Second appearance on the Lotus Eaters

I dropped in on Beau at the Lotus Eaters to chat about British prehistory. In this clip I explain Celtic hill forts..

In this clip I compare the megalith folk to the Beaker folk. Who was more advanced?

Neolithic Iberia - 5000 year old Idols and Megaliths!

Who built the Neolithic stone circles, cromlechs and tombs of Portugal and Spain? Why did these people make strange plaque shaped idols? Where did they come from and who are the Bell Beaker people who invaded Iberia and replaced the megalith culture? All such questions are answered in this documentary about Neolithic Iberia.

Sources:

-Cassidy et al (2020). -Fitzpatrick et al ‘Bell Beaker connections along the Atlantic façade: the gold ornaments from Tablada del Rudrón, Burgos, Spain’ in ‘Analysis of the Economic Foundations Supporting the Social Supremacy of the Beaker Groups’ (2016). -Olalde et al (2019). -Ramirez et al (2005). -Rivolatt et al (2020). -Shennan, S. “The First Farmers of Europe” (2018) -Valera et al (2014).

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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Western Hunter Gatherer #Illustration

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

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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

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

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

Documentary: Ancient History of Ireland, Newgrange, Celts, Vikings

Ireland has a rich and fascinating ancient history; from the great megalithic structures of the Neolithic, like Newgrange, to the spectacular gold jewellery of the Indo-European Bell Beaker folk, the weapon hoards of the Irish Bronze Age, the enigmatic La Tene Celtic art of the Iron Age and the intricate knot-work of the Hiberno-Norse in the Irish Viking age. I look at all of these in this brief account of the history of Ireland, and then I discover a gothic castle called Knockdrinn, in which my ancestors lived, and which local people believe to be haunted. Finally, I read some spooky accounts of the ghostly creatures of the castle taken from the folklore collection at University College Dublin.

Original Art by Christian Sloan Hall

Sources:

‘Analysis of the Economic Foundations Supporting the Social Supremacy of the Beaker Groups’, Fitzpatrick, Doce, Vazquez, (2016)
‘Bog Bodies – Kingship and Sacrifice’, Eamonn P Kelly (2006)
Reconstruction of Newgrange by Michael J. O'Kelly
‘Black Pool: Hiberno-Norse identity in Viking Age and Early Medieval Ireland’, Anton Amlé, (2014)
Folklore Collection UCD  

Who Killed the Stonehenge People?

Stone Ships and Goddess Cult of Västmanland

Contemplating the Stones: Neolithic Mysteries of Britain

Rewriting Stonehenge's history