The History and Prehistory "Industries" Lag Behind the Times in Our Political and Technological Age of Disruption and Need Aristotelian Shakers

The current President of the United States, Donald John Trump, is not everyone’s cup of tea. That is in the nature of the business of politics. Every leader in every nation has adherents and detractors.

Since we are non-partisan, owe allegiance to no political party, and are center-oriented in our politics, we support every elected President of the United States of America -- as the nation's head man. Our assessment of a President thus turns on general results, not on selected political issues. We agree on some things and disagree on others. How can it be otherwise?

In our view, President Donald J. Trump is a wheeler-dealer type by personality and background -- a very much results-oriented man of "expediency", a word well defined in this context at Google's dictionary entry for expediency:

"the quality of being convenient and practical despite possibly being improper or immoral; convenience.
"an act of political expediency""

We expect such behavior from Trump, and we are seldom disappointed. But we do not judge Trump by his "acts" of expediency. Only results count for us.

Accordingly, we ask: Does it make sense to make our political or other expectations a standard of judgment about what is happening in political, legal, social, religious or economic spheres?

Is the fulfillment of expectations what MAKES a President successful or not? Our expectations? How many "expected" the current economic boom under Trump? Is expectation relevant to an assessment of results?

"Expectations" may not be the best determinant of "happiness" regarding daily political or other events, because then a great deal of unavoidable "disappointment" is pre-programmed. Indeed, many mainstream journalists spend a lot of time complaining that their expectations have been dashed. But that is not the true bottom line for evaluating events at the Presidential level.

If we expect something and it is not fulfilled -- and our happiness depends upon expectation fulfillment -- we are disappointed and unhappy. Many expectations stay unfulfilled, so that this is a recipe for unhappiness and disappointment.

If our expectations are fulfilled -- how frequently does that happen? be honest with yourself -- we are “happy”. Our happiness then depends on expectation fulfillment --  "Just like I imagined it!" Again, just how often does that happen?

We thus unnecessarily put our happiness at the mercy of events over which we often have little control to make things meet our expectations. So, why do it?

Why should we make expectations a factor?

Expectation fulfillment is generally a short-term matter that quickly fades into the background when long-term matters are at issue. Daily political discussion TODAY is filled with opinions about largely ephemeral events that TOMORROW correspond to the statement, "There is nothing as old as yesterday's news".

Let us look, for example, at Trump's predecessor. Consider the question of "How did President Barack Obama's Presidency over two terms correspond with (y)our expectations?" Frankly, not many people know a quick answer, because many political expectations are not a long-term thing.

President Obama's Presidency should thus be judged not by short-term political expectations and their fulfillment or non-fulfillment, but rather by what was accomplished or not accomplished, long-term, during Obama's administration.

One example of achievement is Obamacare, which has neither been repealed nor replaced by the Republicans, in spite of nearly 10 years of trying. The necessary Congressional majorities have simply not been found among the nation's elected representatives. How does that mesh with (y)our expectations? It all depends, does it not? Is Obamacare working? Is that the standard of judgment? Polls show that about 51% of Americans currently approve of Obamacare. As a result, it has become a virtual political non-issue -- why aggravate the majority of voters? In the meantime, other issues have risen to the surface. The world is a sea of problems. How are they being solved?

In the long run, Donald Trump's tenure as President of the United States should similarly be judged by his achievements, and not by whether his actions correspond to our preconceptions and expectations, where we could be wrong.

Much of mainstream media has still to learn that lesson. To their credit, even the arch-liberal Guardian in the United Kingdom already admits to some achievements by the Trump administration as they write in How Trump has changed America in two years:

""This is the greatest economy in the history of our country," Donald Trump told reporters last year. Two years into his presidency he has plenty to brag about but also some big problems. Many of his own making.

Unemployment is close to levels unseen since the first moon landing. It ticked up last month but even that rise came as more workers came off the sidelines and started looking for work. So far about 5m jobs have been created under Trump.

It is pretty dubious to claim presidents "create" jobs but they all take the credit when things are good; unsurprisingly Trump is no exception. The current recovery clearly began under the previous president, Barack Obama. Even with the unarguably impressive improvements under Trump, he has a way to go before he can fulfil his promise of being "the greatest jobs president that God ever created"."

We must thus view preconceived expectations with a grain of salt. On the one hand, the "left" expected Trump's demise long ago. The predominantly left-oriented mainstream news media and strongly negative crystal ball opinion columnists failed miserably in predicting the future of the Trump administration, so much so, that not only is Trump's demise unlikely, but Trump's re-election is as likely it was for his predecessors, given current poll results.

Similarly, the "right" establishment may have expected Trump to ultimately follow their line of thinking. But Trump in fact does what HE wants, if he can. So, he is no friend of the G.O.P. establishment. Rather, by most counts, Trumpism is winning and not establishment Republican factions. See the article by Perry Bacon Jr. at FiveThirtyEight at The Five Wings of the Republican Party.

Political developments worldwide, especially "populism" -- which is a powerful force at the root of Trump's ascendancy to the Presidency -- can surely be better understood if we recognize that the world has a need to adjust its political expectations to conform to the present realities of our planet and its inhabitants.

The establishment in many areas of activity has failed to do this, and so we should not be surprised that populists like Trump are surfacing, and are favoring different solutions than have been tried previously by political mainstreamers.

Politics is not the only area of human activity in need of substantial reform and modernization. Trump says it is time to "drain the swamp". Figuratively, it means that things have to be "shaken", in the sense that Aristotle told us that "even the trees must be shaken by the wind to grow".

Without pressure to do otherwise, humankind gets lazy and stagnates into various kinds of decadence, everywhere apparent.

The Trump political situation can be compared with the problems of modernity confronting establishment Archaeology and related disciplines such as Oriental viz. Biblical Studies, which remain stubbornly backward (of course, in part by the retrograde nature of their study), and out-of-date, because they are not sufficiently pushed from outside to get out of their cozy rut.

The "history industry" is dominated by academics who continue doing what they have always done, story-booking how they think the past was, based on often tenuous authority-based rather than evidence-based "opinions", as presented, e.g. in conclusory documentary films, as if no alternative "stories" existed and as if all questions had been resolved, which is by no means the case.

Hence, the history industry has gotten many things wrong historically viz. pre-historically. The entire field of ancient studies, historical and prehistorical, is marked by what we view to be a glaring absence of analytical critical thinking and the lack of sober consideration of alternative explanatory solutions.

What are needed in the historical disciplines are disruptive people and ideas to "shake" the establishment out of its slumber.

Even in modern technology and media, We Live in an Age of Disruption. Just imagine then how rusty things are in the other "older" arts and sciences.

In a similar vein, Trump is a political disruptive "shaker" in politics.

Trump needs to be disruptive in a technologically-dominated digital age, where many things need to be changed per se and indeed must be changed due to the advance of expanded knowledge in our modern era.

Representative democracy has also lagged behind the times via inconceivable "government shutdowns" or, as in the UK, through people taking direct voter control of the political process, by Brexit referendum. If governments were properly doing their job, such political excesses would be unnecessary.

The U.S. Congress, e.g., has been hopelessly ineffectual in recent years, trying to play President rather than doing their proper legislative role, and has in the eyes of the populace deservedly suffered great losses of face as an institution.

Nevertheless, U.S. Senators and Members of the House of Representatives persist on being mired in a locked-in partisan yesterday, often basking in their own personal glories, rather than doing their jobs effectively. The voters elect representatives to pass legislation for the good of their constituents. Witch-hunting, on the other hand, is a power not based anywhere in the Constitution.

In any case, it is not expectations,
but results down the road
that reveal the successes and failures of policy.

Right now, Trumpism is winning….
like it or not.
Just look at the economy.
Booming.

The rest remains to be seen.

Ancient Migration Between Siberia and North America Based on New DNA Data Analysis: From the Arctic to the U.S. Southwest

Smithsonian Magazine has an article by Brian Handwerk titled "Ancient DNA Reveals Complex Story of Human Migration Between Siberia and North America: Two studies greatly increase the amount of information we have about the peoples who first populated North America—from the Arctic to the Southwest U.S."

Attached to the link by the Smithsonian:
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-dna-reveals-complex-story-human-migration-between-siberia-and-north-america-180972356/#mdMUGpRtvgehwOZ1.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

Origins of Complex Human Social Organization in the Group Exchange of Small Talk and Other Information

We have been very critical of mainstream news media in our past postings, especially in their choice and treatment of "news" items, many of which we would put into the category of "small talk" or "gossip", an interactive form of communication that some say accounts for as much as 75% of daily human speech.

We quote Horst Müller in Spektrum der Wissenschaft 10/1998, page 108 in "Klatsch und Tratsch. Wie der Mensch zur Sprache fand.", a book review of  Sebastian Vogel's translation of Robin Dunbar's Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language.:

"Nach Dunbar handeln etwa 75 Prozent des täglichen Gesprächs-aufkommens eines Menschen von "Klatsch und Tratsch", also Inhalten, die sich im wesentlichen mit der sozialen Interaktion von echten oder vermeintlichen Gruppenmitgliedern beschäftigen."

 Translation of that phrase by Google Translate:

"According to Dunbar, about 75 percent of a person's daily conversations are about 'gossip,' [viz. "small talk"] meaning content that essentially deals with the social interaction of real or supposed group members." [text in brackets added by LawPundit]

Up to now, we have been of the opinion that the mass of humans prefers also to read banal "blah blah" material. Indeed, we still think that to be the case, but there may be a reason for humankind's preferences.

We have been reconsidering the matter in view of a very interesting journalistic piece by Peter Reinhart, deputy editor-in-chief of the Trierischer Volksfreund titled "Der Anfang von allem" in German.

Reinart's remarks in the Volksfround Forum focus on the presumed beginnings of complex human social organization. Such beginnings are arguably found in interactive communication via the group exchange of information, especially news of the general "goings-on" of fellow humanity, i.e. who is doing what, where, and with whom.  In short, the banal "news" of everyday life. This can be in the form of daily conversation, and, of course, via written material.

Reinhart writes that people are most interested in the doings of other people, especially those not too close to home and in higher social strata, i.e. "out there" in the bigger world. That interest has to do with survival optimization. Knowing "what is doing" is essential knowledge.

The focus is essentially on what has traditionally been called "gossip" (German "Klatsch und Tratsch") and "small talk", an information exchange that in earlier days took place on e.g. the market square, and, according to Reinhart, is an active form of communication that is at the root of modern societal organization in all of its forms. This is definitely a hypothesis worth thinking about.

Reinhart writes at  the Volksfreund Forum as excerpted below (one can translate the quoted text into English or another language of choice at Google Translate):

"Nichts interessiert den Menschen so sehr wie der Mensch. Was der nette Nachbar treibt, ist und bleibt privat. Öffentlich verhandelt werden von alters her die Heldentaten der Reichen, Schönen und Berühmten, ihr Leben, ihr Sterben. Die Irrungen und Wirrungen, die Höhenflüge und Abstürze, die Eskapaden und Skandale. Geld. Macht. Sex.
...
Nachrichten aus der Abteilung Klatsch und Tratsch. Die einen mögen sie, die anderen mögen sie nicht. Aber wir brauchen sie, erstaunlich genug, alle. Wie kommt’s?

Rückblende, vor siebzigtausend Jahren: Der Homo sapiens ist ein Herdentier und die Kooperation in der Gruppe entscheidend für das Überleben und die Fortpflanzung, sagt der bestsellernde Universalhistoriker Yuval Noah Harari. Dazu reicht es nicht aus, zu wissen, wo sich Löwen und Büffel aufhalten. Es ist viel wichtiger zu wissen, wer in der Gruppe wen nicht leiden kann, wer mit wem schläft, wer ehrlich ist und wer andere beklaut. [link added by LawPundit]

Mit Hilfe von verlässlichen Informationen über zuverlässige Mitmenschen konnten die Sapiens ihre Gruppen stark erweitern, enger miteinander zusammenarbeiten und komplexere Formen der Zusammenarbeit entwickeln, bis hin zu modernen Staaten."

Is Harari right in his fundamental hypothesis? Was interactive "small talk" group communication a significant factor in the evolution of human society and is it integral to developing modern complex forms of interaction and cooperation?

We are still thinking about it.

Ancient Song Traditions: KEiiNO & SPIRIT IN THE SKY at Eurovision 2019 - A Fantastic Song with Sami Joik Chants Wins the Televote

LATER ADDED NOTE (May 22, 2019): EXCELLENT ADDED BACKGROUND MATERIAL AND LINKS are found at Caroline Westbrook's article What is Joik, as heard in Norway’s 2019 Eurovision entry Spirit In the Sky? at Metro.co.uk where Westbrook writes:

"What is Joik, as heard in Spirit In The Sky? Buljo’s mid-song chant (fast-forward to 2:02 to hear it) is a traditional type of song performed by the Sami people – otherwise known as Lapps or Laplanders – who inhabit the Sapmi region, encompassing large parts of Norway and Sweden as well as northern Finland and Murmansk Oblast in north-west Russia. The sound, which has been compared to the chanting of some Native American cultures, is often deeply personal in nature, with each joik meant to reflect or evoke a person, animal or place. Eurovision aside, it’s found its place in popular culture, serving as inspiration for the likes of Disney’s Frozen – with the opening song, Vuelie, heavily influenced by Sami culture."

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/what-is-joik-as-heard-in-norways-2019-eurovision-entry-spirit-in-the-sky-9375648/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/"
__________

Now, to our original posting....
__________

For us, the top song of the 2019 Eurovision Song Sontest was Spirit in the Sky (Grand Final Version) by Norway's KEiiNO, a song which won the Europe-wide popular Eurovision televote. For the lyric version, see here.

As written at NewsInEnglish.no (make sure to read the whole article):

"No other country’s entry at the huge if hotly debated Eurovision Song Contest won as many votes from the public as Norway’s trio known as KEiiNO late Saturday night. Two of KEiiNO’s members are crediting their Sami colleague Fred Buljo for catapulting them from 15th- to 5th place in the finals....

KEiiNO singers Tom Hugo and Alexandra Rotan said on Sunday that they were “dedicating” what’s considered a respectable result at Eurovision to their fellow singer Fred Buljo, whose Sami heritage and Sami joik set them apart from all the other entries that often featured wailing vocalists and lots of pyrotechnics."

Fred Buljo is a star! Musically, on stage, he's got it. He sings
Joik viz. Sami joik, one of Europe's oldest song traditions!

As written at NewsInEnglish.no:

"“I’m very proud of my Sami background and culture,” said Buljo, who hails from Kautokeino in Norway’s northernmost county of Finnmark. “This shows that the joik, which is Europe’s oldest song tradition, touches people’s souls.” [emphasis added]
The United Nations is also honouring traditional languages of indigenous peoples this year, with Norway’s Sami Parliament (Sametinget) receiving NOK 1.1 million to boost exposure of the Sami language. “Now we can continue the work to strengthen languages under threat,” Buljo said, adding that he’s involved in production of a “concept album” featuring indigenous languages from around the world."

Norway had in fact already handily won the public vote in the 2nd semifinal sing-off prior to the grand final and could be viewed as the song which reflects the era of our life and times in our climate-change discussion age - an era of Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) caused by an active sun.

However, Spirit in the Sky was not greatly favored in the so-called jury vote of alleged professional "experts", whose vote in each country was counted as 50% of the "total vote", with the other 50% being comprised by the public vote.

Moreover, the foundation of the jury vote was not based on viewing the actual Grand Final performances of the 26 music participants, but rather on seeing the non-publicly available 2nd general viz. dress rehearsal prior to the Grand Final, which is not identical to the Grand Final, as changes are made. You can't make this kind of thing up. Basing 50% of the result of a finals race on a non-public evaluation of a preliminary heat? Not a good standard of judgment in our estimation. A final is always different than the prelims.

This strange system leads in each country to an extremely small not necessarily qualified group of people in a so-called "jury" picking their personal song favorites and, as in 2019, taking the win away from the most popular song in favor of some other song "technically" preferred as an individual matter of taste. Really, we could care less about a jury for music. The public buys music and listens to it. That should be the standard. The public vote, not a jury vote. Polls don't win elections, the actual VOTE OF THE PUBLIC does.

A good example of a jury in 2019 was Germany, consisting of only five persons - singers or people in the music business, with varying degrees of success.

NOTE:
The German public
in their Grand Final televote
picked Norway as the winner.

HOWEVER:
The German jury of five viewing the Dress Rehearsal
voted for Italy as the winner.

If the two are added, Italy then "won" the German vote, 18-17, as the jury did not vote well for Norway. Spirit in the Sky was a song that did not necessarily relate to the musical experiences of the German jury.

The net result of the Eurovision voting was that the Netherlands won the total vote, after winning neither the popular televote nor the jury vote overall.

Egad! What a potentially faulty system.

We repeat: For us, the top song of the 2019 Eurovision Song Sontest was Spirit in the Sky (Grand Final Version) by Norway's KEiiNO, a song which won the Europe-wide popular Eurovision televote. For the lyric version, see here.
There are several other versions available online at YouTube.

The Eye of Horus in the Stars Marked at Abydos as the North Celestial Pole

The Eye of Horus is marked in the stars at Abydos to represent the eternal celestial eye at the North Celestial Pole. This decipherment is more or less indisputable, given our previous postings. Abydos shows us the origin of this symbol as a "sky" marker and later hieroglyph, which points correctly to the right and not to the left as erroneously found in Gardiner's hieroglyph sign list.

The Eye of Horus in the Stars Marked at Abydos as the North Celestial Pole
(click on the graphic for a larger image in case your graphic appears too small)

 

Note please that this posting follows the immediately previous postings, which should be consulted for full understanding. For further background, see also my article The Origin of the Cult of Horus in Predynastic Egypt 

at Research Gate at the link
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265492234_The_Origin_of_the_Cult_of_Horus_in_Predynastic_Egypt.

The underlying star map above is via the astronomy software Starry Night Pro. We have added the labels and the drawing of the Eye of Horus within the stars.

Our drawing of the Eye of Horus above is based on an image online by Jeff Dahl at the link  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eye_of_Horus_Right.svg, Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), who writes:

"Eye of Horus (right eye). Following the sources, it must be the right eye (the left eye that is the original image has another meaning)."

The Wikipedia writes at Eye of Horus:

"The Eye of Horus was represented as a hieroglyph, designated D10 in Gardiner's sign list. It is represented in the Unicode character block for Egyptian hieroglyphs as U+13080 (𓂀)."

The left orientation of Gardiner's D10 is in error.

In fact, the Egyptologists over time have gotten the Eye of Horus backward, facing left, when it should properly be shown facing to the right, as it is actually found in the stars.

It is only later that the original meaning of the hieroglyph to mark the North Celestial Pole became confused with Ra, after its true meaning had been lost.

As written at Ancient Egypt Online:

"According to later traditions, the right eye represented the sun and so is called the “Eye of Ra” while the left represented the moon and was known as the “eye of Horus” (although it was also associated with Thoth)." [emphasis added]

The Eye of Horus mirrors lines shaped by stars around "the eye" in heaven, but those lines were in all probability also intended to represent similar eyelines of the lanner or peregrine falcon. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horus.

In any case, based on our decipherment as published in this posting, it is now possible to understand the initial significance of the Eye of Horus in the stars in predynastic Egypt at the inception of Pharaonic civilization. It marked the North Celestial Pole as the center of heaven.

Abydos: Google Earth Coordinates Corrected for the Tumps Representing Stars Near the North Celestial Pole

Please note that we have corrected the coordinates

for the base Google Earth image in the previous posting!
(corrected April 12, 2019)

The correct coordinates for the image made November 7, 2018 are:
Google Earth 26°10'01.38N 31°54'36.72E
cross-checked at the online "Earth 3D Map"
which converts to 26°10'01.4"N 31°54'36.7"E
and is found online at
http://earth3dmap.com/#?l=26%C2%B010'01.38N%2031%C2%B054'36.72E
with the coordinate point at ca. the middle of the "eye-shaped" stars....

See the previous posting.

Abydos Ground Plan as Astronomy : Unassailable Proof on the Ground: "Tumps" Mark Stars at the North Celestial Pole ca 3360 BC

Please note that we have corrected the coordinates
for the base Google Earth image! (April 12, 2019)

The correct coordinates for the image made November 7, 2018 are:
Google Earth 26°10'01.38N 31°54'36.72E
crosschecked at the online "Earth 3D Map"
which converts to 26°10'01.4"N 31°54'36.7"E and is found online at
http://earth3dmap.com/#?l=26%C2%B010'01.38N%2031%C2%B054'36.72E
with the coordinate point at ca. the middle of the "eye-shaped" stars....
 __________

We present here incontrovertible proof that the original ground plan of Abydos and its associated predynastic funerary significance was astronomical viz. (for religious purposes) "heavenly" viz. "heaven-centered" in nature.

As we have deciphered in past postings, the Processional Valley at Abydos marks the (tail) stars of Draco and ends at the North Celestial Pole.

Are there any stars marked there on the ground in hermetic fashion, i.e. "as above, so below"?

Let us take a look at that area on the ground via Google Earth, which is the image below into which we have included the latitude and longitude settings so that one can find this area of our planet more easily:

Image clip (below) Google Earth 2018 at 26°10'01.38"N 31°54'36.72"E

(please click on the image to view a larger graphic) 

The round objects are like "tumps" or similar markings on the ground.

What caught our eye particularly in the above image were the group of tumps on the ground in an "eye-shape" towards the center right, a figure comparable to star positions that we recognized (26°10'01.38"N 31°54'36.72"E). Were those the positions of some stars near the North Celestial Pole ca. 3000 BC?

The image below is a clip from Starry Night Pro of the possibly comparable stars represented by the Abydos image above. See if you can find an eye-shaped comparable figure in these stars, just below the North Celestial Pole in 3360 BC.

Image clip (below) via Starry Night Pro

of the stars near the North Celestial Pole in 3360 BC

(please click on the image to view a larger graphic)

 Now look at the Abydos ground plan next to the allegedly comparable stars.

Image clip (below) of the Comparable Stars (via Starry Night Pro)

next to the "Tumps" on the Ground at Abydos at a Position we have previously identified as marking the North Celestial Pole 3360 BC

 26°10'01.38"N 31°54'36.72"E

(please click on the image to view a larger graphic
so that you can see the clear correspondence match)

Is that a match? ABSOLUTELY.

ABSOLUTELY. It is obvious.

We post these materials online, by the way, because we are interested in how the historical past of humankind actually was, and not how it is erroneously portrayed by errant mainstreamers, who are on the wrong path.

We have little hope of reaching the minds of financially established academic researchers in these fields because their minds are apparently closed and their pocketbooks full. God forgive them. "Pocketbooks" is used here in the broader sense to include things like "academic reputation" and the "years invested", all of which people are of course unwilling to give up by changing their course.

We DO reach out however to new, young minds in historical fields who are at least willing to consider astronomical solutions in their researches.
You do not have to agree, but you should at least LOOK. LOOK.

The probative evidence for the importance of astronomy to prehistoric humankind and the instances pointing to "heavenly" veneration of the stars by ancient cultures is overwhelming ... OVERWHELMING!

Religion did not start in a day and God is "in heaven" and not elsewhere for a reason. The ancients revered the starry sky and that is where they put their gods. It took thousands of years for our modern "heaven-oriented" beliefs to develop out of that. Why is this probative evidence ignored?

P.S. We continue on, nevertheless.
Do you see the profile of a Pharaoh-like person (with elongated beard) in the background of the Google Earth image above, facing right? There are more such man-made "figures" at Abydos. We shall present them in subsequent postings.

Abydos Boats, Umm El-Qaab, KKB, Kochab, Stars, Cepheus, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Draco and the Competing Mother of Pots Via Mainstream Bad Archaeology Lost in Yesteryear

Question: Why have we titled this posting "Abydos Boats, Umm El-Qaab, KKB, Kochab, Stars, Cepheus, Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Draco and the Competing Mother of Pots Via Mainstream Bad Archaeology Lost in Yesteryear"?

Answer: Because the ancient predynastic Pharaonic Egyptian funerary site Umm El-Qaab epitomizes the wayward wrong path that mainstream Archaeology and related disciplines have been taking since their inception in their misunderstanding of the nature of the early history of Ancient Egypt.
The historical disciplines, lost in pots, have totally missed their boats, as it were, by failing viz. refusing to ask the simple question of whether much of what has been found in prehistory could be related to ancient religious beliefs as tied to the veneration of the stars above -- "in heaven" as it were.

According to current mainstream dogma, the name of Umm El-Qaab viz. Umm El Gaʻab, is (erroneously) traced to the Arabic term qa-ab "small bowl" and thus the site name is transliterated "Mother of Pots" because of all the ancient pot sherds found in the area and purportedly arising from offerings to the gods. But why here? People in Egyptology call their current view "science". We call it "folk etymology" and unsubstantiated guessing.

Aimo Edvard (Edward) Murtonen (1924-1996),
often written simplified with the initial A. Murtonen, formerly Department of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Melbourne, who was a student of Paul E. Kahle, University of Bonn, Germany,
in Section Bb, page 226 of
Hebrew in Its West Semitic Setting: A Comparative Survey of Non-Masoretic Hebrew Dialects and Traditions. Part 1. A Comparative Lexicon Volume 3 Sections Bb. Root System: Comparative Material and Discussions. Sections C, D and E: Numerals under 100, Pronouns and Particles, Hebrew MaterialSeries: Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics, a massive work described as "This ... lexical part of the work ... contains comparative material to the root system from cognate languages, including sixteen Semitic and three Cushitic fairly well represented languages as well as Tuareg, Hausa, old Egyptian and Coptic quoted systematically; Omotic; Berber other than Tuareg, and Chadic other than Hausa likewise as groups; other Semitic and Cushitic less regularly; etymological and semantic comments follow dictionary entries; phonological discussion, including an attempt at the determination of pre-Semitic phonemes on the basis of actual attestation, is mainly concentrated in the introduction...."

has the following entry for the consonantal combination "KB":

"Phoen /kkb/ star; Ug /kbkb/ (pl. /kbkbm/, /kkbm/) =; Aram /ko^wkb/ = ; Syr /kawkb/ = ; Amor /kabkab/ = ; Akk /kakkab/ = ; Arab /kawkab/ =, constellation; ESA /kwkb/ star .... Etymology uncertain; Aram etc. /kbb/ seems to mean primarily roasting rather than just burning...."

The above term has its Indo-European comparable, e.g. Latvian kūp- kūpt, written by Mühlenbachs-Endzelins as kûpt, kûpstu, kûpu meaning "qualmen, dampfen, rauchen" ... with the variants kvēp-, kvēpu "qualmen, rauchen". In English the best translation is perhaps a "fuming fire", as the ancients apparently originally viewed the stars, i.e. as red-hot wood-burning campfires.

Adding to our previous postings on the Abydos Boats as marking stars at the Harbor of Cepheus ...

• Why the Abydos Boats Were Docked at the "Harbor" of Cepheus, and 
• Abydos Boats and Enclosures Mark the Stars of Cepheus, One of the Argonauts Immortalized in the Stars: Are These The Boats of Jason and his Minyans?,

... we can now view that central portion of the starry sky in a larger context at Abydos as follows, demonstrating that Umm El-Qaab marks the stars of Ursa Minor (with Qaab arguably specifically equivalent to Kochab) ... the curving Processional Way marking the stars of Draco and arguably the North Celestial Pole. In addition, the stars of Ursa Major and Cassiopeia are also marked on the ground surface in hermetic fashion by edifices, i.e. "as above, so below". Here is our composite decipherment of Abydos and Umm El-Qaab as marking the stars at the center of heaven and thus being the funerary center of predynastic Egypt. There are three images -- 1) the ground plan, 2) the corresponding stars, and 3) the composite ground plan and sky.

Image 1 (below): Abydos and Umm El-Qaab Ground Plan

Image 2 (below): Abydos and Umm El-Qaab Corresponding Stars

Image 3 (below): THE COMPOSITE DECIPHERMENT IMAGE
Abydos and Umm El-Qaab Composite Ground Plan and Sky

(Please click on the image to obtain a larger graphic)

We thus do not have the banal "Mother of Pots" at Umm El-Qaab, as the pot-geeked archaeologists and related professions would have us believe, but rather, we have the "Father of Fumes", as it were, the Midheaven of Stars.

Since the astronomical nature of Abydos is thus made quite crystal clear by this decipherment, all the disciplines involved in trying to understand mankind's ancient history will have to abandon the misunderstood paths they have been following up to now, and will now have to follow the true hermetic path, "as above, so below". That is the origin of our (humankind's) "heavenly" beliefs, indeed, long before the Pharaohs.

Why the Abydos Boats Were Docked at the "Harbor" of Cepheus

In our previous posting titled

Abydos Boats and Enclosures Mark the Stars of Cepheus, One of the Argonauts Immortalized in the Stars: Are These The Boats of Jason and his Minyans?

we showed that the Abydos Boats are "docked" at the "harbor" of Cepheus, which is marked in a figure at the Dolmen viz. Tumulus of Mane Lud Locmariaquer in Morbihan, France. See our previous posting on The Dolmen viz. Tumulus of Mane Lud viz. Mané Lud Locmariaquer Morbihan France Deciphered as Marking the Stars of the Vernal Equinox ca. 4320 BC.

The following graphic arguably shows why those boats were docked at Cepheus in ca. 3360 BC, being at a central astronomical location in the era of 3360 BC, not just in terms of the Milky Way, but also with regard to the North Galactic Pole, the North Ecliptic Pole, the North Celestial Pole, and the Winter Solstice, all of which are located on a line that sets off the Cepheus harbor.

We thus consider the era of 3360 BC to be a likely date for the real voyage of the legendary Jason and the Argonauts, coinciding with the start of protodynastic Egypt.

This may relate to the influx of "Gerzeh Culture" into Egypt.

As written in the Wikipedia: "Some symbols on Gerzeh pottery resemble traditional Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were contemporaneous with the proto-cuneiform script of Sumer."

Please click on the graphic below to obtain a larger, more readable image.

The general topic of ancient seafarers also has to do with significant changes in the European genetic picture, which changed dramatically ca. 4500 B.C., about the same time that we claim that the megalithic calendar was instituted in 4320 BC.

See Ker Than, Modern Europe's Genetic History Starts in Stone Age, National Geographic News, in which the sub-headline is that "Scientists create the first detailed genetic history of modern Europe".

As Ker Than writes:

"DNA recovered from ancient skeletons reveals that the genetic makeup of modern Europe was established around 4,500 B.C. in the mid-Neolithic...."

 

The Dolmen viz. Tumulus of Mane Lud viz. Mané Lud Locmariaquer Morbihan France Deciphered as Marking the Stars of the Vernal Equinox ca. 4320 BC

Given the content of our immediately previous postings we are now in a position to present our decipherment of the Dolmen viz. Tumulus of Mane Lud viz. Mané Lud Locmariaquer of Morbihan, France, which is located on the highest point of Locmariaquer, a port at the entrance to the Gulf of Morbihan, a natural harbor, surely used by the ancients who erected the megalithic sites in the area.

We have deciphered that the various markings found on the Dolmen viz. Tumulus Mané Lud viz. Mane Lud Locmariaquer represent stars at or near the Vernal Equinox in ca. 4320 BC between the stars of Gemini and Auriga, and that the specific figure marked on the dolmen that many have thought to be "boats" in fact ARE boats, and, indeed, our decipherment shows that they are docked above Cassiopeia in the harbor of Cepheus in the stars, as that harbor has been previously identified regarding the Abydos Boats.
 
It is a nice confirmation of our previous analysis of this whole subject matter.

We can say, however, that Mané Lud does not have the figure of a spouting whale marked on it, but rather that figure represents a "tree of life"-type figure (Germanic Irminsul) seen by the ancients between the stars of Gemini and Auriga, due to its shape as the mammalian female reproductive organ, but not so recognized by modern scholars. Just enter the keywords "female reproductive organ whale" into Google and you can then locate the comparable image.

The following graphics show our view of the most prominent lines on the Tumulus of Mané Lud Locmariaquer and our decipherment of those lines as marking stars at and near the Vernal Equinox in ca. 4320 BC.

The Dolmen viz. Tumulus

Mané Lud of Locmariaquer, Morbihan, France

Please click on the graphic to obtain a larger image

Decipherment by Andis Kaulins of the Dolmen viz. Tumulus

Mané Lud of Locmariaquer, Morbihan, France

Please click on the graphic to obtain a larger image

Many things authenticate this decipherment. Just look at the hair, tied in a bun at the side, and the many unusual small details carved on stone that match similar unusual groups of shapes in the actual stars.

For example, loook at the forehead of the figure.

In any case, I was at Carnac and Locmariaquer in the year 2000,

here at the Hotel Celtique, located just between the two.

I thought I had deciphered some of the Carnac megaliths at that time, finding that the front row of stones seemed to measure stars along the Galactic Equator. Apparently, the ancients were dealing with the starry consequences of precession. However, I have not been back to Carnac or Locmariaquer since then. One can not do everything, and I am happy to have been there once.

The 480-Year Surges viz. Waves in Megalithic Construction in Europe and Other Things That Matter

The images have now been prepared and included in this posting.

In 4320 BC, the Autumn Equinox in the stars was located "at" (modernly "near") the Galactic Center of our Galaxy near Alnasl, gamma2 Sagittarii, or, alternatively, 3 Sagittarii), with the arrowhead of the arrow of the bow of Sagittarius pointing to that galactic center. Modernly, the spout of the "teapot" asterism of Sagittarius points in that same galaxy-centered direction.

Such a central Autumn Equinox location in the stars would surely appear to be a likely reason for the presumed choice of the date 4320 BC as a calendric landmark by the ancients. Some of our still "modern" constellations of the Zodiac may have been "drawn" then, for the arrow of Sagittarius points to the Galactic Center, and was surely so intended by the ancient constellation makers, with the arrowhead placed at gamma-2 Sagittarii by historical tradition although 3 Sagittarii might be a better and closer candidate for the original placement.

We would then expect the following major calendar reform dates somewhere in the C14 record, idealized to conform to 240, 480, 960, and 1440-year intervals, with 240-year intervals also in evidence e.g. at the (by us) presumed 3117 BC start of the dynastic Pharaonic Egyptian Calendar and the  ca. 237 BC Restoration of the Etruscan Secular Games, an interval of 2880 years.

MAJOR CALENDAR and CALENDER REFORM DATES EXPECTED FOR
4320 BC - 3840 BC - 3360 BC - 2880 BC etc.

Here is what we find in the older calibrated radiocarbon dates of Europe in Paulsson's article, as we take "averages" of dates per location to show the above identified idealized intervals, whereas the actual dates need not exactly correspond to the above dates, but they are close:

____________________

4320 BC - a "Megalithic" Calendar is Instituted
The 1st surge viz. "wave" of megalith building: 4320 BC

• the Autumn Equinox is located in the stars at the Galactic Center in Sagittarius, indeed, at the arrowhead point of the bow, Alnasl, but perhaps, more correctly, as an extended arrow, at 3 Sagittarii 
• we date Staraya Zalavruga on the White Sea in Karelia and the Hermitage Planisphere of Lake Onega, Karelia to about this era: see The Star Map of Staraya Zalavruga, Karelia, Russia is Oriented to the Milky Way and The Hermitage Planisphere : An Ancient Milky-Way Oriented Sky Map from Lake Onega, Karelia, Russia
• as for the "origins" of the first megalithic seafarers, nothing against France, but all bets are open, especially given the 8000-year old Mesolithic era boat found in 1999 in submerged waters around Bouldnor Cliff on the Isle of Wight (cal 6200 to cal 6000 BC). See the Maritime Archaeology Trust at Bouldnor Cliff, as also Secrets of the Solent and Britain's Atlantis

Please click on the graphic below for a larger image.

Averaging the calibrated radiocarbon dates shows them to be close:

Western France (Carnac)

4794 + 3999 = 8793 / 2 = 4396 BC

4770 + 4034 = 8804 / 2 = 4402 BC

Southern Spain/France

4722 + 4068 = 8890 / 2 = 4445 BC

4581 + 4267 = 8848 / 2 = 4424 BC

Sardinia

4733 + 3986 = 8719 / 2 = 4360 BC

Corsica

4327 + 4266 = 8593 / 2 = 4297 BC

____________________

3840 BC - 480 years later than 4320 BC - 120-Day Calender Reform
The 2nd surge viz. "wave" of megalith building: 3840 BC

• the Autumn Equinox in the Stars has moved North to the stars of Ophiuchus, but is still in the Milky Way
• measurement on Earth is moved to conform to that new location (Scotland, Ireland, England and Wales), with the flower of Ophiuchus marked in the hair of a large female profile on Long Meg
• this date conforms to the Hebrew Calender, which is said to start on 3760 BC, but at "the Creation" it is said that "80 years is a day" -- a one-day error there ? -- so that 3840 BC is possible.

Please click on the graphic below for a larger image.

Averaging the calibrated radiocarbon dates shows them to be close:

Scotland

4295 + 3495 = 7790 / 2 = 3895 BC

3800 + 3560 = 7360 / 2 = 3680 BC

Ireland

3885 + 3440 = 7325 / 2 = 3663 BC

3715 + 3530 = 7245 / 2 = 3623 BC

England and Wales

3971 + 3805 = 7776 / 2 = 3888 BC

3960 + 3880 = 7840 / 2 = 3920 BC

____________________

3360 BC - 480 years later than 3840 BC - 120-Day Calender Reform
The 3rd surge viz. "wave" of megalith building: 3360 BC

• the Autumn Equinox in the Stars has moved Northeast to the edge of the Milky Way between Ophiuchus and Scorpio near 24 Ophiuchi
• this is marked by the glyphs of King Scorpion of Egypt, with Ophiuchus as a "flower" in the hair of the figure above Scorpio - also seen on "Long Meg" and her daughters in Scotland (cf. Latvian Mīlenbaha - Endzelīna latviešu valodas vārdnīca: "puķe ... auch puķis, Demin. puķītis ... 1) die Blume" [= "flower"])
• measurement on Earth is moved to conform to that location (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, North Germany, Netherlands)
• start of the protodynastic period, Gerzeh Culture in Egypt - likely involving a migrated seafaring people, based on an analysis of predynastic rock drawings of boats in the wadis, e.g. the Wadi Abu Subeira or Wadi Hammamat

Please click on the graphic below for a larger image.

Averaging the calibrated radiocarbon dates shows them to be close:

Sweden, Norway

3635 + 3112 = 6747 / 2 = 3374 BC

3619 + 3351 = 6970 / 2 = 3485 BC

3504 + 3349 = 6853 / 2 = 3427 BC

3409 + 3364 = 6773 / 2 = 3387 BC

Denmark

3500 + 3300 = 6800 / 2 = 3400 BC

North Germany

3475 + 3417 = 6892 / 2 = 3446 BC

Netherlands

3400 + 3050 = 6450 / 2 = 3225 BC

____________________

2880 BC - 480 years later than 3360 - 120-Day Calender Reform
The 4th surge viz. "wave" of megalith building: 2880 BC

• the Autumn Equinox in the Stars has moved further North, to the head stars of Scorpio, and now finds itself outside of the stars of the Milky Way
• the hieroglyphs in the serekh of Khasekhemy's name show two downward arrows as arguably signs for the Equinox-balanced Autumn Equinox, with the Falcon and Seth, as Ursa Minor and Ursa Major, Latvian siet-iņš, "the sieve", erroneously identified in Milenbachs-Endzelins as a different group of seven stars, sitting above the rectangle of the serekh, where the latter two in this era face each other across the Celestial Meridian.

Belgium, North France

3013 + 2626 = 5639 / 2 = 2830 BC

2918 + 2696 = 5614 / 2 = 2807 BC

____________________

2400 BC - 480 years later than 2880 BC - 120-Day Calender Reform
The 5th surge viz. "wave" of megalith building: 2400 BC

• the Autumn Equinox has moved just beyond the head of Scorpio toward the stars of Libra, well outside the Milky Way, while the Vernal Equinox is between the stars of the Hyades and the Pleiades

It is at ca. 2400 BC that we find use of the Temples of Malta to come to an end. See Caroline Malone, Nathaniel Cutajar, T. Rowan McLaughlin, Bernardette Mercieca-Spiteri, Anthony Pace, Ronika K. Power, Simon Stoddart, Sharon Sultana, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Elaine Dunbar, Alex Bayliss, Frances Healy, Alasdair Whittle, Island questions: the chronology of the Brochtorff Circle at Xagħra, Gozo, and its significance for the Neolithic sequence on Malta, Archaeol Anthropol Sci [Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences pp 1–56] (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-019-00790-y, first online 20 February 2019. Are we "current"? Ja, ja, ja.

Above is a photograph of the present author, Andis Kaulins, at the Temples of Malta, here at the famed Temple of Tarxien in 1986, at age 40, a photo on the back cover of my book, Ancient Signs, The Alphabet & the Origins of Writing, as published at www.epubli.de, ISBN 9783844220179. Way back when, 32 years ago, I saw that these temples were astronomical in orientation and nature. Yup.

Mediterranean

2472-839
2441-1306
The gap between the upper and lower values of these dates is so large that there is no point in taking averages. Obviously, "apples and oranges" have been mixed in the data. The maximum outer dates are the relatively correct ones.
____________________
____________________

Conclusion. Please take it for what it is worth.

For any given academic problem or mystery, there are always various possible solutions that must be examined, nothing wrong with that.

However, for best results, one cannot permit preconcpetions and "school of thought" paradigms to automatically limit the scope of examination or research.

In the case of Archaeology, especially as regards the study of the prehistoric and ancient past, ancient astronomy must be included in the scope of possible explanations for the data and evidence at hand.

Otherwise, scientists are just simply wasting their time, and will never get closer to the truth of  human history. You have to be on the right road to get there.

Ancient men were stargazers, who used the movement of the stars to develop their first concepts of science and religion. Astronomy was their most important guiding "sky earth" preoccupation ... not pottery. Just sayin':

As Bertand Russell wrote in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits:

"Astronomy is the oldest of the sciences,
and the contemplation of the heavens,
with their periodic regularities,
gave men their first conceptions of natural law."

Don't forget it.

The Origin of Europe's Megaliths: PNAS: New Calibrated Radiocarbon Dates by Paulsson and their Interpretation

The radiocarbon dating of megalithic sites has been analyzed in a recent article published at PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) by Bettina Schulz Paulsson titled Radiocarbon dates and Bayesian modeling support maritime diffusion model for megaliths in Europe. PNAS published ahead of print February 11, 2019 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1813268116. We quote "the Significance" and "the Abstract" from that article below:

Significance

"For thousands of years, prehistoric societies built monumental grave architecture and erected standing stones in the coastal regions of Europe (4500–2500 calibrated years BC). Our understanding of the rise of these megalithic societies is contentious and patchy; the origin for the emergence of megalithic architecture in various regions has been controversial and debated for over 100 y. The result presented here, based on analyses of 2,410 radiocarbon dates and highly precise chronologies for megalithic sites and related contexts, suggests maritime mobility and intercultural exchange. We argue for the transfer of the megalithic concept over sea routes emanating from northwest France, and for advanced maritime technology and seafaring in the megalithic Age.

Abstract

There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of megaliths in Europe. The conventional view from the late 19th and early 20th centuries was of a single-source diffusion of megaliths in Europe from the Near East through the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic coast. Following early radiocarbon dating in the 1970s, an alternative hypothesis arose of regional independent developments in Europe. This model has dominated megalith research until today. We applied a Bayesian statistical approach to 2,410 currently available radiocarbon results from megalithic, partly premegalithic, and contemporaneous nonmegalithic contexts in Europe to resolve this long-standing debate. The radiocarbon results suggest that megalithic graves emerged within a brief time interval of 200 y to 300 y in the second half of the fifth millennium calibrated years BC in northwest France, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic coast of Iberia. We found decisive support for the spread of megaliths along the sea route in three main phases. Thus, a maritime diffusion model is the most likely explanation of their expansion."

Paulsson's article was reported in the New York Times on February 11, 2019 by James Gorman in Ancient European Stone Monuments Said to Originate in Northwest France. It took us a few weeks to pen an appropriate review of the article, which began with our previous posting on the Abydos Boats, by our prelude to this posting in our previous posting, and will be followed by other postings and decipherments that have been long slumbering on our hard disk, awaiting the right moment, which now appears to have arrived. The reader might find it useful to read the postings in their relation to the present material.

We are pleased that Paulsson has spent so much time and effort researching megalithic sites, so that articles such as hers are to be encouraged, especially since they deal with seminal questions of the chronological dating of megalithic era construction. 

Regrettably, mainstream Archaeology and its related disciplines generally deal with megalithic evidentiary data in a very subjective way, usually one that fits prevailing schools of thought -- weak paradigms that we have found in our 40-year-long megalithic research to be largely false or misleading.

We are very sympathetic to Paulsson's approach and agree that there were likely several "waves" of maritime megalithic builders, albeit for other reasons than mainstream dogma would have us believe, and we explain that it detail below. Paulsson writes [see the blocked text]:

"The result presented here, based on analyses of 2,410 radiocarbon dates and highly precise chronologies for megalithic sites and related contexts, suggests maritime mobility and intercultural exchange. We argue for the transfer of the megalithic concept over sea routes emanating from northwest France, and for advanced maritime technology and seafaring in the megalithic Age." [emphasis added by the Ancient World Blog]

We are not against Paulsson's main conclusions in principle, but so-called "highly precise chronologies" in Archaeology have for decades left too much leeway ("wiggle room"), so that claims of preciseness in mainstream chronologies are suspect. Paulsson's article is an excellent step in the right direction, but much more needs to be done in rolling back the clock and getting a clearer, more accurate picture of the past.

Agreement with the basic conclusion that megalithic sites were initially spread by ancient seafarers does not resolve the core issue of ultimate origin, either as to geographic location or as to the purposes of megalithic construction.

Such an "original" location for the seafaring-spread of megalithic culture should be verified by in situ ancient boatbuilding and megalithic know-how evidence.  The unique Abydos Boats of Ancient Egypt are one example of this, as we think they were buried "royally" to honor the Minyans who went out "to measure" the sky of stars, as related in the Book of Enoch, Chapter 61. LXI. Angels go off to measure Paradise: the Judgement of the Righteous by the Elect One: the Praise of the Elect One and of God.

The Book of Enoch was historically -- and erroneously -- left out of the Bible. We say erroneously, because ten fragments of the Book of Enoch were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here is what the Book of Enoch tells us about the northward bound "angels [of the sky, viz. winds]" (i.e. surely sailing vessels) who went out to measure "Paradise" (i.e. heaven) via cords:

"1. And in those days, I saw long cords given to those Angels and they acquired wings for themselves, and flew, and went towards the north.

2. And I asked the Angel, saying: “Why did these take the long cords, and go?” And he said to me: “They went so that they may measure.”

3. And the Angel who went with me, said to me: “These will bring the measurements of the righteous, and the ropes of the righteous, to the righteous, that they may rely on the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever."

4. The chosen will begin to dwell with the chosen, and these measurements will be given to faith, and will strengthen righteousness.

5. And these measurements will reveal all the secrets of the depths of the Earth, and those who were destroyed by the desert, and those who were devoured by the fish of the sea, and by animals, that they may return and rely on the Day of the Chosen One. For no one will be destroyed in front of the Lord of Spirits, and no one can be destroyed."

We suggest that these were hermetic measurements, "as above, so below", applying the readily visible plan of the stars of heaven to a measured map of the earth, and related to astronomically visible changes in the seasonal position of the stars as caused by Precession of the Equinoxes.

Can we tell when such measurements were anciently made?

Paulsson's article relies on so-called calibrated radiocarbon dating ("cal BC"), which starts out with the measurement of C14 in biological specimens. Since C14 is created by cosmic radiation and varies from year to year, straight radiocarbon dating of ancient specimens is not "highly precise". Rather, science tries to "calibrate" the C14 radiocarbon data with dendrochronologically  (tree-ring) derived more exact "calendar dates". A date that integrates the abbreviation "cal BC" gives the number of calibrated years "before Christ". It is better than straight BC, but not perfect.

The most understandable explanation we have found online about radiocarbon calibration is by David Thulman, an environmental attorney with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, who writes at the pages of the Florida Museum of Natural History about radiocarbon dating calibration as follows:

"As Mary Hudson explained in her Aucilla River Times article two years ago, C14 is created by cosmic radiation in the upper atmosphere. That radiation fluctuates year to year and therefore so does the creation of C14 . That means if [a tree] branch grew at a time when relatively lower levels of C14 were in the atmosphere, it would have less C14 when it died and would show an older apparent age than it should. Conversely, if it grew at a time of abundant C14 it would appear younger than it should. This differential C14 concentration may give [a tree] branch a younger C14 age than another branch that died hundreds of years after our branch, making comparison of the two samples misleading.

The only way to resolve this uncertainty is to calibrate the C14 dates with calendar dates. This calibration has been done by compiling a dendrochronological (tree-ring) record and painstakingly figuring the C14 age of these tree rings. This tree-ring record now extends back about 11,500 years, and by comparing the calendar age of the tree rings with their radiocarbon age, calibration curves have been created to produce a calendar date for a corresponding C14 date. The differential production of C14 produces “wiggles” in the calibration curves, and these wiggles can result in a single radiocarbon age corresponding to more than one calendar age.
...
Carbon 14 dating has revolutionized archaeology by providing a method for dating events and allowing the comparison of events where previously their relative ages could only be indirectly inferred. However, it should be used with caution. Hopefully, even with its limitations, it will help us better understand the relation of our sites to the broader context of Paleoindian archaeology." [emphasis and block texts added]

There are thus no really "highly precise chronologies" yet available based on radiocarbon dating. Too much subjective input goes into interpretation of the data. Indeed, dates continue to be given in plus/minus year notation, leaving a lot of room for differences of opinion and varied interpretations.

Moreover, when megaliths of stone are chronologically dated, calibrated radiocarbon dating relies on INDIRECT evidence obtained from nearby biological environments, e.g. wood ashes from neighboring ancient hearths, which provide data that reflect fragile constructs perhaps best be described as "educated approximations". For example, wood ashes from a prehistoric nearby campfire may have been made by the megalith builders in their era, or not at all by them, but by other folks -- even in a different unrelated era. You can't just assume that the ancient hearth ash that you have found stems from the megalith makers.

We analyzed Paulsson's cal BC dates using regional location-specific averages of the maximum and minimum date extremes, which reduces the magnitude of the size of the dating spread. This method in fact leads to geographically proximate dates that appear to be virtually contemporaneous in time, as we have already shown in our prelude posting.

Paulsson's article also -- if unavoidably for a mainstream academic -- integrates mainstream archaeologcial megalithic conclusions of fact that beg the main questions of the nature and meaning of ancient megaliths and megalithic sites.

Mainstream Archaeology assumes (and thus begs the question):

(1) that megaliths and megalithic sites mark ancient tombs, even though ancient remains found at megalithic sites may simply be sacrificial or similar ritual interments at the time of construction and/or may stem from later burials by people who did not build the megalithic sites. That large stones were used for tombs in ancient times, which can not really be doubted, is no proof that true "megalithic sites", stone circles and the like, were of a funerary nature;

(2) that megaliths were "spread" over time by so-called "cultural diffusion", rather than being built in relatively concurrent eras of construction for a common purpose having nothing to do with cultural technology transfer as such.

As we have long alleged, it is our opinion -- and it is an alternative explanation that must be examined by serious researchers -- that megalithic sites were never originally tombs as such, nor were they "spread" by "cultural diffusion" in the sense of the general geographic spread of pottery.

Rather, we allege that megalithic sites were intentionally erected in a massive more-or-less immovable magnitude of scale at fixed locations and more-or-less concurrent times, to act as landmarks sited by astronomy and to function for calendric calculation and recordation of important astronomical parameters, especially Precession of the Equinoxes based on the Earth's  "Axial Precession".

Most prehistoric megalithic sites -- in our opinion -- serve to landmark astronomical viz. calendric eras or locations. That is why the ancients undertook the otherwise unnecessary and logistically difficult transport of gigantic multi-ton megaliths over immense distances, for ultimate more-or-less "immovable" placement at previously selected "sites", where "standing stones", stone circles, dolmens, tumuli, and similar were "sited" by astronomy and left for posterity as geographic landmarks, territorial border stones and calendric calculating markers.

Apparent "differences" in the age of similarly dated megalithic sites may thus be more a function of the vagaries of calibrated radiocarbon dating, rather than an indicator of any great actual difference in the age of construction of the sites. That is why our "averaging" method for the dates leads to a closer confluence of dates in selected geographic regions

Similarly, we allege that any new later "wave" of megalithic construction is separated by hundreds of years from the previous wave of construction and reflects changes in the astronomical landscape as caused by precession of the equinoxes, as caused by the cycle of the wobble of the earth in its rotation.

One such main cycle that we see in the megalithic data is ca. 1440 years (= 20 cycles of 72 years) which is close to the Dynastic Egyptian "Sothic Cycle" of 1460 years, which the Egyptians allegedly tied to their observations of the position of the star Sirius in the sky. However, the Sothic Year need not be seen as unique to Sirius. The entire heaven of stars for any given day of the year returns to the same position on the same day of the year in approximately 1440 viz. 1460 years, depending on the calendration used. Moderns place one full round of precession at 25920 years, whereas the ancients seem to have used a figure of 25800 years.

  

Precession moves star positions 1 degree every 72 years. This apparent movement of the stars over long periods of time permits star-based calendration. Hence, 360 such periods of 72 years equals 25920 years, the anciently calculated period of one full round of precession of the stars in the sky, which is visible as the gradual and constant change of the position of the Celestial North Pole Star. 12960 years ago (i.e. one half of the full precessional "round" of 25920 years), the celestial North Pole Star was located near Vega in Lyra. To obtain knowledge of such phenomena, prehistoric stargazers must already have been watching the stars for many millennia prior to the megalithic era. For details, see Jim Wakefield and Precession of the Equinox.

We think the ancients used precessionally-based "star" knowledge to keep track of time in the stars over longer eras, and we have previously tried to explain how this was done in the case of Pharaoh Khasekhemwy (Chasechemui) at our posting on Khasekhemwy and Pharaonic Calendar Reform in 2638 BC, where we claim that a 120-day calendric reform was made in the 480th year after 479 elapsed years of dynastic pharaonic Egypt (the elapsed years are represented as vanquished enemies at the foot of Khasekhemy's statue) -- based on a then posited starting date of 3117 BC, i.e. ca. 240 years after 3360 BC.

Our research suggests that the astronomical time formula used by the ancients involved 54 such cycles of 480 years viz. 108 such cycles of 240 years  = 25920 years. The elapse of 480 years (rather than the use of e.g. 360 years) was arguably used by the Pharaohs because, just as we modernly insert a leap year every four years, the elapse of 480 years corresponded to a "leap year" correction of 120 calendric days, i.e. 4 months of 30 days in the annual Egyptian Civil Calender. The early Pharaonic Egyptians used a calendar of only 3 seasons at that time -- seasons that were guided by the flooding of the Nile -- so that 480 years was an ideal period for calendric reform, corresponding to an adjustment of 120 days in the 3-season civil calender -- thus once more bringing actual seasons and the civil calender into proper astronomical and seasonal sync.

Let us now ask a question about the calibrated radiocarbon dating of the megalithic data that Paulsson has published. Was calendar reform at the root of the megalithic era's astronomical measurement of the 480-year cycle (or in some cases perhaps a 240-year cycle) based on axial precession in the stars? Is that what is shown in Paulsson's data?

Let us start -- for the sake of argument -- with a starting calendar date of 4320 BC which is 3 x 1440 years (some will claim we should use 1460 years) of stars returning exactly to the same position in the sky on the same calendric date.

Let us assume that such a starting date (here idealized, for it could be another similar date such as 4380 BC, i.e. 3 x 1460 years) marked the beginning of megalithic site construction in Europe -- stone circles, standing stones, dolmens, tumuli, cairns, megaliths and more, most of which -- in our opinion -- were built for purposes of  star-based calendration and recordation and (ultimately) for Earth-based land survey in the hermetic tradition, i.e. "as above, so below". The Sky was not only being stargazed for purposes of calendration but also was a ready, always present heavenly map that could easily be used to mirror-map the Earth. The megaliths thus also marked territorial human borders

This posting is continued in the next posting due to the several images, at
https://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-480-year-surges-viz-waves-in.html.