Megalithic 'God-Kings' of the Megalith Culture - History Documentary

New discoveries in archaeology and ancient DNA have provided fascinating insights into the mysterious people who built Newgrange and Stonehenge. 2020 has seen the discovery of the world's largest prehistoric monument, a massive Mega-henge right next to Stonehenge at Durrington. At the same time, scientists have looked at the DNA of dozens of skeletons from Neolithic people of Britain and Ireland and realised that, far from being egalitarian, these megalith building societies had an elite caste comprised of what appear to be closely related, and in one case severely inbred, god-kings. Whilst looking through the new data, I came to realise that there was an interesting correlation among the phenotypes of this Neolithic elite - and I have a theory that the inbreeding may be related to a deliberate attempt to preserve archaic phenotypes from Mesolithic hunter gatherers, who the Neolithic invaders intermixed with when they first arrived in Britain and Ireland. In this new documentary you will learn all about megalithic people and their monuments; from passage tombs, to long barrows, dolmens and stone circles. Never before has such revealing light been shone into the darkness of this mysterious stone age culture.

Sources 

-Cassidy el al (2016) https://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368|
-Cassidy et al (2020)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2378-6.epdf

-Horton’s Neolithic houses (2014)  https://www.archaeology.co.uk/articles/hortons-neolithic-houses.htm

-Olalde et al (2018) https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25738

-Paulsson, B. S., (2018) https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/9/3460.full.pdf

-Rivolatt et al (2020)  https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/22/eaaz5344

-Rivollat et al (2015) https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0125521 

- Shennan, S. “The First Farmers of Europe” (2018)

- Info on SUERC-9172 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2017/05/09/135962.DC1/135962-1.pdf

Art:

Bell beaker people by Christian Sloan Hall

Inbred god king by Alex Cristi

WHG by Ryan Murray

View this post on Instagram

Western Hunter Gatherer #Illustration

A post shared by 𝐑𝐘𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐑𝐀𝐘 Illustration (@artofryanmurray) on Jul 11, 2020 at 3:38pm PDT

View this post on Instagram

"Is she really going out with him?" It is surprising to learn that the Neolithic colonisation of Britian and Ireland did not follow the familiar course which is usually repeated throughout history when advanced sedentary agricultural cultures encroach on the lands of indigenous hunter gatherers. Although most were replaced, they also intermixed. But it wasn't the farmer men who took native wives, it was the other way around! All of the paternal lineages of Neolithic Britain and Ireland came not from the Neolithic race themselves but from the smaller minority of native WHG men! This beautiful artwork by @artofryanmurray was created for my new video on the subject of the megalith builders and their DNA. It will be live tonight! #WHG #westernhuntergatherer #megalithicmarvels #megalith #neolithic #mesolithic #stonecircle #ancientbritain #ancientireland #newgrange #eef #huntergatherer #earlyfarming #ancienthistory

A post shared by Survive the Jive (@survivethejive) on Jul 18, 2020 at 7:14am PDT

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Survive the Jive (@survivethejive) on Jul 16, 2020 at 5:43am PDT

Is Devon Celtic? What's the difference between Devon and Cornwall?

EDIT: Since writing this blog post a thorough genetic study of ancient British and Anglo-Saxon samples has been published by Gretzinger et al (2022).  The data in the supplements show that the people of Devon are about 37% Early Anglo-Saxon (CNE), 35% Iron Age Briton (WBI), and 26% Medieval French (CWE) meaning the Germanic ancestry is their dominant component. Cornwall is estimated to be 21% CNE 51% WBI and 26% French


There are some people who erroneously insist that Devon, like Cornwall, was founded on a Celtic rather than English identity. One such individual is attempting to rewrite local history on Wikipedia to claim that Devon is not English. That is simply not the case. Devon has more Anglo-Saxon DNA than Cornwall does, and has not preserved any Celtic language at all. In fact the Devon dialect uniquely preserves some archaic Old English elements which have been lost elsewhere, about which you can learn in the video below.