Canada's Stonehenge

[Adsos Letter]

BOB WEBER
The Canadian Press
January 29, 2009 at 3:54 PM EST

EDMONTON — An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada's prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5,000-year-old calendar predating England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids.

Mainstream archeologists consider the rock-encircled cairn to be just another medicine wheel left behind by early aboriginals. But a new book by retired University of Alberta professor Gordon Freeman says it is in fact the centre of a 26-square-kilometre stone “lacework” that marks the changing seasons and the phases of the moon with greater accuracy than our current calendar.

“Genius existed on the prairies 5,000 years ago,” says Mr. Freeman, the widely published former head of the university's physical and theoretical chemistry department.

Mr. Freeman's fascination with prairie prehistory dates back to his Saskatchewan boyhood. He and his father would comb the short grasses of the plains in search of artifacts exposed by the scouring wind. That curiosity never left him and he returned to it as he prepared to retire from active teaching.

Looking for a hobby, he asked a friend with an interest in history to suggest a few intriguing sites to visit. On a warm late-August day in 1980, that list drew him to what he has come to call Canada's Stonehenge, which is also the title of his book.

A central cairn atop one of a series of low hills overlooking the Bow River, about 70 kilometres east of Calgary, had been partially excavated in 1971 and dated at about 5,000 years old. But as he approached it, Freeman strongly felt there was much more there than previously thought.

“As we walked toward the hilltop, I saw all kinds of patterns in the rocks on the way up. As I walked around the hilltop, I could see patterns that I doubted very much were accidental.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090129.wcanstonehenge0129/BNStory/Science/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20090129.wcanstonehenge0129

--------------------------------------------------

The comments (in the box on the right side) range from support to utter disbelief. and all forms of debate in between...much like DU, methinks... :D

[Double T]

1. Interesting article. Bookmarked. Thanks for posting.

Wonder if the scientist was verbally assaulted...much like DU.

[Adsos Letter]

2. Oh yes...and attacks on religion managed to somehow become involved...

They locked the thread for awhile, in order to issue a warning against personal attacks... where have i seen all of this before? :D

[SpiralHawk]

3. Theres a documentary film coming out this summer in which Elders speak

of the hidden metaphysical history of the North.

I guarantee, minds will be blown...

[H2O Man]

4. Two of my favorite

"local history" books were authored in the 1880s, when a group of historians documented the first 100 years of two counties in upstate New York. I grew up where those counties met.

Both books describe large, significant "earthworks" in the area. The first book states that they must have been built by an unknown race who occupied the region before the Indians. At that time, of course, most Euro-Americans subscribed to a rather literal Biblical interpretation of the world, which was yet to be challenged by the science of archaeology.

This rigid belief system, which identified Indians as likely being from the 12 Lost Tribes, took a dim view of earthworks that the Indians considered to be Sacred Ground. Hence, for example, a round, man-made burial mound, which was approximately 70' across and 20' high, had been used as "fill" for a railroad that passed by the site. The author of this book wrote that human remains were "scattered" more than a quarter mile in each direction, along the railroad bed.

Of course, the larger society is no longer so inconsiderate. For example, when the state recently needed a source of gravel for covering a NYS DEC "superfund" toxic waste site, they held hearings before deciding that the Iroquois were "wrong" in wanting to protect a Sacred Site that had a long and detailed history. Although individuals within two state agencies sided with the Iroquois, the site was eventually destroyed, and now covers a huge toxic waste dump.

Years later, Onondaga Chief Waterman and I were able to stop an effort to mine a similar site in the next county. The following year, we worked with archaeologists from the state university, to protect a series of "stone monuments" in a state park area. These have been of particular interest to a group of good and decent archaeologists who have studied them for decades (these are distinct from the stone piles used to mark treaty lines along the "western front" of the "young" USA.)

It's always at issue how much to tell state agencies about certain Sacred Sites, etc. Some things can be exploited. However, many of the university archaeologists said that they suspect these stone monuments may be about 2000 years old. I think they may be right, although if they are 2500 or 900 years old, their value to Onondaga is the same. A couple of the archaeologists asked Paul and I what the monuments were made for? And, of course, they are a calendar, though not exactly the same as what people use today.

In the book "The Wisdom Keepers," by two gentlemen from National Geographic, Paul's cousin, Tadodaho Leon Shenandoah, told of how the Iroquois used to chart the night skies. During the late 1700s and 1800s, the Euro-Americans attempted to destroy this knowledge (along with the Iroquois language, etc). That's a shame. We can see that there are many types of trees in the forest; there's room for many types of people here, with different ideas. We should respect others, even if we don't understand their beliefs, Paul used to say.

[Gregorian]

9. It's a rat race.

I just had an archeological meeting with the state and a local tribe representative. There may have been an Indian village on my property. I was worried. I cringed as they read the verdict. They moved to make no further studies other than the one I had.

I am now realizing the competing mentalities. One is ownership. The other is fellowship. Well, that's off the top of my head. But what I see is that I am not all important. Here I was thinking, we fucked up this planet so much, who cares? If there were Indians living in that village, I would embrace them with a love I will never know for my fellow Americans. But there aren't. So who cares? But suddenly it's donning on me that there were highly intelligent (not necessarily penicillin developing intelligence) people whose lives we could learn much from. And I have no doubt now that we are indeed moving backwards, not forwards. We have no choice now. We can't live from the land. So we must develop solar cells, etc., for survival. But I see that there is a competing mindset. And the one with curiosity for anything but a Playstation is in the minority. Who knows what could be found on my property. But like the gravel pits you mentioned, I own the damned place. This is a problem. I'm building a house. If they had stopped me, I would have had a fit. But I see the folly. Our ownership is killing us. And the hints from the past that come from minds uncluttered by Playstations. Minds that far surpass ours in their ability to see what magic exists here.

I am still struggling to find silence. This property comes close. But I see I'm not done yet. I will find silence. I say this because I am one of the few who value something far more important than Playstations (or whatever). I value less. We have become so entrenched in our way of living (should read "destroying") that most people don't even know what noise is. I actually meet people who can't stand silence.

Well I'm babbling. Sort of. All I'm saying is I am seeing better. Able to override my sense of self importance. And I know more about who you are. You're lucky you have a place among good people.

There is a blue sky out there. The water drips from the trees in the morning sun. Drops that are flashing small rainbows. It's time to go and see if the mountain lion prints are in the mud again like they were yesterday.

Thanks for trying. And thanks for teaching.

[JanusAscending]

11. Hi H20 Man !

Would you please tell me which two counties in NY you are referring to? Do you have any recall, or inside information regarding what NA sites may have been lost when they destroyed the whole town of Downsville NY to build the dam and reservoir? My Granddad had a huge farm there at the time. I was too little to recall, and didn't ever ask the questions of them before they passed on. Thanks, I appreciate all that you do for this forum!! Fond regards, JA

[Judi Lynn]

5. Looking forward to hearing more about this. Thank you for introducing the information. n/t

[slampoet]

6. I hope this is better than the "Stonehenge" they found on CapeCod, Turned out to a Dairy Queen's...

cement foundation.

[1776Forever]

7. Picture link here & book - I love this stuff - thanks!

http://canadastonehenge.com/

[Judi Lynn]

16. Thanks for the boost to our info. on this. Saving the link for future reference. n/t

[Mari333]

8. I have been to Stonehenge and a number of other stone circles

all over the UK and Ireland..and burial mounds..have studied a lot of it for a long time..this stuff is everywhere..and burial mounds in the UK have the same markings as ones found in the US as ones found all over the world..always aligned with the solstice, always aligned with movements of the stars..
its quite fascinating.

[malaise]

10. Thanks for this link

Very interesting

[Xithras]

12. The only surprise is that people are surprised.

It's reasonably believed today that stone circles were connected to the calendar systems of prehistoric peoples and have been found from Ireland to Siberia, Japan, and central Africa. It's no shock that ancestral native populations in North America, who shared a common prehistoric origin with Eurasia and who may well have had limited contact with early seafaring peoples, would have had the same sort of knowledge.

In 3000BC, the Indus Valley civilization was near it's height, the pharaohs were ruling Egypt, Troy was being built by early merchant traders, and long range sailboats were plying the seas. Why is it a shock that a group of Native Americans figured out how to put rocks in a circle to determine the day of the week?

[starroute]

13. There's a long and complicated history to this stuff

Big obvious monuments like Stonehenge or the pyramids only appear once you have societies large and complex enough to muster the manpower to construct them. But before that, there was a period of thousands of years -- all through the Neolithic -- when more subtle means were being used to mark out and track the movements of the sun, moon, and stars.

For example, a pole might be set up at the exact observation point from which the sun set behind a certain notch in the hills on the first day of summer and a certain other notch on the first day of winter.

Naturally placed boulders or combinations of boulders might also be used either as they were or with only slight shaping and modification to indicate certain significant alignments. This makes it very difficult to define whether a particular configuration is "natural" or "manmade" -- and means that someone like Freeman who has lived with the stones knows their meaning while an outsider might see only a random jumble.

This kind of uncertainty also affects the old world. For example, there are good reasons for believing that the Giza Plateau was a sacred site long before the pyramids were built -- but no apparent way of proving it.

I'm not coming up with the title, but a number of years ago I read a very interesting book on the cosmological structures of North America. It also included a number of other interesting suggestions about the extent to which hunter-gatherers deliberately modified their environment -- for example, the idea that "Indian summer" is called that because the Indians would use controlled burning to create a haze that kept the weather mild into mid-fall. I'll post the title if I can come up with it.

[I Have A Dream]

14. Very interesting! Thanks for posting this. nt

[hankthecrank]

15. k & r n/t