Saturday 18 July 2020

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



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"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

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