"Stonehenge, Bermuda, and savages are hiding ...... ShennongjiaBy the time you read this, I'm sure you've already smelled a strong sense of "mystery". That's right, in many "hunting" books, the British Stonehenge site is always dubbed as "the world's unsolved mystery". From alien bases to magical rituals, people like to attach eye-catching concepts to Stonehenge and clothe it in supernatural colors.
In reality, many of the mysteries and stories about Stonehenge are just the result of over-packaging. Today, archaeologists know a lot about the age of their construction and the history of their origins.
Recently, researchers from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences** that megalithic sites similar to Stonehenge in England are actually all over Europe, and this architectural custom is likely to have originated in France and then spread along the coast.
Where is the stone henge? Count the 30,000 seats in Europe.
When it comes to towering megalithic buildings from prehistoric times, most people seem to be familiar with the famous Stonehenge ruins in the south of England. But in fact, Stonehenge is not the only big rock in the world, and there are many similar megalithic buildings in Europe. These artificially piled stones are believed to belong to a "megalithic culture", and they were definitely the "most trendy" buildings in prehistoric European societies.
To what extent is it popular? Just say the numbers and you'll understand. Archaeologists have pulled up all the megalithic sites in Europe and found that there are more than 35,000 of them, covering more than a dozen countries such as Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, and this is only a small part of what has been left after thousands of years of wind and frost. If you lived in prehistoric times, you would probably see as many megalithic buildings as there are modern newsstands.
The shape of megalithic buildings varies, and each region and era has its own characteristics. It mainly includes stone tombs, stone sheds, stone temples, and stone circles, and their main functions are to be used as commemorative signs, shelter from the wind and rain, or to hold various ceremonial activities. For example, Stonehenge in England, as we know it, belongs to the category of stone circles, and its original function may have been to commemorate the deceased.
As a cultural phenomenon, megalithic architecture appeared in different parts of Europe because it was invented by prehistoric humans all over Europe, and there was a center of origin that spread to other places.
The first is unlikely, because it is unrealistic to have different groups of people think so closely in their hearts, and the megalithic buildings across Europe look so similar that they did not look like they were invented independently. What's more, on the same continent, the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe were so closely connected that it may be much easier to spread learning than to invent independently.
Therefore, archaeologists speculate that the European megalithic culture should have had a center of origin and transmission. And that's where the question comes from: curious people want to know, who first thought of tossing these boulders? Who led the way in architecture thousands of years ago?
Inverted boulders which are strong, France may be original.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a trend in archaeology that identified the birthplace of European culture as the Middle East or the Near East. In this context, European megalithic culture is also believed to have spread from the Near East, including Turkey, Israel, Egypt, etc. However, there is no empirical basis for this view.
It is true that there are megalithic ruins in the Haifa area of Israel (which have now sunk to the bottom of the sea), but they are most likely not the origin of European megalithic culture.
Speaking of which, finding the origin of megalithic culture is a bit like picking a place for dinner. You see that the streets are full of yellow braised chicken and rice shops, and many of them are also labeled as "authentic", "old", and "first". However, we cannot rely on literal or subjective conjecture to determine who is really the first and who is the one who followed later, but by the evidence of time. In the same way, if you want to find the birthplace of European megalithic culture, the key is to find the place where megaliths first appeared.
To this end, scholars from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden collected data on the construction age of more than 2,400 megalithic buildings and drew the following map.
In this map of Europe, the red zone sites are the oldest and the orange zone is the most recent (see ** bottom scale, the numbers represent the year old). At a glance, the oldest megalithic structures are found in northwestern France, Corsica in France, in southern France on the border with Catalonia in Spain, and in Sardinia, Italy, and they were built 6,800 years ago.
Among them, the ruins of northwestern France are particularly noteworthy. The megalithic buildings here are not only the oldest, but they also show a clear history of architectural evolution. As early as 7,000 years ago, a "pre-megalithic culture" appeared in northwest France. At that time, people would already assemble a large number of laborers to build huge memorial buildings made of earth, mostly to commemorate the deceased. Archaeologists believe that this pre-megalithic culture was actually the prototype of megalithic culture. The function, significance, and even the characteristics of using a large amount of labor in the former megalithic culture buildings are consistent with the megalithic buildings, and later the building materials were changed from soil to stone, which was transformed into megalithic buildings.
Because these pre-megalithic cultures and their evolution occurred only in northwestern France, Swedish scholars deduced from the chronological data that northwestern France was the origin of megalithic cultures in Europe.
The megalithic custom spread widely, thanks to the help of navigation.
Although archaeologists have found the birthplace of megalithic culture, there is still a question that haunts us. How did the custom of building megalithic buildings spread from France to Europe in prehistoric times?
One might think that the choppy, moody sea was probably more difficult for prehistoric humans to conquer than on land, so it was easier to spread by land than by sea at the time. But if we look back at the previous map, we can see that most of the megalithic sites were located along the coast, and even some of the early sites were located on isolated islands surrounded by the sea, which is not the result of overland transmission.
Especially in the Nordic region, Norway, Sweden and other places are separated by a sea from the origin of megalithic culture. And if you go by land, you have to go through Russia, thousands of kilometers more! Maybe it's because the strait wasn't wide, and it wasn't difficult for prehistoric humans to row boats between the two shores?
Previous archaeological discoveries can also prove that humans may have been trying to sail the sea as early as 1 million years ago. In the Nordic region 5,000 to 3,000 years ago, the "boat" was a cultural element with a very high rate of local social and cultural mirrors, which shows its wide application.
It seems that the spread of megalithic culture should have been achieved by taking the sea route. Megalithic buildings, such as those in Sweden, were first found in coastal areas and then inland, which also supports the theory of maritime transmission. At the same time, this phenomenon also shows that Europeans at that time may have had mature seafaring technology, shipbuilding equipment, and the socio-economic foundation to support such activities, and prehistoric humans were not as backward as we think.
Even in modern and technologically advanced society, human beings still have a special obsession with boulders. From Stonehenge in prehistoric England, to the obelisk in ancient Egypt, to the stone archway in China, to today's Washington Monument, no matter how times and technology have changed, human beings have always wanted to use solid boulders to tell their grief and pride to future generations, and this custom has continued for thousands of years.
Therefore, Stonehenge is not some strange unsolved mystery of the world, nor is it so "mysterious". They're just one of the many things prehistoric humans loved.