Sylvain Tristan

Patten, Donald W.,

Published April 28, 2020

Donald W. Patten (1929-2014) was an American researcher and keen supporter of catastrophism. He was also a dedicated creationist. His cosmological theories were comparable to those of Velikovsky, who claimed that some of the planets in our Solar System were rearranged within the memory of man. This reorganisation involved a number of damaging close encounters by some planets with the Earth. While Velikovsky was to a great extent focused on the movements of Venus, Patten was more concerned with the activities of Mars.

Stuart Harris noted in a 2017 paper^(c) that “Donald W. Patten modeled flybys of Mars as a fIxed sequence that alternated spring and fall, spaced 108 years apart. He sequenced flybys from 701 to 1404 BCE using historical records. Flybys alternated between the night of March 20-21 on odd years, and during the day of October 24 on even years.”

Harris’ paper “extends Patten’s methodology to March 7137 BC by recognizing that the 108-year interval was not constant but occasionally increased in increments of four years. Two important milestones are March 3161 BC, the Biblical Flood, and March 3761 BC, the start of the Hebrew calendar.”

Patten wrote a number of books and papers, two of which were with Samuel R. Windsor entitled The Recent Organisation of the Solar System, and The Mars-Earth Wars, which are also available online^(a)^(b).One of the consequences of this ‘reorganisation’ and encounters with our neighbouring planets was a lengthening of our solar year from 360 to 365+ days^(d)!

It is interesting to compare Patten’s ideas with the the 366 day year proposed by Alan Butler in The Bronze Age Computer Disc ^[504], based on his interpretation of the Phaistos Disc. His explanation has been endorsed by Sylvain Tristan^(e).

>A related book, The Mystery of the Great Flood Confirmed, ^[1442] by Elsar Amos Orkan envisages an ancient interaction between the Earth, Mars and our Moon around 8000 BC. However, the principal objective of the book is to argue that our current global warming is the result of a shortening of the distance between the Earth and the Sun!

Patten & Windsor also produced a paper^(f) titled Catastrophic Theory of Mountain Uplifts that they claim resulted from close encounters with other planetary bodies, such as Venus and Mars!<

^(a) https://www.creationism.org/patten/PattenRecOrgSolSys/PattenRootssCh06.html

^(b) https://creationism.org/patten/PattenMarsEarthWars/

^(c) https://migration-diffusion.info/article.php?id=504

^(d) https://creationism.org/patten/PattenRecOrgSolSys/PattenRootssCh01.html

^(e) http://spcov.free.fr/site_nicoulaud/en/geoalan.php

^(f)https://saturniancosmology.org/files/patten/mountains.html *

Tagged Alan Butler, Donald W. Patten, Elsar Amos Orkan, Immanuel Velikovsky, Mars, moon, Phaistos Disk, Samuel R. Windsor, Solar System, Stuart Harris, Sylvain Tristan, Velikovsky, Venus

Megalithic Yard, The

Published March 18, 2020

The Megalithic Yard is a controversial unit of measurement originally proposed by Alexander Thom following a study of hundreds of megalithic sites in Britain and Brittany. Very many attempts have been made to verify his conclusions but to no avail. Wikipedia^(d) offers an interesting overview of the wide-ranging theories that the controversy has thrown up.

Humans have used their body parts as measuring tools right up to the present day, e.g. foot, finger or hand, so it was not surprising that the human pace provided a unit of measurement that has been suggested by many as the original megalithic ‘yard’.

Paul Screeton in his Quicksilver Heritage ^[1882.48] noted that “the first person to write on prehistoric standard distances was Edward Milles Nelson (1851-1938).” He concluded that the megalith builders used a unit of measurement of 12.96 inches.

Not unexpectedly, some researchers, such as Ulf Erlingsson^(a), Sylvain Tristan^(b) and Jim Allen⁽^c) have endeavoured to link the megalithic yard with their interpretation of Plato’s Atlantis, sometimes using convoluted associations with ancient Egyptian and/or Sumerian metrics!

>>Christopher Knight and Alan Butler in Civilization One ^[623.48] set out to “demonstrate that the Megalithic Yard was real, being derived directly from the polar circumference of the Earth using a system of geometry that was based on the revolutions of the planet in a year”<<

There is also an ancient unit of measurement known as the ‘long foot’ of 12.7 inches (32.2 cm). In 1889, a set of small carved chalk drums were discovered near the village of Folkton in Yorkshire. In early 2019, archaeologists from the University of Manchester and University College London concluded, after a study of three of the ‘drums’, that they “could be ancient replicas of measuring devices used for laying out prehistoric monuments like Stonehenge.” They found that “a string wound 10 times around the smallest of the drums would give a measure of exactly 10 long feet — a length used to lay out several ancient henge monuments“^(e). A similarly engraved fourth drum was discovered in 2015 in Burton Agnes, also in Yorkshire^(g⁾ and is thought to be 5,000 years old.

Douglas C. Heggie ^[1837], an astronomer and mathematician as well as the late Aubrey Burl (1926-2020) ^[1838], arguably the leading authority on British stone circles, have both expressed the view that Thom’s evidence was at best ‘marginal’.^(f)

The Academia.edu website has a 2020 paper by Robert Carl that reexamines some key arguments concerning the validity of the Megalithic Yard’s existence and some of the specific critiques that have been aimed at it^(h).

^(a) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242275382_A_geographic_comparison_of_Plato’s_Atlantis_and_Ireland_as_a_test_of_the_megalithic_culture_hypothesis

^(b)https://web.archive.org/web/20200217205938/http://spcov.free.fr/site_nicoulaud/en/article.php

^(c)https://web.archive.org/web/20190730190157/http://www.atlantisbolivia.org/elcastillocubits.htm

^(d) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalithic_Yard

^(e)Ancient carved ‘drums’ give exact Stonehenge measurements, say archaeologists – WSBuzz.com (archive.org)

^(f) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalithic_yard#:~:text=The%20megalithic%20yard%20is%20a,the%20construction%20of%20megalithic%20structures.

^(g) https://the-past.com/news/elaborately-carved-burton-agnes-chalk-drum-goes-on-display/

^(h) https://www.academia.edu/43164917/A_Brief_Reconsideration_of_Alexander_Thoms_Megalithic_Yard

Tagged Alan Butler, Alex Thom, Aubrey Burl, Britain, Brittany, Christopher Knight, Douglas C. Heggie, Edward Milles Nelson, Jim Allen, Megalithic Yard, Paul Screeton, Robert Carl, Stonehenge, Sumerians, Sylvain Tristan, Ulf Erlingsson, Yorkshire

Brittany *

Published February 15, 2011

Brittany in northwestern France is sometimes referred to as Little or Lesser Britain. It is one of the most exciting regions of Megalithic Europe. The stone rows of Carnac are unequalled, Le Grand Menhir Brisé was once the largest standing stone in Europe, while Morbihan contains a huge number of dolmens and standing stones.2019 saw a report 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.” ^(b)Both Robert Hensey, who has studied and written about Newgrange ^[1766.6]and Mike Parker Pearson, Stonehenge’s leading, authority, have endorsed this idea of a French origin for megalith building^(c).

The earliest suggestion that Atlantis may have been connected with the Armorican peninsula came from François Gidon in the 1930s when he proposed that Atlantis had been situated on an exposed Celtic Shelf stretching from Brittany to Ireland. Unfortunately, he dates the submergence of this land to between 3000 and 1200 BC, which was millennia after that part of the Celtic Shelf had been inundated by the Flandrian Transgression.

Jean Markle was convinced that the Carnac stones were connected with Atlantis. Recently, Sylvain Tristan followed the work of Jean Deruelle in supporting a megalithic Atlantis. Further support has come from Alfred deGrazia and Helmut Tributsch who saw Megalithic Europe as Atlantis with the island of Gavrinis in Brittany as its capital.

The American researcher, Hank Harrison, considers the Morbihan départment as a significant Atlantean location if not the home of its capital.

Reinoud deJonge proposes even greater significance for the Brittany megaliths with his claim that they record the Flood of Noah in 2344 BC^(a).

A fairly lengthy illustrated paper regarding ancient catastrophes in Brittany is available online^(d).

^(a) See: Archive 2501

^(b) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/articles/europe-megalithic-monuments-france-sea-routes-mediterranean-180971467/

^(c) Stonehenge, other ancient rock structures may trace their origins to monuments like this | Request PDF (researchgate.net) *

^(d) finistere-catastrophes-chronology.pdf (wordpress.com)

Tagged Alfred deGrazia, Bettina Schulz Paulsson, Brittany, Carnac, Celtic Shelf, Dolmens, Flandrian Transgression, Flood of Noah, François Gidon, Gavrinis, Hank Harrison, Helmut Tributsch, Ireland, Jean Deruelle, Jean Markle, Le Grand Menhir Brisé, Mike Parker-Pearson, Morbihan, Reinoud deJonge, Robert Hensey, Sylvain Tristan

Doggerland

Published July 22, 2010

Doggerland is a term applied to a shallow region (Fig.1) of the North Sea between Denmark and the North of England that covers an area of around 10,000 sq. miles. The existence of Doggerland was first suggested in a late 19th-century novel by H.G. Wells entitled A Story of the Stone Age.>>In 1913, the British geologist, Clement Reid, published his study of the North Sea that included a proposed map of the landbridge that had connected Britain with mainland Europe during the last Ice Age.<<

The appellation ‘Doggerland’ was coined by Professor Bryony Coles in 1998. However, the name has been applied recently^(f) to nearly the totality of the Celtic Shelf (Fig.2). Ulf Erlingsson who had promoted his theory⁽^b⁾ that Atlantis had been located in Ireland (with 98.9% confidence!) has explained that the Egyptian story of Atlantis is the result of an account of megalithic Ireland conflated with a report of the inundation of Doggerland in 6200 BC resulting from a Norwegian storegga^(ad⁾.

According to some, this flooding may have been the inspiration behind the ‘impassable shoals’ described by Plato following the submergence of Atlantis.

However, it was Rachael Carson who was probably the first to suggest the Dogger Bank as the home of Atlantis in her 1951 book, The Sea Around Us^[1267]. Later a Scandinavian writer, Nils Olof Bergquist, in his 1971 book, Ymdogat-Atlantis^[⁷⁸⁵^]. who appeared next to support this idea.

Other writers such as Jean Deruelle⁽^a⁾, Sylvain Tristan⁽^c⁾ and Guy Gervis⁽^d⁾ have also linked the Dogger Bank with Atlantis. Gervis has written two related papers^(k)(l) on the subject. The earliest suggestion of such a connection was briefly supported by Robert Graves^[³⁴²^.^39-3^]. Rob Waugh, a British journalist, has offered an illustrated article^(g) with the provocative title of Britain’s Atlantis found at the Bottom of the North Sea, in which he touches on some of the discoveries made on Doggerland.

In 2003, Georg Lohle put forward the idea that Atlantis had been situated in the North Sea between Denmark and Britain and destroyed around 2200 BC. He based this speculation on the content of the controversial Oera Linda Book^(a^c⁾.

Some have combined Doggerland with exposed land further north, now known as the Viking-Bergen Banks, as having constituted the territory of Atlantis^(x).

National Geographic

In 2009 a book^[⁶⁶²^] was published with the subtitle of The Rediscovery of Doggerland, based on the research of a team led by Professor Vincent Gaffney of the University of Birmingham. In July 2012 the UK’s Daily Mail published^(h) an extensive article on Doggerland.

The flooding of the Dogger Bank has been attributed to a 6200 BC event apparently caused by either an outpouring of meltwater from Lake Agassiz in North America or a huge tsunami generated by a Norwegian storegga^(e). This event was covered in an extensive article in the November 2012 edition of the BBC Focus magazine. The same article has a sidebar on Atlantis which suggests that there is “perhaps just one archaeological theory that has any serious claim on the myth.” Then, not for the first time, the BBC offered tacit support for the Minoan Hypothesis in spite of the fact that, at least ostensibly, it does not match Plato’s description of Atlantis in terms of either time, size or location and offers no rationale for its stance.

In December 2020, a degree of revisionism was offered in a New Scientist article, which suggested that storegga tsunami may have been less than previously thought. Furthermore, it proposes that parts of what is now the submerged Dogger Bank was not completely flooded by the tsunami, but that parts continued as dry land, perhaps for centuries!^(y)

“For a long time, scientists assumed that a tsunami of this kind also caused the Dogger Bank, which was still protruding from the sea, to sink completely. According to a study by researchers at the University of Bradford, however, there was no single, all-destroying tsunami.

Rather, by examining sediments, the researchers were able to prove that only the northern part of Doggerland was submerged after the tsunami and that the destructive force of its floods was probably slowed down by hills or forests on the island.

However, after the water receded, the flooded area recovered over the years, as is demonstrated by the fact that evidence of plants and animals can be found again in the sediment layers above the disrupted tsunami layer.” There is a suggestion that Heligoland may be the last remnant of Doggerland.^(ab)

It has been estimated that over a period of a couple of hundred years, the English Channel was also created in a comparable manner⁽ⁿ⁾.

The December 2012 edition of National Geographic magazine also published an informative article on Doggerland and the ongoing work by archaeologists in the region. It considers the Storegga or the Lake Agassiz meltwater to be the cause of Doggerland’s final inundation. For me, it was interesting that a map in the article showed a small area around where I live as the last glaciated region of Ireland.

Alfred de Grazia’s online Q-Mag also published an overview of the Doggerland story in 2012^(j) that was originally taken from the German magazine Der Spiegel. The same site has another paper^(r) by Jean Deruelle in which he also argues that Doggerland was the location of the Great Plain of Atlantis that stretched from the east of the Dogger Bank and extended as far as what is now Denmark. Plato described the plain as being surrounded by a huge ditch. Then Deruelle, with a flash of ingenuity claims that it was not a ditch but instead was a dyke, designed to hold back the slowing advancing waters of the North Sea that were being fed by deglaciation. He endeavoured to reinforce this claim with the proposal that the Greek word for a ditch, ‘taphros’ can also be used for dyke. This interpretation seems possible according to W.K. Pritchett, a distinguished historian ^[1622.52.5].

Robert John Langdon has proposed that megalith builders from Africa came to Doggerland as the Ice Age ended and when Doggerland submerged they migrated to what is now mainland Britain, eventually constructing Stonehenge⁽ⁱ⁾. But Langdon has gone further and also claims that Doggerland was actually Atlantis^(aa).

A 2014 ‘Drowned Landscapes’ exhibition^(m) organised by Dr Richard Bates of the Department of Earth Sciences at St Andrew’s University, reveals in greater detail the flora and fauna, as well as the lives of its inhabitants, of this submerged world. Much of the information was gleaned from data provided by oil and gas companies, combined with artefacts recovered from the seafloor.

Comparable discoveries have been made submerged deep under the waters of Hanö Bay near the coast of Havang, Sweden and dated to about 7000 BC^(v).

In 2015 it was announced that €2.5 million in funding from the European Union has enabled a number of archaeologists from Britain’s top universities to team up for what will be the most intensive study of Doggerland so far^(o)(q). Joined by experts from the University of Ghent and assisted by the Belgian Navy they located the first identifiable submerged settlements on the floor of the North Sea. Until now (2019) the only evidence of human habitation in the region were occasional artefacts caught up in fishermen’s nets.

In 2016, it was revealed^(p) that the ancient footprints of both adults and children had been discovered off the coast of Northumberland, formerly a part of Doggerland. Their feet had apparently been shod.

On Sunday, January 13th, 2019. the UK’s Sunday Express delighted its readers with two Atlantis stories^(t)(u). First, the online edition of the paper had a story by one of its reporters, with an ‘Atlantis Discovered’ headline claiming that the remains of an ancient 8,000-year-old city, home to ‘tens of thousands’ of people, had been discovered in the North Sea, in a huge region sometimes referred to as Doggerland. The reporter cites Dr Richard Bates in support of this account. Unfortunately, the 2012 comments by Dr Bates never mentioned ‘a city’, but a vast area occupied by ‘tens of thousands’ of people, presumably early farmers^(s). Then the same edition of the same paper by the same ‘reporter’ with another ‘Atlantis Found?’ headline, offered a video clip of the Maltese island of Filfla, while the commentator told us that Plato had said that a devastating earthquake had destroyed Atlantis it was finished off by an eruption. This is factually incorrect as Plato never mentioned an eruption. These two accounts are a sad reflection of the quality of media reporting today.

In 2020, David Keys, author of Catastrophe ^[1330] wrote an article for the UK’s Independent newspaper outlining the most recent research into the 6200 BC tsunami that destroyed Doggerland. “It is estimated that multiple giant waves inundated some 2,700 square miles of land – from Scotland in the north to Norfolk in the south.

New underwater research carried out by the universities of Bradford, Warwick, St Andrews and Wales has for the first time discovered that the tsunami devastated parts of East Anglia and adjacent land which is now submerged beneath the southern part of the North Sea.” ^(z⁾

In 2021, the UK’s Guardian reported on an “exhibition, ‘Doggerland: Lost World in the North Sea’, at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities) in Leiden, southern Holland, includes more than 200 objects, ranging from a deer bone in which an arrowhead is embedded, and fossils such as petrified hyena droppings and mammoth molars, to a fragment of a skull of a young male Neanderthal. Studies of the forehead bone, dredged up in 2001 off the coast of Zeeland, suggests he was a big meat eater.”^(ae⁾

Graham Phillips‘ latest offering is The Mystery of Doggerland: Atlantis in the North Sea ^[2063], published in late July 2023.

^(a⁾ atlantide (archive.org)

^(b)http://atlantisinireland.com/

⁽^c⁾ http://spcov.free.fr/site_nicoulaud/en/empire.php

⁽^d⁾See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180320072706/https://nwepexplore.com/

^(e) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20160303180752/https://arheologija.ff.uni-lj.si/documenta/pdf35/weninger35.pdf

^(f)https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-18687504?goback=.gde_157795_member_130235946

^(g) https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/atlantida_mu/esp_atlantida_38.htm

^(h) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167731/Britains-Atlantis-North-sea–huge-undersea-kingdom-swamped-tsunami-5-500-years-ago.html

⁽ⁱ⁾http://www.the-stonehenge-enigma.info/#!/2013/06/stonehenge-atlantis-momentous-discovery.htmlAlso See:https://atlantipedia.ie/samples/archive-2071/

^(j)https://www.q-mag.org/doggerland-lost.html

^(k)See: Archive: 2073

^(l) See: Archive 2074

^(m) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2167731/Britains-Atlantis-North-sea–huge-undersea-kingdom-swamped-tsunami-5-500-years-ago.html#ixzz374DGxUiM

⁽ⁿ⁾ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

^(o) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/secrets-britains-atlantis-revealed-archaeologists-6361422

^(p) https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/7000-year-old-forest-and-footprints-uncovered-atlantis-britain-005913?nopaging=1

^(q) https://www.q-mag.org/doggerland-to-be-digitally-repopulated.html

^(r) https://web.archive.org/web/20150706130417/https://www.q-mag.org/the-great-plain-of-atlantis-was-it-in-doggerland.html

^(s) https://www.guidememalta.com/en/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-mysterious-islet-of-filfla

^(t) https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-18687504

^(u) https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/1071594/atlantis-found-malta-island-matches-plato-description-spt

^(v) https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/01/17/the-discovery-of-the-submerged-stone-age-atlantis/

^(w) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/atlantis-britain-stone-age-north-sea-archaeology-artefacts-discovery-a8952721.html?fbclid=IwAR2JPs3s5OvPxHyVHpOYeiSmTJiWoqSOu7_72ZOZzHhK2DaKIQCyiXoVURg

^(x) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbenuEzWgQk

^(y) Tiny island survived tsunami that helped separate Britain and Europe | New Scientist

^(z)https://news.knowledia.com/GB/en/articles/how-a-giant-tsunami-devastated-britain-s-atlantis-3d966568f069ce0cc79d391c7f4a28ee51e59cfa

^(aa)Chapter 3 – Atlantis – Dawn of the Lost Civilisation (archive.org) *

^(ab) https://www.dw.com/en/doggerland-how-did-the-atlantis-of-the-north-sea-sink/a-55960379

^(ac) Atlantis is a myth or real past (archive.org)

^(ad) https://www.academia.edu/437214/The_Catastrophic_Final_Flooding_of_Doggerland_by_the_Storegga_Slide_Tsunami

^(ae) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/aug/01/doggerland-lost-atlantis-of-the-north-sea-gives-up-its-ancient-secrets

Tagged Alfred de Grazia, BBC Focus, Bryony Coles, Celtic Shelf, Clement Reid, Daily Express, David Keys, Denmark, Dogger Bank, Doggerland, dyke, English Channel, Guy Gervais, H.G.Wells, Hanö Bay, Heligoland, Ice Age, Ireland, Jean Deruelle, Lake Agassiz, megalith builders, Minoan Hypothesis, National Geographic, Nils Olof Bergquist, North Sea, Northumberland, Rachel Carson, Richard Bates, Rob Waugh, Robert Graves, Robert John Langdon, shoals, St. Andrew's University, Stonehenge, storegga, Sunday Express, Sylvain Tristan, taphros, Ulf Erlingsson, University of Bradford, Viking-Bergen Banks, Vincent Gaffney, W.K. Pritchett

North Sea *

Published June 10, 2010

The North Sea has been advocated by a variety of writers as the original site of Atlantis. Jürgen Spanuth specified his native Heligoland as its location in his well-researched work, Atlantis of the North^[⁰¹⁵^]. However, Spanuth was not the first to make this suggestion as Heinrich Pudor, had advocated Helgoland as Atlantis in the 1930’s ^[1693][1694], but was unreferenced by Spanuth.

Robert Scrutton drew heavily on the contents of the controversial Oera Linda Book to support his view of an Atlantis or Atlantean colony in the Frisian Islands of the North Sea^[¹¹⁷^][¹¹⁸^].

Georg Lohle in his book^[⁴⁴⁶^] on world history identifies a location between England and Denmark that was inundated about 2000 BC. He also makes extensive use of the Oera Linda Book. His German language website⁽^a⁾ has a wide range of photos and diagrams. Lohle daringly resurrects the old idea of the Earth being hollow and then combines it with another controversial concept, namely that it is still expanding⁽^b⁾.

In the middle of the 20th century we find Robert Graves and Rachel Carson were probably the first to suggest the Dogger Bank as the location of Atlantis. More recently Jean Deruelle^(e⁾, Sylvain Tristan^(c⁾ and Guy Gervis^(d⁾ have all opted for a location near the Dogger Bank, now more popularly known as Doggerland.

The most recent challenger for the Atlantis title is located in the vicinity of Rockall, an uninhabited islet north west of Ireland.

⁽^a⁾ See: https://web.archive.org/web/20161113122829/https://www.erdexpansion.de/atlantis.htm

⁽^b⁾ See: https://web.archive.org/web/20180307141731/https://www.grisda.org/origins/15053.htm

^(c⁾Atlantis ist ein Mythos oder reelle Vergangenheit (archive.org) *

^(d⁾ See: Archive 3606

^(e⁾ atlantide (archive.org) *

Tagged Dogger Bank, Doggerland, Frisian Islands, Georg Lohle, Guy Gervis, Heinrich Pudor, Heligoland, Jean Deruelle, Jürgen Spanuth, North Sea, Oera Linda Book, Rachel Carson, Robert Graves, Robert Scrutton, Rockall, Sylvain Tristan

Castellani, Vittorio *

Published June 6, 2010

Vittorio Castellani (1937-2006) was born in Palermo, the capital of the

Italian island of Sicily. He received his degree in Physics at the University of Rome in 1962 and was a renowned Astrophysicist and earned wide praise as a teacher.

He has written Quando il mare sommerse l’Europa ^[²²⁴^] a book that placed Atlantis in the North Atlantic on the continental shelf that today is home to the British Isles. He suggests that before the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age, Britain, Ireland, Denmark and France were all connected making it relatively easy to launch invasions of the Mediterranean. He dates the submersion of large areas of this continental shelf and the Baltic to around 6000 BC. He believes that the megalithic remains spread across northern Europe are the remnants of Atlantis, a view shared by others such as Jean Deruelle and Sylvain Tristan.

However, in 2004, following the publication of Sergio Frau ’s book ^[0302] two years earlier, Castellani retracted his earlier belief^(a)(b) and added his support to the idea of a Sardinian Atlantis.

^(a) The Astrophysicist / Vittorio Castellani – Atlantikà (colonnedercole.it) (Italian) (link broken) *

^(b) Archive 6939 | (atlantipedia.ie) (English translation)

Tagged Atlantic, British Isles, Ice Age, Ireland, Jean Deruelle, megalith builders, Sardinia, Sergio Frau, Sylvain Tristan, Vittorio Castellani

Identity of the Atlanteans *

Published May 28, 2010

The Identity of the Atlanteans has produced a range of speculative suggestions nearly as extensive as that of the proposed locations for Plato’s lost island. However, it is highly probable that we already know who the Atlanteans were, but under a different name.

The list below includes some of the more popular suggestions and as such is not necessarily exhaustive. While researchers have proposed particular locations for Atlantis, not all have identified an archaeologically identified culture to go with their chosen location. The problem is that most of the places suggested have endured successive invasions over the millennia by different peoples.

It would seem therefore that the most fruitful approach to solving the problem of identifying the Atlanteans would be to first focus on trying to determine the date of the demise of Atlantis. This should reduce the number of possible candidates, making it easier to identify the Atlanteans.

A final point to consider is that the historical Atlanteans were a military alliance, and as such may have included more than one or none of those listed here. The mythological Atlanteans, who included the five sets of male twins and their successors would be expected to share a common culture, whereas military coalitions are frequently more disparate.

Basques: William Lewy d’Abartiague, Edward Taylor Fletcher

Berbers: Alberto Arecchi, Alf Bajocco, Ulrich Hofmann, Jacques Gossart, Ibn Khaldun

British: William Comyns Beaumont, E. J. de Meester, Donald Ingram, George H. Cooper, Anthony Roberts, Paul Dunbavin.

Cro-Magnons: R. Cedric Leonard, Theosophists, Georges Poisson, Robert B. Stacy-Judd, Kurt Bilau, Louis Charpentier

Etruscans: Richard W. Welch, Frank Joseph *

Guanches: B. L. Bogaevsky, Bory de Saint Vincent, Boris F. Dobrynin, Eugène Pégot-Ogier

Irish: Ulf Erlingsson, George H. Cooper, John Whitehurst, Thomas Dietrich, Padraig A. Ó Síocháin, Lewis Spence,

Maltese: Anton Mifsud, Francis Xavier Aloisio, Kevin Falzon, Bibischok, Joseph Bosco, David Calvert-Orange, Giorgio Grongnet de Vasse, Albert Nikas, Joseph S. Ellul, Francis Galea, Tammam Kisrawi, Charles Savona-Ventura, Hubert Zeitlmair.

Maya: Robert B. Stacy-Judd, Charles Gates Dawes, Colin Wilson, Adrian Gilbert, L. M. Hosea, Augustus le Plongeon, Teobert Maler, Joachim Rittstieg, Lewis Spence, Edward Herbert Thompson, Jean-Frédérick de Waldeck,

Megalith Builders: Lucien Gerardin, Paolo Marini, Sylvain Tristan, Jean Deruelle, Alan Butler, Alfred deGrazia, Helmut Tributsch, Hank Harrison, Walter Schilling, Robert Temple, Manuel Vega

Minoans: K.T. Frost, James Baikie, Walter Leaf, Edwin Balch, Donald A. Mackenzie, Ralph Magoffin, Spyridon Marinatos, Georges Poisson, Wilhelm Brandenstein, A. Galanopoulos, J. G. Bennett, Rhys Carpenter, P.B.S. Andrews, Edward Bacon, Willy Ley, J.V. Luce, James W. Mavor, Henry M. Eichner, Prince Michael of Greece, Nicholas Platon, N.W. Tschoegl, Richard Mooney, Rupert Furneaux, Martin Ebon, Francis Hitching, Charles Pellegrino, Rodney Castleden, Graham Phillips, Jacques Lebeau, Luana Monte, Fredrik Bruins, Gavin Menzies, Lee R. Kerr, Daniel P. Buckley.

Persians: August Hunt, Pierre-André Latreille, William Henry Babcock, Hans Diller.

Phoenicians: Jonas Bergman, Robert Prutz,

Sardinians: Paolo Valente Poddighe, Robert Paul Ishoy, Sergio Frau, Mario Tozzi, Diego Silvio Novo, Antonio Usai, Giuseppe Mura.

Sicilians: Phyllis Young Forsyth, Thorwald C. Franke, Axel Hausmann, Peter Jakubowski, Alfred E. Schmeck, M. Rapisarda,

Swedes: Johannes Bureus, Olaf Rudbeck

Sea Peoples: Wilhelm Christ, Jürgen Spanuth, Spyridon Marinatos, Rainer W. Kühne, John V. Luce, Theodor Gomperz, Herwig Görgemanns , Tony O’Connell, Sean Welsh, Thorwald C. Franke, Werner Wickboldt.

Trojans: Eberhard Zangger, Erich von Däniken?

Tagged A. Galanopoulos, Adrian Gilbert, Alan Butler, Albert Nikas, Alberto Arecchi, Alf Bajocco, Alfred deGrazia, Alfred E. Schmeck, Anthony Roberts, Anton Mifsud, Antonio Usai, August Hunt, Augustus le Plongeon, Axel Hausmann, B. L. Bogaevsky, Bibischok, Boris F. Dobrynin, Bory de Saint Vincent, Charles Gates Dawes, Charles Pellegrino, Charles Savona Ventura, Colin Wilson, Daniel P. Buckley, David Calvert-Orange, Diego Silvio Novo, Donald A. Mackenzie, Donald Ingram, E. J. de Meester, Eberhard Zangger, Edward Bacon, Edward Herbert Thompson, Edward Taylor Fletcher, Edwin Balch, Erich vonDäniken, Eugène Pégot-Ogier, Francis Galea, Francis Hitching, Francis Xavier Aloisio, Fredrik Bruins, Gavin Menzies, George H. Cooper, Georges Poisson, Giorgio Grongnet de Vasse, Giuseppe Mura, Graham Phillips, Hank Harrison, Hans Diller., Helmut Tributsch, Henry M. Eichner, Herwig Görgemanns, Hubert Zeitlmair, Ibn Khaldun, J. G. Bennett, J.V. Luce, Jacques Gossart, Jacques Lebeau, James Baikie, James W. Mavor, Jean Deruelle, Jean-Frédérick de Waldeck, Joachim Rittstieg, Johannes Bureus, John Whitehurst, Jonas Bergman, Joseph Bosco, Joseph S. Ellul, Jürgen Spanuth, K.T. Frost, Kevin Falzon, Kurt Bilau, L. M. Hosea, Lee R. Kerr, Lewis Spence, Louis Charpentier, Luana Monte, Lucien Gerardin, M. Rapisarda, Manuel Vega, Mario Tozzi, Martin Ebon, N.W. Tschoegl, Nicholas Platon, Olaf Rudbeck, P.B.S. Andrews, Padraig A. Ó Síocháin, Paolo Marini, Paolo Valente Poddighe, Paul Dunbavin, Peter Jakubowski, Phyllis Young Forsyth, Pierre-André Latreille, Prince Michael of Greece, R. Cedric Leonard, Rainer Walter Kühne, Ralph Magoffin, Rhys Carpenter, Richard Mooney, Robert B. Stacy-Judd, Robert Paul Ishoy, Robert Prutz, Robert Temple, Rodney Castleden, Rupert Furneaux, Sean Welsh, Sergio Frau, Spyridon Marinatos, Sylvain Tristan, Tammam Kisrawi, Teobert Maler, Theodore Gomperz, Theosophists, Thomas Dietrich, Thorwald C. Franke, Tony O'Connell, Ulf Erlingsson, Ulrich Hofmann, Walter Leaf, Walter Schilling, Werner Wickboldt, Wilhelm Brandenstein, Wilhelm Christ, William Comyns Beaumont, William Henry Babcock, William Lewy d’Abartiague, Willy Ley

Deruelle, Jean *

Published May 20, 2010

Jean Deruelle (1915-2001) was a French mining engineer, who identified Northern Europe as the cradle of technological development, preceding the great civilisations of the Middle East. He contends that the advances of Northern Europe diffused to the southern nations of the Mediterranean. Deruelle identified Imhotep as an Atlantean immigrant to Egypt, where he contributed to the advances of its civilisation during the 3^rd millennium BC and became its chief architect.

More specifically, he places Atlantis in the North Sea, on the Dogger Bank, which is a shoal around 100 km off the northeast coast of England. He has written at least two books^[²⁷⁸^][²⁷⁹^] on the subject of Atlantis.

Deruelle identified the megalith builders of western Europe as Atlanteans, an idea adopted by Sylvain Tristan, who also wrote a highly favourable review of Deruelle’s theories^(c).

A number of maps illustrating his theory are available on a French forum^(a).

Fortunately, an English translation of his theory is available on the de Grazia website^(b).

Deruelle imaginatively proposed that the great plain of Atlantis lay to the east of the Dogger Bank, stretching as far as what is now Denmark. Plato described the plain as being surrounded by a huge ditch. Then Deruelle, with a flash of ingenuity claimed that it was not a ditch but instead was a dyke, designed to hold back the slowing advancing waters of the North Sea that were being fed by deglaciation. He endeavoured to reinforce this claim with the proposal that the Greek word for ditch, ‘taphros’ can also be used for dyke. This interpretation seems possible according to W.K. Pritchett, the distinguished historian ^[^1622.52.5].

^(a) Histoire Secrète :: L’ atlantide megalithique – Jean Deruelle (archive.org) *

^(b) The “Great Plain” of Atlantis – was it in Doggerland? (archive.org )

^(c) Jean Deruelle’s Atlantis – Atlantisforschung.de (atlantisforschung-de.translate.goog)

Tagged deglaciation, Denmark, ditch, Doggerland, dyke, Imhotep, Jean Deruelle, megalith builders, North Sea, shoals, Sylvain Tristan, taphros, W.K. Pritchett

Mermet, Roger (L)

Published March 11, 2010

Roger Mermet is one of a number of French researchers, including Jean Deruelle, Sylvain Tristan, who have opted for a North Sea location for Atlantis, following the work of Jürgen Spanuth. Mermet has written one book on ancient civilisations^[664^]with the tempting title of Le Passé Antérieur – Lascaux l’Atlantide et l’Ile de Paques (The Past Background – Lascaux, Atlantis and Easter Island).

Tagged Jean Deruelle, Jürgen Spanuth, North Sea, Roger Mermet, Sylvain Tristan

Megalith Builders

Published December 5, 2009

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

^(k) https://web.archive.org/web/20220808093846/https://www.megalith-pyramiden.de/AB-001-Cairn-Forschungsgesellschaft.html

^(l) https://aratta.wordpress.com/megalith-culture/