Whoever built Silbury was not, I imagine, thinking of gardens or the latest garden furniture.
It had a purpose, whatever that was, and it had design. Conceptual art it was not. That branch of artistic and architectural endeavour tends to come at the point of collapse of a civilisation, not the beginning. 'Clogs to clogs in three generations' as they say. In this case more than three.
Where these people 'continentals who nipped across' to show us how to do it?
We always assume that civilisation and clever things come from the south and the east. Our history is full of how our lives have been enriched by 'Celts', Romans, French, Dutch, Germans etc etc.
We do know however that there was a vast maritime network stretching from Scandinavia round the west coast of Britain and Ireland down to Spain and into the Med. Doggerland presumably was a hindrance for a channel passage while it was still there.
I wouldn't like to suggest that the Norwegian cliff face collapse that started the tsunami that erased Doggerland was done deliberately by pesky pre Vikings but it was very handy.
Leaving that idea behind we do know that recent digs have shown what a centre of activity the Orkneys were. As well of course as the other centres in western Scotland, Ireland and England and then of course Brittany. Orkney should not figure in all of this going by conventional history but there it is.
In 2012 it was found that trees survived the ice age in Scandinavia. It has been suggested that large animals like deer also survived. Perhaps humans were also living through the ice age as well while the rest of Europe was covered in all that ice and snow?
http://sciencenordic.com/trees-survived ... candinavia 'Animals may have survived too
The discovery is of great importance to the scientific picture of what happened after the Ice Age.
Just as in Scandinavia, there may well have been similar ice-free retreats in Siberia and in North America, and the current models of how plants spread now need to be reassessed.
Having analysed the genetic make-up of more than 100 European spruces, the researchers discovered that there isn’t just one type of spruce, but two. (Photo: Science/AAAS)
The researcher points out that small animals such as lemmings may well have been able to survive in these retreats too.
And if these ice-free areas have been sufficiently large, it’s possible that bigger animals such as the stag could also have survived there, says the researcher.
'Picture B shows that the distribution of the Scandinavian spruce is greatest in the west and north near the island of Andøya, which is where the trees are thought to have spread from (blue arrows) as the ice melted and the ice-free areas grew larger. At the same time, spruce trees from the south and the east migrated back to the area (red arrows). Picture A shows the evolution of the Scandinavian ice sheet. The ‘A’ and the ‘T’ on the map mark the two sites where trees existed during the Ice Age.'
The Vikings seem to have had a head start in the ocean exploration activities of early Europeans. All the Irish and British could come up with for a long time were leather coracles. Not that I'm knocking them.
But if there was an early trading empire it would have needed a fleet or several fleets of good sea going ships. Viking longships are fairly similar to ships in Egypt judging by the early rock carvings and other images.
I came across an article recently that suggested that Germans were Scandinavians who had moved south. If so how did the Scandinavians get north in the first place unless they were already there? Apparently the 'I' dna haplogroup is only found in Europe and especially in those with German descent unlike the 'R1b' so called 'Celtic' haplogroup which gets just about everywhere. Which leads some to suggest that the 'I' group were the original Europeans and hunter gatherers after the ice age.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I propose the Scandies as the original architects. All those places called Dor and Dur. Very Scandinavian and just about everywhere along with the brochs, burghs and other variations.
With that I bid you all God Jul, Happy New Year, agus Bliadhna Mhath Ur.
