Ten Lost Tribes

Pre-Columbian America *

Published March 28, 2024

Pre-Columbian America continues to generate books and articles at an ever-increasing rate, fed by dramatic improvements and discoveries in many sciences. Nevertheless, the resulting theories still range from the serious to the silly.

This compilation has frequently touched on the subject pre-Columbian America as a number of Atlantis related theories have proposed what are only peripheral connections with America, although in the immediate aftermath of America’s rediscovery, some European commentators were content to designate America as Atlantis itself.

Since then a range of claims have been made as to the identity of European visitors to America, often long before Columbus, sometimes with an underlying suggestion of nationalism. Richard Callaghan, an archaeologist at the University of Calgary, In the June 2015 issue of the journal Antiquity, “presented the results of computer simulations of 1,200 voyages of small boats drifting with the currents from northern Africa to the Americas. About 82 percent of Callaghan’s simulated boats made landfall in the Americas, many in 70 to 120 days. Since watercrafts have been around for at least 8,000 years, Callaghan says there could have been a “significant number” of successful pre-Columbian voyages to America.” Another archaeologist, Bradley T. Lepper, ironically writing in the Columbus Dispatch, rejected Callaghan’s data as evidence^(l).

John L. Sorenson writing in the Journal of the Book of Mormon Studies^(m)identifies evidence for transoceanic exchanges of 98 plant species, including tobacco and peanuts! I assume that he was driven by a very different agenda.

The weight of evidence so far favours the idea that most of the earliest pre-Columbians came from Asia either by sea or over what is now the Bering Strait. See the Arysio Dos Santos article^(a) about Americas peopled by from an Asian Atlantis.

The online World History Encyclopaedia outlines the prehistory of North America from 40,000 BC when the Paleo-Indians arrived until 8,000 BC⁽ⁱ⁾. Of course this statement begs the question – where did they come from?

The discovery of further early trans-Atlantic links was announced in February 2012⁽ⁿ⁾ by two archaeologists, Professors Dennis Stanford & the lateBruce Bradley, in a newly published book – Across Atlantic Ice ^[1516]. Their claim is based on ‘Solutrean’ tools recently found in Delaware and five other east coast sites dated between 26,000 and 19,000 years ago. They offered “archaeological and oceanographic evidence to support this assertion, the book dismantles the old paradigm while persuasively linking Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago.”

In 2014, Stephen Oppenheimer endorsed the work of Stanford and Bradley^(s).

However, a sceptical view of their work should also be read^(o). However, by 2016 the Soultrean Hypothesis had been contradicted by genetic studies^(p). Nevertheless, a recent documentary on the hypothesis has raised some controversy, as the program failed to refer to the use of the Soultrean Hypothesis by white supremacists^(q). Jennifer Raff, who appeared in the documentary, has also rejected the Stanford & Bradley theory in a new article^(r).

In 2014 Michael J. O’Brien et al published another critical review of Stanford & Bradley’s theory on the Researchgate website and added a response from Stanford and Bradley^(t).

Finally, I suggest that there may be more to Stanford & Bradley’s theory, when combined with the story of the Red Paint People.

Harry Bourne is the author of a series of lengthy papers^(c) relating to African maritime history. Until I read some of his work I was unaware of the subject, with the only suggestion of Africans voyaging to the Americas was the existence of the mysterious Olmec stone heads. Bourne advised^(d) that Columbus noted “that blacks were also trading on the far side of the Atlantic in the Caribbean”, but does not cite the reference.

Similarly, “According to renowned American historan and linguist Leo Weiner of Harvard University, one of the strongest pieces of evidence to support the fact that Black people sailed to America before Christopher Columbus was a journal entry from Columbus himself. In Weiner’s book, Africa and the Discovery of America, he explains that Columbus noted in his journal that the Native Americans confirmed ‘black skinned people had come from the south-east in boats, trading in gold-tipped spears’.”^(x)

This whole subject could fill a library of its own and in no way is this entry intended to be a substitute for a comprehensive study of pre-Columbian America.

With their understandable Eurocentric view of the world a variety of commentators have advocated a range of pre-Columbian visitors to the Americas from this side of the Atlantic . There are a wide range of claims suggesting that such contacts included the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the Sumerians, the Hyksos^(v), the Sea Peoples^(u), the Phoenicians, Egyptians^(k), Ancient Greeks^(y)(z), Minoans^(j) and Romans^(b)(e)(f). After that, there appears to have been an endless parade of transatlantic tourists proposed – Basques^(g), Scots ^[1769], Irish ^[2086]and Vikings ^[1824].

There is also a suggestion that Marco Polo visited America before Columbus^(h).

No investigation of early visitors to America should ignore the work of the controversial epigrapher Barry Fell, particularly his two books, America BC ^[1769] and Saga America ^[1770].

However, the more critical reviews of Fell’s work should also be read^(w).

^(a) Atlantis in the New World. – Atlan.org

^(b) Ancient Romans May Have Discovered Americas Before Columbus | Gaia

^(c) Black History WEB – African Maritime History Archive (50webs.com)

^(d) West Africa & The Sea In Later Antiquity: Short intro. & plan (modernghana.com) (4/5ths down page)

^(e) http://mexicolesstraveled.com/comalcalco.html

^(f) http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/mysteries/deccott.htm

^(g) https://www.archyde.com/did-the-basques-arrive-in-america-before-columbus/

^(h) https://www.dailygrail.com/2014/09/did-marco-polo-discover-america-in-the-13th-century/

⁽ⁱ⁾ Pre-Colonial North America – World History Encyclopedia

^(j) Minoans have been to America before Columbus (bristolgreeks.com)

^(k) Egyptian statuette recovered from Mexico is authentic: Antiquities ministry – Ancient Egypt – Antiquities – Ahram Online

^(l) Bradley T. Lepper The Columbus Dispatch • Sunday September 20, 2015

^(m) https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1383&context=jbms

⁽ⁿ⁾ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/new-evidence-suggests-stone-age-hunters-from-europe-discovered-america-7447152.html?printService=print

^(o) http://www.academia.edu/5119515/On_thin_ice_Problems_with_Stanford_and_Bradley_s_Solutrean-Clovis_hypothesis

^(p) Genetic data does not support ancient trans-Atlantic migration, professor says | The University of Kansas (archive.org)

^(q) http://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/critics-blast-cbc-documentary-on-solutrean-hypothesis-for-ignoring-racism

^(r) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/21/rejecting-the-solutrean-hypothesis-the-first-peoples-in-the-americas-were-not-from-europe

^(s) Solutrean hypothesis: genetics, the mammoth in the room: World Archaeology: Vol 46 , No 5 – Get Access (tandfonline.com)

^(t)(PDF) On thin ice: Problems with Stanford and Bradley’s proposed Solutrean colonisation of North America (researchgate.net)

^(u) Earth is my witness… Sea peoples reached Mesoamerica – COGNIARCHAE

^(v) (99+) PLUTARCH, THE OLMECS & THE HYKSOS SETTLEMENT OF AMERICA | The Mumble – Academia.edu

^(w) Barry Fell and His Big Idea: Wherein a Harvard Zoology Professor Tells the Tale Of All the Folks Who Got Here Before Columbus | News | The Harvard Crimson (thecrimson.com)

^(x) 10 Pieces of Evidence That Prove Black People Sailed to the Americas Long Before Columbus (atlantablackstar.com)

^(y)https://www.academia.edu/9066795/Did_the_Mapuche_of_Chile_travel_from_Homeric_Age_Greece *

^(z)https://www.academia.edu/32921347/ANCIENT_GREEKS_TRAVELLED_WORLDWIDE *

Tagged Ancient Greeks, Arysio dos Santos, Barry Fell, Basques, Bering Strait, Bradley T. Lepper, Bruce Bradley, Christopher Columbus, Dennis Stanford, Egyptians, Harry Bourne, Hyksos, Irish, Jennifer Raff, John L. Sorenson, Leo Weiner, Marco Polo, Michael J. O'Brien, Minoans, Mormons, Olmecs, Paleo Indians, Phoenicians, pre-Columbian America, Red Paint People, Richard Callaghan, Romans, Scots, Sea Peoples, Soultrean Hypothesis, Sumerians, Ten Lost Tribes, Vikings

360-Day Year

Published September 14, 2021

A 360-Day Year literally means a year that is 5¼ days shorter than today and is a view usually favoured by people with a religious agenda, such as Christadelphians^(a). The author of that paper, Dale W. Wong, has expanded his claim into a 2006 book ^[2065].

Donald W. Patten wrote several 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^(h)(i). 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^(j)!

Some years ago the late William F. Dankenbring published a lengthy paper claiming that prior to the biblical Exodus the year was reckoned to have 360-day year. He goes further, claiming a 360-day year for the Maya^(k).

A further variation is proposed in a 1996 paper by Wayne Horowitz, titled The 360 and 364 Day Year in Ancient Mesopotamia, from which I quote the abstract here^(l).

“During the later portion of the Second Temple period in Israel, a 364 day calendar emerged to challenge the traditional lunar calendar with its regular year of 12 lunar months (approximately 354 days) and leap year of 13 lunar months (approximately 384 days). Evidence from cuneiform sources suggests that this ancient Israelite 364 day year, which appears in the apocryphal books of Enoch and Jubilees, and in the writings of the Qumran community, had its origins in a Mesopotamian ideal mean lunar year of 364 days (12 lunar months = 354 days plus 1/3 ideal lunar month [= 10 days]). This year length of 12 months plus 10 additional days is attested in Mesopotamia from the seventh century B.C.E. onwards, and itself represents an improvement on an ideal 360 day calendar year that dates back to the fourth millennium B.C.E.”

In the 1950s, Immanuel Velikovsky, often accused of an overdependence on the Old Testament quoted a number of ancient sources to support his view that there was a calendrical change required as a consequence of a close encounter with an extraterrestrial body, which slowed the Earth’s rotation. He claimed that this took place in Egypt after the reign of the Hyksos. Velikovsky tackled the 360-day year in Chapter Eight of Worlds in Collision, noting its use in ancient India, China, Persians, Babylonians as well as Egyptian and Romans ^[037].

Another unusual claim comes from Yair Davidiy, who wrote on the Brit-Am 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.”^(d) As far as I’m aware Davidiy has not explained the huge numbers of dolmens in places such as Korea and Japan! Professor W.A. Liebenberg has written a longer piece^(e) 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 (D&L). 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. Like Velikovsky^(c), both claim that before 700 BC the year was 360 days in length 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!

There is also a website actively concerned with the study of the 360-day year^(b). This includes comments on ancient 360-day calendars.

Guy Cramer offers a very detailed review of the 360 v 365 debate, citing among other sources, the Book of Enoch^(f)^(g).

See Ancient Chronology

^(a) Bible Articles and Lessons: 1-9 – 360-day year (archive.org)

^(b) https://360dayyear.com

^(c) Worlds in Collison ^[037], https://www.british-israel.us/413.html

^(d) https://www.britam.org/Proof/Attributes/roleDolmen.html

^(e) (99+) A Historical Research of the Ten Tribes Scattered Into the Nations Part 10 | Prof (Dr) WA Liebenberg – Academia.edu

^(f) 360 vs. 365 (xwalk.ca) (part 1)

^(g) Isaiah’s Sundial & Joshua’s Long Day (xwalk.ca) (part 2)

^(h)https://creationism.org/patten/PattenRecOrgSolSys/PattenRootssCh00aTitle.html

⁽ⁱ⁾ http://creationism.org/patten/PattenMarsEarthWars/

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

^(k) https://triumphpropheticministries.com/360-day-calendar-mayan.htm

^(l)(PDF) The 360 and 364 day year in ancient Mesopotamia | Wayne Horowitz – Academia.edu *

Tagged Babylonians, Book of Enoch, China, Dale W. Wong, Dankenbring, Dolems, Donald W. Patten, Egyptians, Guy Cramer, Hyksos, Immanuel Velikovsky, Japan, Korea, Lost tribes of Israel, Maya, megalith builders, Mesopotamia, Newgrange, Persia, Romans, Ten Lost Tribes, W. A. Liebenberg, Wayne Horowitz, winter solstice, Yair Davidy

Landa, Diego de

Published October 2, 2017

Diego de Landa (1524- 1579) was the Franciscan bishop of Yucatán who played a significant part in promoting the idea that the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel had migrated to the Americas, citing local Mayan legends that their ancestors had come from the East, aided by divine intervention! Others, such as Brasseur de Bourbourg, seized on this idea and expanded it to link the Maya with Atlantis.

Landa was ‘a nasty piece of work’, showing great cruelty towards the indigenous people and little respect for their culture.>He was responsible for the burning of nearly all of the written documents of the Maya, leaving us only three complete books from before the Spanish invasion.<He is also considered to have produced a truly dreadful decipherment of the Maya script,>in no small way the result of his incorrect belief that the script was based on an alphabet. Shortly after his death his papers were lost and remained so until 1862 when some of them were found by Brasseur de Bourbourg in the archives at the Royal Academy of History in Madrid. Brasseur attempted to build on the translation work of de Landa but also failed. Nevertheless, he announced that the Maya had originally come to Yucatán from Atlantis.

A subsequent attempt by Augustus le Plongeon to decrypt the script was also unsuccessful, but it did not deter him from uniquely claiming that Atlantis had been a colony of the Maya. Regarding the script today (2021), over 90 per cent of the Maya texts can now be read with reasonable accuracy^(a).<

^(a) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_script *

Tagged America, Augustus le Plongeon, Brasseur de Bourbourg, Diego de Landa, Maya, Ten Lost Tribes, Yucatan

Salverda, John R.

Published March 6, 2014

John R. Salverda is an apologist for many aspects of the Brit-Am movement^(a), which endeavours to link the British and American people with the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel. He also claims that Greek legends have a Hebrew origin^(c). This brings to mind that Joseph Yahuda, a linguist, has proposed that ‘Hebrew is Greek’, which is the title of his 1982 book ^[1705]+ on the subject^(d).

In a March 2014 blog^(b), part of his Biblical Roots of Classical Philosophy series, Salverda claims that Atlas can be equated with Adam and that Plato’s Atlantis is a retelling of the antediluvian world of the Bible.

>Salverda has also proposed that there is a connection between the Greek Mount Olympus and the vaguely similar sounding Hebrew word Elohim – “The contention here being that Greece was colonized largely from the northern ten tribes of Israel, let us look among the Israelites for the origin of the Olympian concept. The Greek “Olympus,” the idea of a heavenly council of the gods, who spoke with one voice from a certain sacred mountain, surely did not originate in Greece, but it is suspiciously like the religion that began at the mount Shechem of Abimelech, and culminated into that of Ahab’s at Samaria.

Not only did the Israelites have such a mountain-based heavenly council of the gods, but they even called it by a very similar name! These apostate Israelites did not call the gods the “Olympians,” however we do learn from the Scriptures that there was such a term as “Elohim,” which, once upon a time we are told by scholars who have studied the matter, used to be a plural term meaning the “gods.” The Greeks borrowed the Hebrew word, and it’s apparent that it wasn’t just the word that they borrowed, but also they had a common culture and religion as well.”^(e)<

^[1705]+https://archive.org/details/Hebrew.is.Greek/page/n573/mode/2up *

^(a) https://www.britam.org/

^(b) https://historyancientphilsophy.wordpress.com/

^(c) https://www.britam.org/salverda/salverdacontents.html

^(d) https://bristolgreeks.com/index.php/world-greeks/civilisation/history/item/369-hebrew-is-greek-the-blocked-book-of-joseph-yahuda

(e) (99+) The Council of the Gods | John Salverda – Academia.edu *

Tagged Adam, Atlas, Brit-Am, Elohim, Hebrew, John R.Salverda, Joseph Yahuda, Mount Olympus, Ten Lost Tribes

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/