Archaeologica.org

Digit wrote:Megaliths seem always to be seen as European, in fact they seem almost world wide. Whether they arose independently of each other or not poses an interesting question.

Hematite.

Boats.


john


ps -

Not to mention Megalithic China and Africa, let alone the Easter Islanders.......


hoka hey


j

Taking Megaliths to mean large stones as opposed to more intricate structures :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalith

We have them in NA. From New England down to, I think, the Carloina's.
You kind of run out of stone near the water ssouth of there.
I will try and find some referances.

This is the first site I found of North America locations.
. They have a strange agenda, but good documentation.

http://www.white-history.com/hwr6c.htm

This is my favorite place for Megaliths locations in the Britain and Europe

http://megalithic.servehttp.com/mapserv ... rames.html

These are a few more New England locations
Mystery Hill
www.stonehengeusa.com
Queens Fort, R I
http://www.neara.org/meli/queensfort.htm
King Philips Rock Site
http://www.neara.org/ballard/mavor.pdf

Beside these in New England we have in the High Plains of The Dakota’s, Montana, and Alberta what are called Medicine Wheels. Certainly astronomically constructed, but not so certainly connected with what we now call Native Americans. (They told the early explores that they were there when they came.)
They are large stone circles of stone with solar and star alignments, but the stones are not of the size of the European or New England ones.
Of course that could be due to the lack of stone that size in the vicinity. They are in the middle of one of the biggest flatlands on the planet.

I am mentioning only stone sites, none of the so called "Mounds." Those differ in that they are built of piles of dirt, not stone. Even when a core gravesite has been found in some, it is of timber, not stone. It would seem a different culture was involved.

But strangely, they seem to become rarer in the southern hemisphere.
Shortage of suitable skills or incentives I wonder?

Most of the land mass in the world is in the Northern Hemisphere but I do seem to recall them finding a megalithic structure in South America fairly recently. Of course, they instantly called it a "calendar." I know we talked about it here.

Ther's also some in the Pacific Islands Min, Guam I think, has several. But they are much less common than in the north.

Hancock found stone circles in the waters off Yonaguni, too. I don't think that even Schoch called them 'natural formations.'

There does seem to be a human need to put rocks in a circle.

They are worldwide. China, Japan, Maya.

http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/001569.html

I recall in the OT, someone (Abraham?) being told to make a standing stone monument to locate the spot that something important happened. It wasn’t a circle, just a marker.
But circles have been found in the Negev Desert also.

Now that the Russian Steppes are getting looked at, who knows what will be found? Google Earth project anyone?

To compare the NA 'megalithic structures' in the links above to Stonehenge is a bit of a stretch, imo. I haven't seen multi-ton structures anywhere near the size you find in hundreds of places in Europe.

Sure, 'they' put big stones in a circle. 'Big stones' being a relative concept! And those stones also – like in Europe – strike me as end moraines from the southern-most extent of the last ice age's land ice cap. Which is why you don't find those 'structures' in the far north, or hundreds of miles south of the ice cap's edge.
But there the similarity ends, afaic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalith

How about that RS, hundreds of miles south as requested.

Digit wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalith

How about that RS, hundreds of miles south as requested.

A multi-ton polylithic? Maybe it's me, Dig, but on that page I don't see any Henge-type structures in NA or central/east Asia hundreds of miles south of the ice cap's furthest extent. Maybe you can point it out to me?

BTW, there are a few Henge-type structures hundreds, even thousands of miles south of the ice cap's furthest extent. But they are in Europe! E.g. in Hagar Qim, and Gigantija, on Malta.

I never mentioned henges RS, just megaliths. Effectively Easter Island statues are only carved megaliths.
Guam, as I recall were tombs, but I am open to correction on that.

Digit wrote:I never mentioned henges RS,

but I did! Calling them 'structures'. It's structures like that, that you don't find far south of the ice cap line. Small wonder of course if you look at the size of those mothers! You don't schlepp those around for hundreds of miles!
Single free standing megaliths are an entirely different matter, imo.