, freeing them from a constant focus on day-to-day survival. A site of unbelievable artistry and intricate detail, Göbekli Tepe has turned this theory on its head. [Yes, and if we were wrong about that, what else are we wrong about?] Schmidt believes the people who created these massive and enigmatic structures came from great distances. It seems certain that once pilgrims reached Göbekli Tepe, they made animal sacrifices. Schmidt and his team have found the bones of wild animals, including gazelles, red deer, boars, goats, sheep, and oxen, plus a dozen different bird species, such as vultures and ducks, scattered around the site. Most of these animals are depicted in the sculptures and reliefs at the site. There is still much that we don't understand about religious practices at Göbekli Tepe, Schmidt cautions. But broadly speaking, the animal images "probably illustrate stories of hunter-gatherer religion and beliefs," he says, "though we don't know at the moment." The sculptors of Göbekli Tepe may have simply wanted to depict the animals they saw, or perhaps create symbolic representations of the animals to use in rituals to ensure hunting success. Schmidt has another theory about how Göbekli Tepe became a sacred place. Though he has yet to find them, he believes that the first stone circles on the hill of the navel marked graves of important people. Hauptmann's team discovered graves at Nevali Cori, and Schmidt is reasonably confident that burials lie somewhere in the earliest layers of Göbekli Tepe. This leads him to suspect the pillars represent human beings and that the cult practices at this site may initially have focused on some sort of ancestor worship. The T-shaped pillars, he points out, look like human bodies with the upper part of the "T" resembling a head in profile. Once, Schmidt says, they stood on the hillside "like a meeting of stone beings." Sandra Scham is ARCHAEOLOGY's Washington, D.C., correspondent and a fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. © 2008 by the Archaeological Institute of Americawww.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney

From News.scotsman.com Digging up the past at ancient stone circle Published Date: 02 July 2008 By John Ross WORK will start next week to unearth the secrets of one of Europe's most important prehistoric sites. The Ring of Brodgar in Orkney, the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles and thought to date back to 3000-2000BC, is regarded by archaeologists as an outstanding example of Neolithic settlement and has become a popular tourist attraction in the islands. It is believed it was part of a massive ritual complex but little is known about the monument, including its exact age or purpose. It is hoped part of the mystery will be explained during a month-long programme of investigations by a 15-strong team of archaeologists and scientists from Orkney College, Stirling and Manchester universities and the Scottish Universities Environment Reactor Centre. The project will involve the re-excavation and extension of trenches dug in 1973. Geophysical surveys will be undertaken to investigate the location of standing stones and other features within the henge monument. Dr Jane Downes, of Orkney College's archaeology department, one of the project directors, said: "Because so little is known about the Ring of Brodgar, a series of assumptions have taken the place of archaeological data. The interpretation of what is arguably the most spectacular stone circle in Scotland is therefore incomplete and unclear. "The advanced techniques now at our disposal mean that this time our investigations should establish when the Ring of Brodgar was built and help us learn a great deal more about it."

More on the Rochdale Circle

From the Rochdale Observer

Magic and mystery tour
Alice McKeegan 29/ 4/2008

(Photo: POINTING the way ... Observer reporter Alice McKeegan and archaeologist for a guided tour and (right) the breathtaking stone circle site.) AFTER a month of waiting and wondering, the mystery of the stone circle has finally been captured on camera.

I have just been treated to an exclusive guided tour of the moors north of Rochdale by Stuart Mendelsohn, the archaeologist who believes he has discovered a stone circle as old as Stonehenge.

We have been asked not to reveal the exact location of the stone circle until Greater Manchester’s county archaeologist visits the site, hopefully later this month, to investigate Mr Mendelsohn’s theory.

The Sweden-based archaeologist made a special trip to the Observer offices for a chat and then took me to the site to see for myself just what all the fuss is about.

Mr Mendelsohn said: "This discovery could really put Rochdale on the map and change the way that the town is viewed. I think that there will be more sites in the area which are significant but we will have to wait and see what the experts say when they visit."

Our photographer Sean Hansford was on hand to capture the moment and snapped some stunning images of the findings. [Too bad none of them accompanied the article, but then, it might give away the location, which I'm sure looters already know about anyway.]

Despite being warned to expect freezing temperatures, as usual vanity stood in my way and I turned up wearing my designer trench coat, Prada trainers and highly inappropriate jeans.

Within minutes I regretted not bringing some wellies and a woolly hat, but thankfully, photographer Sean (or Saint Sean as I’ve renamed him) did the gentlemanly thing and offered me his comfy coat which I duly accepted.

This severely compromised my style but my appearance was the last thing on my mind by this stage.

We were taken to see the circle and the cairns, which even impressed an old cynic like me. I was struck by the tranquillity and magical atmosphere of the site and the views of Rochdale were absolutely breathtaking.

The cairns were beautiful but some of the stones were obscured by peat – understandable after 3,000 years. After glimpsing the site, my imagination started to run wild and it wasn’t hard to envisage just what the area would have been like thousands of years ago.

As a Rochdalian, I was stunned by the rustic beauty of the countryside and the visit has inspired me to return with a picnic, albeit on a warmer day.

Even after just a few hours in Mr Mendelsohn’s company, it was obvious that his life is completely dedicated to archaeology and the strength of his commitment was inspirational. He is determined that the circle will be properly surveyed and the significance of the site noted in the record books.

So far, English Heritage has confirmed that the area was of Bronze Age significance and that there were two cairns that probably date from the same period as Stonehenge.

The Bronze Age was the period from 3,000BC to 700BC when metal first began to be widely used in Britain. Middleton-born Mendelsohn, aged 52, estimates 20 stones in a precise arrangement marked a sacred site to the people of prehistoric Rochdale.

The discovery hasn’t just captured our imagination, we’ve had dozens of letters and emails from experts, offering their help with possible excavations.

One of these offers came from Michael Newark, a member of the Megalithic Portals website. He’s a dowsing expert and wrote to the Observer to plead for further investigations to take place.

He wrote: "Having just a brief look around Rochdale I was amazed to find so many interesting places that show this unique energy from the past. Without doubt these places over time would have become places of worship where local and people from afar would have travelled to visit, and enjoy the power and influence for good of this site. These are places where a controlled dig should take place to ensure all finds are recorded."

Mr. Mendelsohn echoed these sentiments, hoping that the site will be secured and preserved for future generations to enjoy for thousands of years to come.

Oldest "Temple Complex" at 11,500 Years Old

From news consolidator Archaeology News, article from Eurasianet.org: CIVIL SOCIETY TURKEY: DISCOVERY OF 12,000-YEAR-OLD TEMPLE COMPLEX COULD ALTER THEORY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT Nicholas Birch 4/17/08 As a child, Klaus Schmidt used to grub around in caves in his native Germany in the hope of finding prehistoric paintings. Thirty years later, representing the German Archaeological Institute, he found something infinitely more important -- a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable on the planet. "This place is a supernova", says Schmidt, standing under a lone tree on a windswept hilltop 35 miles north of Turkey’s border with Syria. "Within a minute of first seeing it I knew I had two choices: go away and tell nobody, or spend the rest of my life working here." Behind him are the first folds of the Anatolian plateau. Ahead, the Mesopotamian plain, like a dust-colored sea, stretches south hundreds of miles to Baghdad and beyond. The stone circles of Gobekli Tepe are just in front, hidden under the brow of the hill. Compared to Stonehenge, Britain’s most famous prehistoric site, they are humble affairs. None of the circles excavated (four out of an estimated 20) are more than 30 meters across. What makes the discovery remarkable are the carvings of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions, and their age. Dated at around 9,500 BC, these stones are 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge. Never mind circular patterns or the stone-etchings, the people who erected this site did not even have pottery or cultivate wheat. They lived in villages. But they were hunters, not farmers. "Everybody used to think only complex, hierarchical civilizations could build such monumental sites, and that they only came about with the invention of agriculture", says Ian Hodder, a Stanford University Professor of Anthropology, who, since 1993, has directed digs at Catalhoyuk, Turkey’s most famous Neolithic site. "Gobekli changes everything. It’s elaborate, it’s complex and it is pre-agricultural. That fact alone makes the site one of the most important archaeological finds in a very long time." With only a fraction of the site opened up after a decade of excavations, Gobekli Tepe’s significance to the people who built it remains unclear. Some think the site was the center of a fertility rite, with the two tall stones at the center of each circle representing a man and woman. It’s a theory the tourist board in the nearby city of Urfa has taken up with alacrity. Visit the Garden of Eden, its brochures trumpet, see Adam and Eve. Schmidt is skeptical about the fertility theory. He agrees Gobekli Tepe may well be "the last flowering of a semi-nomadic world that farming was just about to destroy," and points out that if it is in near perfect condition today, it is because those who built it buried it soon after under tons of soil, as though its wild animal-rich world had lost all meaning. But the site is devoid of the fertility symbols that have been found at other Neolithic sites, and the T-shaped columns, while clearly semi-human, are sexless. "I think here we are face to face with the earliest representation of gods", says Schmidt, patting one of the biggest stones. "They have no eyes, no mouths, no faces. But they have arms and they have hands. They are makers." "In my opinion, the people who carved them were asking themselves the biggest questions of all," Schmidt continued. "What is this universe? Why are we here?" With no evidence of houses or graves near the stones, Schmidt believes the hill top was a site of pilgrimage for communities within a radius of roughly a hundred miles. He notes how the tallest stones all face southeast, as if scanning plains that are scattered with archeological sites in many ways no less remarkable than Gobekli Tepe. Last year, for instance, French archaeologists working at Djade al-Mughara in northern Syria uncovered the oldest mural ever found. "Two square meters of geometric shapes, in red, black and white - a bit like a Paul Klee painting," explains Eric Coqueugniot, the University of Lyon archaeologist who is leading the excavation. Coqueugniot describes Schmidt’s hypothesis that Gobekli Tepe was meeting point for feasts, rituals and sharing ideas as "tempting," given the site’s spectacular position. But he emphasizes that surveys of the region are still in their infancy. "Tomorrow, somebody might find somewhere even more dramatic." Director of a dig at Korpiktepe, on the Tigris River about 120 miles east of Urfa, Vecihi Ozkaya doubts the thousands of stone pots he has found since 2001 in hundreds of 11,500 year-old graves quite qualify as that. But his excitement fills his austere office at Dicle University in Diyarbakir."Look at this", he says, pointing at a photo of an exquisitely carved sculpture showing an animal, half-human, half-lion. "It’s a sphinx, thousands of years before Egypt. Southeastern Turkey, northern Syria - this region saw the wedding night of our civilization." Editor’s Note: Nicolas Birch specializes in Turkey, Iran and the Middle East. Posted April 17, 2008 © Eurasianet http://www.eurasianet.org ***************************************************************************************** Wikipedia has information on Gobekli Tepe and several photographs. See also this information from the German Archaeology Institute, which dates the oldest layer to about 11,000 years ago (9000 BCE), with more photographs.