AiG gets an F in ancient British history

When it comes to figuring out ancient British history, AiG really needs to go back to school and learn a thing or two. Here’s a rundown of how they try to rundown secular historical research.

Britain, for whatever reason, is a particularly rich place for ancient finds and research. Though all European countries boast incredible archaeological discoveries and so forth, Britain often seems to have a little more to enthrall and overawe us in terms of what has been preserved from the ancient past. For example, the largest stone circles are found in Britain, as well as other Neolithic and Bronze Age structures such as barrows (burial mounds), cursus’ (parallel banks and ditches sometimes running for several kilometres, one of which is over ten kilometres long), causewayed enclosures (multi-purpose sacred spaces), Silbury Hill - Europe’s largest man-made hill and many other weird and wonderful constructions. As the years have gone by researches have come to realise that Britain seems to show a continuous cultural link right back to the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), and perhaps even further back. Mesolithic burial customs seem to have influenced Neolithic burial customs which were then in some ways reflected in later Bronze Age customs and so on. Britain truly is a fascinating place and is a great land to dig for the past for it so often yields incredible relics.

In the June – August 1998 edition of AiG’s ‘Creation ex Nihilo’ in the ‘Focus’ section there was an article called ‘Giant ‘Stone Age’ temple stuns theorists’, with a footnote that it came from ‘The Independent’. What followed was a diagram of a circular wooden structure, like several known throughout Britain, and the text underneath began with,

‘As old as Stonehenge, the remains of a huge structure in England have been revealed by X-ray, shattering the usual ideas of ‘primitive man’. (page 8).

Oh geez. First of all, no-one who investigates the British Neolithic, Bronze Age etc would ever label the peoples of those eras as being ‘primitive.’ To do so would not only be thoroughly erroneous, but would also be an insult to our ancestors. Secondly, the structure they have a drawing of is none other than the circular structure found at a place called Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge, dated to about 2,800 BC, and discovered in the 1960’s. There are two other similar round buildings from the late Neolithic era which are ‘Woodhenge’ in the Stonehenge district, and ‘The Sanctuary’ which is part of the Avebury stone circle complex further to the north. Just why AiG is touting this as an amazing creationist proving discovery is a mystery, for it is nothing of the sort. The almost identical ‘Woodhenge’ was discovered in 1925! This is not news, archaeologists have known of these buildings for a long time now. Also, who exactly are these ‘theorists’ who are ‘stunned’ that the article mentions? 

I find it curious that the article begins with ‘As old as Stonehenge’, because Stonehenge was begun about 2,900 BC as a circular ditch and bank. But the year 2,900 BC is, according to the AiG version of history, centuries before Noah’s Flood, a flood that is supposed to have wiped clean the Earth, including, no doubt, Stonehenge. So does AiG accept the date for the beginning of Stonehenge? What seems likely is that someone from AiG saw the article in ‘The Independent’ and decided that it would look good in their magazine. Clearly, whoever okayed the inclusion of this article in ‘Creation ex Nihilo’ has no knowledge whatsoever of  British Neolithic archaeology, nor an ability to determine what is genuine news and what is simply empty padding rearranged to look impressive.

The UK Sunday Telegraph printed a story back in May 1996 about a fellow called Mark Whitby who believes he knows how Stonehenge was constructed and how he feels other ideas about how the stones were moved are wrong. (He believes each stone could have been put up by about 120 people in five days) Fair enough, I suppose there are any numbers of ways that the large sarsens could have been erected and scientific inquiry of this nature is always welcomed. But AiG’s tag to this story, printed in their ‘Creation’ magazine is so hopelessly silly one wonders who thought it worthy of printing. It went,

‘The demonstration shows that ideas suggesting such things as help from ‘spacemen’ are not required. All one needs to assume is that the early post-Flood inhabitants of Britain, though lacking access to the technological inventions of today, were no less clever than people nowadays. Not surprisingly, the archaeological establishment has attacked Whitby’s idea, suggesting that people then were probably too weak from an inadequate diet, or (here is the evolutionary bias) may not have even had greased planks.’ (Volume 18, Issue 4. 1996)

For a start, who is actually claiming that ‘spacemen’ built Stonehenge? Apart from the odd alternate-archaeology books which crop up occasionally, a Stonehenge built by aliens is not a running contender. For AiG to hint that archaeologists believe that the inhabitants of the Stonehenge environs were too weak to build such things because of an inadequate diet is shear nonsense. Obviously, Neolithic and Bronze Age people did build Stonehenge! Go and look at it for yourself, its right there near the A303 from Amesbury. I’ve seen it myself, it exists. Silbury Hill in Wiltshire predates the stones at Stonehenge by centuries yet was an even more massive undertaking. Clearly our ancestors were more than strong enough to undertake such gigantic structures. Can AiG name one book on British archaeology that states such a claim? And finally, there is the predictable bit about ‘evolutionary bias’ with regards to knowledge of greased planks. Whether Stone Age Britons had them or not I have no idea, but I think that since my ancestors could build such enormous structures then quite probably they did have greased planks. Maybe the editors of ‘Creation’ could have done a bit of research into British prehistory before including articles that serve no purpose.

Stonehenge, Avebury, Silbury Hill and Woodhenge are the results of native British cultures and not Biblical personages. They show a progression of building styles, architecture and ritual that go back to at least the Mesolithic. If we could go back in time, say to the year 2348 BC to southern Britain (one of the dates assigned to Noah’s Flood), we would not find a watery world with a lone ark bobbing about, instead we would see a landscape of forests, farms, ritual centres like the stone circles, and a productive, creative and intelligent people living and working in harmony with the land. (All that fresh air, working on the land and organic food, what a paradise!)

In the March-May 2002 issue of ‘Creation’ magazine on page 8, we have a story reported from ‘The Times’ called ‘Stone Age Engineers’. The article briefly outlined a Stone Age farmhouse that was uncovered in Perthshire, Scotland, and how it was discovered that the house had a living area, kitchen and bedroom. While a find such as this is always exciting, it is certainly not unique. Skara Brae is the name given to a similar Neolithic settlement found in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, and occupied from about 3,100 BC to 2,500 BC. This is today considered to be the best preserved prehistoric settlement in northern Europe. Beds, dressers and hearths were all found inside including an assortment of tools and other fine domestic debris. It was discovered in 1850 and excavated in 1920. But AiG thinks this is proof of the settlement of the direct descendants of Noah, though the tools and domestic debris bear no resemblance to items from the Middle East. Once again, AiG doesn’t even try to offer any sort of insight into this discovery, it just slaps on the tired old bit about,

‘Not surprising, since these were post-Flood descendants of Noah,’

and then leaves it at that. What this find actually represents is another wonderful piece of real ancient British history and has nothing at all to do with Noah, his sons or any other Biblical figures. AiG’s contribution to our understanding of ancient British history is nil. Could AiG perhaps explain in what order the burial mounds, stone circles and other megalithic works were constructed? When was Silbury Hill built, before or after the nearby outer Avebury stone circle? What was the function of causewayed enclosures? Do the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge predate or postdate the construction of the blue stones? Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic are all just lumped together by AiG under the banner of ‘Stone Age’ without any attempt to realise that these ages are distinct yet connected in so many ways with each other and which show a progression of technology and artistic sophistication.

Further proof of AiG’s poor understanding of ancient European history was amply demonstrated in a little piece they found in ‘The Sunday Times’ (The Sunday Times, p.17, 16 June 1996) and which they titled ‘Early European writing overturns theories.’ Apparently some markings on fragments of pottery are being viewed by some historians as an early form of writing from about 1,500BC. If correct this would certainly be a spectacular and wonderful insight into our past, but AiG’s tag to the story goes,

‘The early settlers of Western Europe were the descendants, not of apemen, but of those affected by the Babel dispersion, a couple of centuries after the Flood.’

 Just how AiG can justify working the word ‘apemen’ into an article about the European Bronze Age is baffling and insulting to say the least. From these examples it is clear that AiG doesn’t even have a grade school understanding of ancient British and European history. Instead, they ply an outdated medieval fantasy featuring all sorts of Biblical people trundling across the European continent without a hint of understanding about how vastly more complex and intricate ancient European history really is.

Woodhenge

Stonehenge

Silbury Hill

Avebury