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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
Diffusion
Hyperdiffusion
Hyperdiffusion is defined by Wikipedia(n) as “a pseudoarchaeological hypothesis suggesting that certain historical technologies or ideas originated with a single people or civilization before their adoption by other cultures. Thus, all great civilizations that share similar cultural practices, such as construction of pyramids, derived them from a single common progenitor. According to its proponents, examples of hyperdiffusion can be found in religious practices, cultural technologies, megalithic monuments, and lost ancient civilizations.”
Hyperdiffusion with Atlantis at its centre was argued at great length by Ignatius Donnelly when he proposed Atlantis as the mother culture, located in the Atlantic. Through colonisation and migration, their civilisation was brought to the Americas and the Mediterranean, particularly Egypt. The idea received widespread support at the time>>from people such as the Rev. Joseph Cook<<and has persisted until today(a), with Graham Hancock being currently the best-known proponent of hyperdiffusion. In 2022, Marco Vigato also advocated Atlantis as a hyperdiffusionist hub.
A similar hyperdiffusionist proposal was made by James Churchward regarding his Pacific island of Mu.
Angelo Mazzoldi expressed support for a form of regional hyperdiffusion that had his Italian Atlantis as the mother culture which seeded all the great civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean region.
However, even earlier, in the seventeenth century, Olof Rudbeck “purported to prove that Sweden was Atlantis, the cradle of civilization, and Swedish the original language of Adam from which Latin and Hebrew had evolved.”(i)
Since Atlantis in the Atlantic is considered by many to be highly improbable and Mu only existed in Churchward’s imagination, a more likely explanation is that diverse ideas emerged independently in different locations, possibly around the same time. These developments then diffused through trade and migration in various directions, sometimes returning in an improved format. The result is that today we are finding that most ancient civilisations show evidence of cultural influences from more than one source.
Lawrence Freeman is the American author of Beyond The Pillars: a search for Antediluvian civilizations(l) in which he reviews almost every civilisation and prehistoric mystery that you ever heard of. He refers to Atlantis throughout the book, but in rather sceptical tones, with the nearest to a conclusion being that – “Atlantis may well have never existed, but if it did exist, then it was likely only as part of a worldwide antediluvian civilization that is now coming to light.”
Richard Cassaro and Jim Allen have both published online large collections of images(b)(c)(d) that clearly demonstrate widespread diffusion. This is particularly so in the case of South America where influences from both east and west are clearly evident. While it is regularly claimed that Egypt influenced South American civilisations it is obvious that Asian inspiration was equally, if not solely, at work. The existence of pyramids in both Egypt and Mesoamerica is put forward as evidence of contact between them. However, the problem is that the American pyramids were constructed hundreds if not thousands of years later than the Egyptian ones. However, in spite of this separation by time and distance, the Egyptians and the Aztecs also shared feathered-serpent deities(g)! What appears to be overlooked is the fact that the Chinese pyramids are more like Mesoamerican examples and are dated to the second half of the first millennium BC, again closer to the development of pyramids in Mesoamerica.
Christian O’Brien contended that global cultural hyperdiffusion was centred in Southern Lebanon (the Garden of Eden) and was spread from there by ‘The Shining Ones’ leading to the establishment of some of the great civilisations of our ancient past!(m)
An even more unusual hyperdiffusionist opinion was expressed by the Argentine palaeontologist, Florintino Ameghino (1854-1911), who thought that mankind originated in South America(h) and spread globally from there!
In 2020, Anthony Woods [1775] attempted to prove that Atlantis was Ireland and also the source of the mother culture for the entire world. As an Irishman, when reading this, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
In March 2021, Hugh Newman published a paper drawing attention to the similarity of megalithic building techniques, using polygonal stones, found in America, Asia, Europe and Africa. He goes further, noting that “Peruvian relief carvings match those at Göbekli Tepe.” How much of this might be the result of coincidence or hyperdiffusion is a matter of opinion.(k)
Carl Feagans offers a paper that is highly critical of hyperdiffusion and its promoters, denouncing them as “willfully ignorant and grossly racist. Though they don’t say it directly, the message is still the same: “white people did it, not savages.”(j)
A 1986 paper(f) by Ben Urish entitled Cultural Diffusion[0969] should be read in this connection.
(a) https://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=5106.0
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20200629021253/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/artefacts.htm
(e) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pyramids
(f) Wayback Machine (archive.org) *
(g) See: Archive 2827
(h) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180329154212/https://webs.advance.com.ar/lae_tor/teorias.htm
(i) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaus_Rudbeck
(j) https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2016/12/hyper-diffusion-archaeology/
(l) https://lfreeman.blogspot.com/2006/11/beyond-pillars-search-for-antediluvian.html
Sykes, J. Egerton ‘Bill’ *
J. Egerton ‘Bill’ Sykes (1894-1983) was born in London and served as a lieutenant during the First World War. He spoke several languages and as a Foreign Office official was able to travel widely and indulge his passion for studying ancient history. He was arguably the leading British Atlantologist of the 20th century and was ever the gentleman, but, in my opinion, somewhat gullible.
Just before the war, Sykes was secretary to the British Legation in Warsaw. While there he built up a collection of hundreds of books relating to Atlantis. However, when the Germans invaded his library was seized by them(c).
Sykes founded the Atlantis Research Centre during World War II and was editor of Atlantis, a bi-monthly magazine that ran from 1948 until 1975. He also revised and edited a 1950 re-publication of Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis[0021].
He briefly published journals about radiesthesia and UFOs. Sykes had an interest in a number of other subjects, such as ley lines, having been at one time a member of the Old Straight Track Club. He has written a number of books on mythology[569][570][571].
Sykes postulated that Atlantis had begun around 18000 BC and had been a large island in the centre of the Atlantic with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge as a spine, of which the Azores are today its remnants(b). From there he believed that its cultural influence spread both east and west, with Atlantis providing a convenient ‘stepping-stone’ between the two. In 1950, Sykes organised a highly publicised expedition(d), with diving equipment and underwater cameras, seeking artefacts from Atlantis in the vicinity of the Azores.
Atlantisforschung has published a 1967 paper by Sykes supporting diffusionism with particular reference to pyramid building on both sides of the Atlantic(g).
He also believed that the Mediterranean had been divided into two large freshwater lakes created by two landbridges at Gibraltar and Sicily, although he does not seem to back up this idea with any evidence, even though Strato and Seneca refer to the breaching of a dam at Gibraltar.
He was of the opinion that Atlantis had been destroyed by some kind of extraterrestrial impact in the region of the Caribbean(f) and the Carolina coast. This idea led him to embrace some elements of Hans Hoerbiger’s controversial cosmological theories but was also open to considering variations on the impact theme such as that of Kamienski and others. Sykes also gathered worldwide myths and concluded that the biblical Deluge was concurrent with the flooding of Atlantis, around 11000 BC.
Sykes’ extensive library and papers, consisting of over 6,000 items, were purchased in 1979 by A.R.E., founded by Edgar Cayce. There is an official Egerton Sykes website that is worth studying(a) and where back issues of Sykes’ Atlantis magazine may be purchased.
In 1999, Venture Inward magazine published an article(e), The Making of an Atlantean Scholar, by Anne Ruby in which she gave an overview of Sykes’ life and his dedication to the subject of Atlantis. It ends with details of the sale of Sykes’ library to A.R.E. for “a down payment of $1,000 and $200 per month for nearly four years.”
(b) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/18475823?searchTerm=Atlantis discovered&searchLimits=
(c) https://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/42631006?searchTerm=Atlantis&searchLimits=l-availability=y
Caribbean
The Caribbean Region with the many islands of the West Indies is favoured by a number of authors who find in the writings of classical writers evidence of very early knowledge of the islands in the western Atlantic by the peoples of the Mediterranean. As a source, these ancient authors have to be treated with great care, as so much of the historical and geographical details are at best second-hand and sometimes just conjectural if not fictional. This is compounded by the fact that so many of these early writers borrowed from each other so that an early ‘fact’ that is erroneous could be transmitted unchecked for centuries if not permanently.
The seas around many of the Caribbean Islands are quite shallow indicating that during the last Ice Age the exposed land area must have been considerably larger. If Atlantis existed in this region there are many candidate locations.
>Geoffrey Ashe noted that in the 5th century, the neo-Platonist Proclus, quoting a 1st century BC geographer named Marcellus, spoke of three islands of ‘immense extent’ located in the Atlantic Ocean. The inhabitants of the centre of these islands were said to have preserved the memory of a former landmass, identified by Proclus with Atlantis, which had existed thereabouts. In 1962, in Land to the West [740] historian Ashe identified Marcellus’ three great islands with the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean. Moreover, he pointed out that the indigenous peoples of the region preserved the memory of a cataclysm, which had split up a former landmass leaving behind the islands that make the archipelagos, which we have today. All but a few human beings were drowned in this all-encompassing event. Could this have been a memory of the destruction of Atlantis preserved in the Caribbean and brought across the Atlantic by ancient mariners such as the Phoenicians and Carthaginians?<
>Atlantisforschung has drawn attention to the work of Harold T. Wilkins who, in 1952 had pointed out the mythology of the islanders of the West Indies in Secret Cities of Old South America [364], and in particular to the almost astonishing similarities between West Indian-Caribbean and Irish myths. Wilkins also noted: “In the hinterland of the British West Indies island of Trinidad, the Natives of Aboriginal origin affirm that Trinidad is a very old country, and formed part of ‘the greatest country in the world’ many thousands of years ago. This was a time ‘when there was no sea at all’. This large, antediluvian country or continent is called IERE by the natives, which is pronounced almost exactly like EIRE for Ireland. And ancient Trinidad too, the natives say, was known as Iere before the great cataclysm that sank the lost continent” (e).<
>Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés writing in the 16th century[1117] considered the Antilles in the Caribbean to have been the legendary Isles of Hesperides. Andrew Collins also identified Cuba as one of the Hesperides.<
An American researcher, Amy Smith, has produced a website claiming that Atlantis had been located on a now demolished landbridge linking Cuba with the Yucatan Peninsula, in the Caribbean and was destroyed at the end of the last Ice Age when the Mississippi was dramatically swollen by meltwater from the retreating glaciers and poured into the Gulf of Mexico, which was then an enclosed sea. This in turn led to the breaching of the landbridge linking Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula and the destruction of Atlantis in its vicinity. Smith has recently expanded on the events leading to the destruction of Atlantis(b).
Edgar Cayce’s followers in A.R.E. have focused their attention on the Bimini sector of the Bahamas, although Greg Little opted for a location just north of the Isle of Youth off Cuba. Andrew Collins is also convinced that Atlantis was in located near the Isle of Youth, while, more recently, Norman Frey has added his support to the same locality. Mel Fisher claimed to have found Atlantis in the vicinity of Cuba but failed to reveal the exact location before his death. The Italian researcher, Emilio Spedicato, has chosen the nearby island of Hispaniola.
Gábor Bihari, the Hungarian researcher, submitted a paper to the 2008 Atlantis Conference outlining his view that Plato’s Atlantis story was loosely based on reports of a very ancient empire in the Caribbean brought back to Europe by refugees from there after it was inundated at the end of the last Ice Age.
Peter Marsh is a keen diffusionist with a particular interest in the peoples of the Pacific(a). However, this has not precluded him from looking at the Atlantic, where he concluded that the Azores were most likely to be remnants of Atlantis based on Plato’s description. Despite this Marsh published a paper on the Atlantisforschung website unexpectedly entitled The Golden Age – Atlantis in the Caribbean(d).
In December 2009, we were subjected to one of the periodic claims that Atlantis had been ‘found’, this time in the Caribbean. Poor-quality images were offered as evidence of a submerged city. While it is understandable that the discoverers might be reluctant to disclose the exact location, it is more difficult to understand why they were equally unwilling to disclose their own identities. They also claimed, without evidence, that the structures predated the pyramids of Egypt. Funds are now being sought for a fully-fledged expedition.
Jay/Brad Yoon offered support for a Caribbean Atlantis in a short 2012 book, Atlantis Shrugged[1371], in which he claims that a dry Caribbean Basin, 13,000 feet below sea level, was home to Atlantis, but the surrounding ring of mountains retaining the ocean was shattered by an earthquake and flooded Atlantis.
Dr. P.P. Flambas joined the Caribbean supporters in December 2016, with the publication of Plato’s Caribbean Atlantis[1368], a huge tome of over 900 pages.
Even more startling is the wild suggestion that Antigua, one of the Caribbean’s Leeward Islands, in an hour-long YouTube video(c) may have been Atlantis. This rambling, often boring, film offers no real evidence apart from some megalithic features, the likes of which have been found around the world.
In 2019, Eddie Weaver published a short Kindle book, The Antediluvian Signature: Atlantis [1724]. In it, he claimed that a site some miles south of Jamaica, known as Pedro Bank, was the location of Atlantis. He endeavours to support his claim with a subjective interpretation of a lot of Google Earth imagery.
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20190922053225/https://www.polynesian-prehistory.com/
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20131019085533/https://www.losthistorypublishing.com/Atlantis.html
(c) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx6h5qk27Sw
(e) Iere – Das Atlantis der Kariben – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog) *
Megalith Builders
The Megalith Builders, who date mainly from the Neolithic Period, are frequently identified with Plato’s Atlanteans. Their remarkable structures were built between the middle of the fifth and second millennia B.C., a period that is compatible with the final days of Atlantis according to Plato. The building of megalithic structures in Western Europe appears to have ended just before the beginning of the Bronze Age – coincidence? Emmet Sweeney, however, contends that “the great Megalithic-building culture of Atlantic Europe and North Africa commenced around 1100 BC or perhaps a little earlier”! [700.208]
Proponents of the idea of a megalithic building in Atlantis see the location and extent of the megalithic structures as agreeing with Plato’s description, particularly his reference to Atlantis being ‘beyond the Pillars of Heracles’. However, the location of the ‘Pillars’ at the time of Solon’s visit to Egypt, is strongly disputed. In fact, the only territory unambiguously named by Plato as Atlantean was in southern Italy and North Africa along with several islands of which there are many in that region.
However, there are many features in Plato’s narrative that do not conform to our current knowledge of the megalith builders. There is no evidence that they had writing, irrigation technology or navigational skills to mount an attack on Egypt/Athens or any other characteristics ascribed to the Atlanteans by him.
On the other hand, if these attributes are just literary flesh applied to a skeleton of historical truth there is the possibility of a link between the Atlanteans and the megalith builders remaining.
Atlantis enthusiasts are quite happy to associate the megalith builders with Atlantis, as it provides something tangible to enhance the credibility of Plato’s narrative pointing to sites such as Stonehenge or the Maltese Temples. British researcher Robert John Langdon has gone further and proposed that the megalith builders originally came from Africa and settled in Doggerland at the end of the Ice Age, where they established Atlantis[919]. When Doggerland was submerged they migrated to what is now mainland Britain, where they built Stonehenge as a memorial to Atlantis.
Manuel Vega, who places Atlantis in the Atlantic has some novel ideas regarding Stonehenge as well as Ireland’s Newgrange [0868].
Megalith building in North Africa has been documented for over a century. The Hill of Graces[1566] by H.S. Cowper in 1897 concentrated on describing the megaliths in the region of Tripoli. The Mzora Stone Circle is a huge megalithic monument in Morocco and is considered to be the largest stone ellipse in the world. Further east the stone circle of Nabta Playa in Egypt had its importance further highlighted in a 2010 book by Robert Bauval & Thomas G. Brophy, Black Genesis[1508]. A 2012 illustrated paper reviews the range of megalithic monuments found across North Africa(af).
We must, of course, not omit the greatest megalithic monuments of all, namely, the Egyptian pyramids and particularly those at Giza. The apparent sophistication of their builders was greatly enhanced by the introduction of the Orion Correlation Theory (OCT) by Robert Bauval.
In a paper(at) published on Graham Hancock’s website in 2022, Freddy Silva proposed an additional OCT – in Scotland. He suggested that the Pyramids of Giza, and by extension, Orion’s Belt matched the layout of the three stone circles of Stenness, Brodgar and Bookan. In the same paper, he goes further identifying other megalithic monuments in Scotland with counterparts in Sardinia and Armenia! OCT is not without critics.
The megaliths of North Africa are not the only monuments to adorn that continent Atlantisforschung drew my attention to a number of short articles by William Corliss (al)(am)(an) highlighting what has become known as the Senegambian Complex and are now a UNESCO World Heritage site(ak).
Paul Dunbavin in his Atlantis of the West [0099] and Towers of Atlantis [1627] promotes the idea of a megalithic Atlantis centred off the coast of Wales in what is now the Irish Sea. In 2022 Dunbavin recorded(ao) that “In a review of the “Pathways to the Cosmos” conference held at Dublin Castle in September 2018, Liz Henty makes some perhaps surprising comments. She notes that this is the first such conference where archaeologists and archaeoastronomers have combined to broadly agree that some Neolithic monuments in Britain and Ireland were astronomically aligned(ap).
While not a new idea, a megalithic connection with Atlantis has recently been given further attention by the French writer Sylvain Tristan who was inspired by Jean Deruelle and Alan Butler. More recently, Jean-Michel Hermans, a French ethnologist, also added support for a megalithic Atlantis. Alfred deGrazia also joined this club as well as the German author Helmut Tributsch who has added his support to the idea of a megalithic Atlantis, specifically locating its capital on the island of Gavrinis in Brittany. A similar claim has been made by Hank Harrison, who also believes that the Morbihan region was an important Atlantean centre if not the location of its capital. Further support for a megalithic Atlantis has been given by Walter Schilling who places Plato’s city in the Bay of Cadiz. Robert Temple has recently offered grudging support for the concept of Atlantean megalith builders(ac).
Iberia is also home to very many megalithic structures of varying types. Recently, lower waters in a Spanish reservoir revealed once more the impressive 144-stone Dolmen-de-Guadalperal, situated roughly halfway between Madrid and the Portuguese border(z). Efforts are being made to ensure its preservation before the water levels rise again.
The most recent (2022) attempt at linking the megalith builders with Atlanteans has come from a disappointing book by Thomas Sheridan and Neil McDonald [2070], in which their starting point is the magnificent megalithic remains found in the Orkneys that are situated just north of the Scottish mainland.
As far as I am aware classical writers make no obvious reference to the megalith builders, nor has this omission been commented on by modern writers. However, the numerous indirect references to Atlantis by the same ancient writers are deemed inadequate, which seems consistent with a dearth of information regarding early history.
It appears to me that other questions that have not been definitively answered relate to the identity of the megalith builders, why they stopped building and what happened to them. Another thought is that if the megalith builders lived at the same time as the Atlanteans, is it not strange that both disappeared around the same time or did they? My opinion is that we are probably confronted with two unrelated mysteries – the disappearance of the megalith builders and the demise of Atlantis.
Parallel with the megaliths of the eastern Atlantic seaboard are the megaliths of North America(ab), particularly those of New England(ag). Who built them and when? Are they evidence of very early pre-Columbian voyagers from Europe?(b) Nobody seems to have put forward the idea that megalith building might have spread from America to Europe! Is it such a wild suggestion?
Johnni Langer has published a lengthy paper on the prehistoric megaliths of South America and in particular Brazil. Generally speaking references to South American megaliths focus on Tiwanaku or Cuzco, considered to be relatively recent. However, Langer’s article has drawn attention to structures further afield in Brazil that suggest astronomical alignments(ar). Brazil continues to reveal more megalithic structures, unfortunately, in some cases only because of deforestation(au). The Brazilian discoveries have only added to the who and when questions relating to megaliths generally and whether there is any possible connection between the megalith builders and Atlantis.
A 2024 report has drawn attention to a stone circle in Peru. Although it has been known for over 60 years, it was only systematically studied from 2015. It has been dated as 4,700 years old at a location known as Callacpuma(aw).
An interesting article combining all the strange aspects of megalith building can be read online(c) which certainly offers food for thought. A paper(d) published in September 2013 gives a good overview of megalithic studies during the past few decades. Walter Haug’s well-illustrated website(k) offers a range of previously ignored megalithic sites in Germany.
Much nonsense has been written about the megalith builders, particularly on the Internet, where you find daft ideas such as attributing their construction to aliens(a). The suggestion that extraterrestrials had the technology to travel in space but when they land on earth they have to build observatories with stone is just silly. Why would they even need such crude observatories if they had the technology and astronomical knowledge to travel across the cosmos?
A valuable website dealing with the global spread of megalithic monuments is The Megalithic Portal established by Andy Burnham(g), which has regular updates. Other useful sites are Stone Pages(h) and Megalithic Ireland(i). Another site worth a look at is that of Sjur C. Papazian(l). There is also a site(j) dealing specifically with the dolmens of Corsica and Sardinia.
In the Middle East dolmens stretch in a line from the Caucasus(s)(p) to Yemen with a remarkable concentration of them in modern Jordan(m), a fact which prompted a former Dutch ambassador to Jordan, Gajus Scheltema, to write Megalithic Jordan[1206]. Jordan is also home to an ancient mysterious 150 km wall, which was 1-1.5 metres high(u).
Dolmens are also found in more distant lands such as India(r), Korea(n)(v) and Japan(o). It is difficult to look at the worldwide distribution of dolmens and not consider the possibility of some form of global cultural diffusion! Rarely discussed are the widely dispersed megalithic remains found throughout the Pacific islands(q).
A remarkable theory is presented by John M Jensen Jr to explain the function of dolmens throughout the globe, namely that they were constructed to protect from attacks by dinosaurs! This suggestion is part of a paper that claims that humans and dinosaurs co-existed(ad).
Another unusual claim comes from Yair Davidiy, a Brit-Am promoter, who wrote on their website – “Dolmens and Megalithic Monuments originated in Ancient Israel. Jeremiah 31:21 says that the Lost Ten Tribes will construct a trail of Megalithic Monuments from Israel to their places of exile and evidence of this path will enable them to return. Such a trail exists! It is the Trail of the Dolmens from the Middle East to the West.”(ae) As far as I’m aware Davidy has not explained the huge numbers of dolmens in places such as Korea and Japan! Professor W.A. Liebenberg has written a longer piece(aq) on the ‘Lost Tribes’ as the builders of the megaliths. However, since the megalithic building period is generally accepted to have lasted from around 4000 BC until 1500 BC, this created a problem for Davidy and Liebenberg. The disappearance of the Lost Tribes is dated to around 700 BC leading to their dispersal and proposed megalith building as they travelled. D & L include Newgrange (3200 BC) among their monuments and that is where their difficulties begin. Both claim that before 700 BC the year was 360 days in length (after Velikovsky [037.128]) rather than our present 365 days. They argue that if Newgrange (among other monuments) had been built when we had a 360-day year the sun would not still light up the interior at the winter solstice. Therefore, they conclude that most megaliths were erected AFTER 700 BC! An alternative conclusion is that the idea of a 360-day year is flawed and that a date BEFORE 700 BC must be correct!
There is a well-illustrated website offering an overview of the megalithic culture of Western Europe and the Mediterranean(t).
In February 2019 the Smithsonian Magazine had a report telling us that “Bettina Schulz Paulsson, an archaeologist at the University of Gothenburg, reexamined some 2,410 radiocarbon dating results that have been assigned to Europe’s megaliths and put them through a Bayesian statistical analysis. Based on the picture the data presents, Schulz Paulsson believes that the megaliths were first constructed by dwellers of northwest France during the second half of the fifth millennium BC.” (w)
Some years ago, the renowned English archaeologist, Aubrey Burl, concluded after twenty years of study that French immigrants had built Stonehenge(aa). More recently, Mike Parker Pearson, a leading Stonehenge expert, has also endorsed this idea of a French origin for megalith building(x).
Archaeologist, Robert Hensey in his insightful First Light [1766.9] has also noted that “Construction of Breton passage tombs is likely to have ended by 3900 BC, almost certainly by 3800 BC, and the most recent evidence from Ireland suggests that passage tomb construction had not yet begun on this island by that time.”
Archaeologist Ashleigh Murzewski published a 2012 paper (av) on the significance of megalithic monuments in Atlamtis Europe and noted that “the construction of megalithic monuments in Atlantic Europe are not restricted to a single purpose, nor how they reflect one aspect of the community that built them.”
Jean-Michel Hermans contends that the megalith builders of Brittany had originated in the Caucasus and after a sojourn in what is now Bulgaria moved to Brittany after 5000 BC(aj).
Antequera is a city in Spain’s region of Andalucia. It is home to three megalithic structures (1) the “Dolmen de Menga”, (2)the “Dolmen de Viera” and (3) the “Tholos de Romeral” of which de Menga has been described as the largest and heaviest in Spain. They are collectively designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and described by that organisation as “These three tombs, buried beneath their original earth tumuli, are one of the most remarkable architectural works of European prehistory and one of the most important examples of European Megalithism.” The limited carbon dating that has been carried out would seem to indicate that construction took place sometime in the fourth millennium BC. Richard Cassaro has visited the site and posted an interesting report with many illustrations(ai).
The interesting claims of Schulz Paulsson, who places the origins of megalithic construction in Brittany in the fifth millennium BC, may be challenged by a little-known counterclaim that tombs in the Ox Mountains in the west of Ireland have been dated to the seventh millennium BC(y). However, my personal view is that it would be more likely that the practice of megalith building would have spread from the east or south rather than from Ireland westward!
A number of megalithic sites situated around the world are reviewed on the illustrated megalithic builders website. Contributions from popular writers, such as Hancock, Bauval and Schoch are included(ah).
A rational explanation for the construction of cyclopean masonry has been offered by Professor of Architecture Jean-Pierre Protzen and demonstrated on a YouTube clip(f).
(a) Unexplained Mysteries around the world (archive.org)
(b) https://web.archive.org/web/20171105055925/http://planetvermont.com/pvq/v9n2/megaliths.html
(c) https://web.archive.org/web/20140625091115/http:/www.bibleufo.com/ancconstmono.htm
(d) https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.ie/2013/09/whats-significance-of-megalithic.html
(e) https://www.paranormalpeopleonline.com/cyclopean-masonry-a-mystery-of-the-ancient-world/
(f) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkze3WUvHz4
(g) https://www.megalithic.co.uk/
(h) https://www.stonepages.com/about_us.html
(i) https://www.megalithicireland.com/
(j) http://www.museodeidolmen.it/englishdefault.html
(l) https://aratta.wordpress.com/megalith-culture/
(m) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20161113074338/https://www.jordan-solidarity.org/74+special-dolmens.html
(p) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmens_of_North_Caucasus
(q) https://davidpratt.info/easter1.htm (section 10)
(r) Megalithic tombs in Tadvai forests of Telangana (archive.org) *
(s) https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-europe/25000-year-old-buildings-found-russia-006215
(t) https://aratta.wordpress.com/megalith-culture/
(v) Dolmens of Ancient Korea – Ancient History Encyclopedia (archive.org)
(y) https://www.newgrange.com/european-megalithic.htm
(z) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/dolmen-de-guadalperal-0012487
(aa) https://archive.archaeology.org/9707/newsbriefs/stonehenge.html
(ab) Megaliths in America | Stonestrider (archive.org)
(ac) Uncovering the lost ‘Stonehenge’ of Spain – BBC Reel
(ad) https://www.academia.edu/11703016/Earth_Epochs_Overview
(ae) https://www.britam.org/Proof/Attributes/roleDolmen.html
(af) https://www.academia.edu/6584373/Megalithism_and_monumentality_in_prehistoric_North_Africa
(ag) The Mysterious Megaliths of New England (archive.org)
(ah) Megalithic Builders – index of ancient megalithic sites from around the world (archive.org)
(aj) Amazon.fr
(ak) https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1226/
(al) http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf004/sf004p01.htm
(am) http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf018/sf018p01.htm
(an) http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf021/sf021p01.htm
(ao) e5604c_e9edea4f2c6f4777ae3928593180a77a.pdf (third-millennium.co.uk)
(as) Discovered: The birthplace of Europe’s ancient megaliths – Big Think
(at) Scotland’s Hidden Sacred Past – Graham Hancock Official Website
(av) Significance of Megalithic Monuments in Atlantic Europe? (heritagedaily.com)
Mertz, Henriette
Henriette Mertz (1898-1985) During World War II she worked as a code-
breaker in the U.S. government’s cryptography department, while later she became an American patent lawyer in Chicago. Her interest in archaeology led her to be the first[0396][0397] to propose that Odysseus, after wandering about the Atlantic, was the earliest European to set foot in America: an idea now taken up by others including Enrico Mattievich[0400].
Mertz recognised that ancient America was host to guests if not residents from both east and west and has written in Pale Ink[0398] on the evidence for the existence of persistent pre-Columbian Chinese contacts. This book was later re-published as a paperback and retitled Gods from the Far East.
Her book The Mystic Symbol[0621] argues that some early Christians fled to America to escape persecution in the Roman Empire. Wayne N. May, the Mormon publisher of Ancient American, has also published a paper on the Mystic Symbol(b).
In a paper reprinted in the Ancient America website, Mertz decried the fact that thousands of inscribed artefacts recovered from mounds in the State of Michigan, between 1890 and 1920, were destroyed, in particular the controversial Newberry Tablet(c).
Her reputation as a serial heretic also forced her to privately publish a volume on Atlantis[0399] following rejection by twenty publishers. She gave a lecture on her views in London in 1964(d) and enjoyed extensive coverage in the Greek press including the serialisation of her book.
Her contention is that Atlantis was located in the southeast of the United States. She begins with the legend of the Seven Cities of Antillia and its depiction on the 1436 map of Andrea Bianco. A comparison of this map with a modern map of Florida convinced her that they referred to the same region. She discusses many aspects of Plato’s story and their compatibility with the archaeology, geography and legends of her chosen location. She also offers a map of Atlantis that encompasses the land bound by the Mississippi, Ohio and Potomac rivers as well as the Atlantic giving us the ‘island’ of Atlantis. To support this possibility she ingeniously suggests that Plato used the word ‘sea’ in the sense of being navigable and so was also applicable to rivers.
Mertz’s book, Wine Dark Sea, which claims that Homer’s Odyssey describes a 
very ancient trip to America, inspired the Austrian ethnologist, Christine Pellech, to expand on her work with a number of books on diffusionism together with a website on the subject. Unfortunately, Pellech’s books are only available in German but she has also established an English language magazine and website(a).>However, Pellech references Mertz’s theory but goes further with her contention that Homer’s Odyssey was a description of an ancient circumnavigation of the globe.(e)<
(a) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/index.php
(b) https://www.migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=73
(d) Atlantis, Volume 17, No.6, October 1964.
(e) Dr. Christine Pellech – Atlantisforschung.de (German) (See Archive 7097 mixed English & German) *