🚀 go-pugleaf

	>	I'd just like to point out to those interested that Stonehenge
	> was old by the time the Celts arrived in the british isles. If I
	> remember aright, the first stage of Stonehenge was started ~2000 B.C.,
	> the Celts as a culture didn't even emerge on the continent until
	> c. 800 B.C. and didn't migrate to britain until c. 400 B.C.

	The dates you site are largely the product of Sir Flinders Petrie who
was a very influential archaeologist in the last century. These dates were
arrived at entirely without the benefit of carbon-14 dating and reflect the
personal prejudices of their author. Sir Flinders theorized, for instance, that
metalworking was discovered in the "advanced" civilizations of the middle east,
Egypt and Syria, and then spread to the "barbarians" of northern Europe. A
recent BBC-produced tv program called "Masters of Metal" revealed that Sir
Flinders was really all wet.
	You can get a transcript of the program as I did by writing to:
Odyssey, Box 1000, Boston, MA 02118. It seems that according to the latest
evidence metalworking was really invented by the "barbarian" Celts of northern
Europe who then traded some of their products to the "civilized" cultures of
the middle east. Sir Flinders had it just exactly backwards. Similarly, the
dates Sir Flinders worked out placed the Celts on the Atlantic coast at one
date and not arriving in Britain (26 miles across the channel) until some 800
years later. Talk about a slow boat to China!
	In "Stonehenge Decoded" Hawkins asks the question: "Who did build
Stonhenge?" and then spends the next four pages going through ancient Celtic
tradition. On pages 44 and 45 of the same book Hawkins mentions some artifacts
which were found in the "Aubrey holes" at Stonehenge. He says:

		"By 1964 some 34 of the Aubrey holes had been excavated, and
	of these, 25 contained cremations of humans. It was a general practice
	during the Stone Age to deposit useful objects with cremations, and
	embedded with the bones in the rubble were found long bone pins - for
	men's as well as women's hair buns?"

	He correctly inserted a question mark at the end because he was unsure
of the answer. But, if he had been an archaeologist and more familiar he might
have recognized the long bone pins as clothing fasteners used among the Celts
in ancient times. These bone pins eventually evolved into the brooch which is
still worn by bagpipers in traditional costume.
	Recently, an ancient ceremonial axe head was found in Ireland. It was
dated to about 9,000 years ago. It was embellished with decorations which are
considered uniquely Celtic and almost identical to decorations on the Tara
Brooch, an artifact of known provenance in Celtic Ireland.
	Furthermore, recent findings by Prof. Barry Fell (Prof. emeritus of
Harvard) and others show that Celtic people arrived in North America some
time around 2000 B.C. They set up dolmens and menhirs (using the same
megalithic yard for measurement that was used in Stonehenge and other places
in Europe) and even left inscriptions in Ogham in America. For further details
consult:
	America B.C.			Barry Fell
	Saga America			Barry Fell
	The Search for Lost America	Salvatore Michael Trento

	They were then culturally absorbed into American Indian culture. It
doesn't seem logical that the Celts would travel a couple of thousand miles to
America and bypass the British Isles only 26 miles away. In addition the whole
countryside around Stonehenge is covered with stone structures which are
characteristically Celtic. Stonehenge itself was a temple to the Celtic deities
Bel (the sun) and Danae (the moon). Refer to my previous article "Stonehenge:
Cultural Background and John Michell's book, "Secrets of the Stones" for
further details.

   	> Trying to interpret Stonehenge is an exercise in futillity. We are
	> looking at something that was built by a neolithic culture from a
	> postindustrial, christianized point of view (even if you're an
	> athiest, western civilization has been inundated by the christian
	> world view for something like 2000 years, so your thought patterens
	> are steeped in christian thought). We'll never know for sure what
	> went on there or what the astronomical alignments ment to the people
	> who built it. I admit that studying Stonehenge out of a sence of
	> curiosity is fun, but our conclusions will never be more than
	> speculation.

	The translation of Egyptian hieroglyphs was also once considered
futile. In fact, what right do we have to try to understand any ancient
culture? And yet people still go on doing it. Moreover, how can we ever
understand the stars and galaxies which are light-years or parsecs away from
us? We can only offer hypotheses, which is what I'm doing, and attempt to prove
or disprove these through experimentation.

					J. M. McGhee
					bonnie!jmm