This may seem an obvious thing to say, but most of
history is based on the idea that creativity only
took place where things were rotting away. The reason
for this is that historians think that where they
find something is the place where it was created.
A historian would go to Cuba and decide that the
automobile was invented there. He would note that
the average car on the streets of Havana was built
decades ago, while cars in the United States are mostly
from less than one decade ago.
The Middle East contains whole civilizations that
have died out. You will find the oldest wheels in
those areas. There is a major pagan center in Uppsala,
Sweden, but we can't study it because it has half
a dozen Christian churches built over it. If you want
to study pagan sites you have to go to the Middle
East, where everything is dead.
So paganism was invented in the Middle East.
Stonehenge is famous because it is still standing
on land where there has been life throughout the ages.
So until carbon dating was developed it was assumed
that Stonehenge was built very late in the stone age.
There are stone henges of this type in the southern
Mediterranean. They are from the same old culture
that built Stonehenge. Henges from that ancient culture
are in Spain and all over Europe, but it was assumed
that the ones in the Middle East were the oldest,
because history says everything came from the Middle
East.
So historians were amazed when carbon dating showed
that the oldest henge was Stonehenge and the one in
the Middle East was actually the YOUNGEST. This surprised
them but did not cause them to rethink anything.
Stonehenge was built in England and then that culture
spread southwards to the Middle East. If you look
at history you will see this is an old and repeated
story. The history of the Middle East is a history
of "northern invasions." The wheel came to Egypt
because it rolled over the Egyptian armies from the
north. The Hittites brought iron to Egypt in another
northern invasion. Stonehenge culture came down to
the Middle East after a millennium or two in the north.
So historians assume that everything began in the
Middle East. And every time the origin of anything
is traced, historians are astounded, once again, to
find it didn't come from the Middle East.
The blond mummies from four thousand years ago that
have been found in China were wearing a type of weave
that historians had long since officially said was
developed in the Middle East two thousand years later.
Apparently it was old when these blond people had
it twice that long ago.
Historians were, as always, amazed, especially the
ones who spent their entire lives studying the history
of weaving.
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