New map of the Megalithic cultures

Maciamo

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Here is a map of the Megalithic cultures in Europe and North Africa, with the main sites highlighted. There are lots of maps on the web, but none that I found satisfactory as they didn't carefully list all the areas with megaliths.

The oldest sites are dated to c. 6000 BCE in central Portugal and 4800-4300 BCE in Brittany and Andalusia, but megaliths didn't really spread around western Europe until about 4000 BCE, hence the range 4000-2000 BCE for this map.

I have also created a page about the genetics of the Megalithic cultures.

Megalithic_cultures.png
 
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It seems megalitihism in Northern Europe went along more Western WHG and western EEF (so Western MiddleLate Neolithic?)
 
It seems megalitihism in Northern Europe went along more Western WHG and western EEF (so Western MiddleLate Neolithic?)

the site in Bulgaria seems an outlier or a lot its missing in between
 
Maciamo,
Shouldn't we be considering Egypt, Nubian desert, Nabta Playa "calendar circle" (egypt StoneHenge) from 5500BC as part of the Megalithic cultures?
If not, why so?
 
Maciamo,
Shouldn't we be considering Egypt, Nubian desert, Nabta Playa "calendar circle" (egypt StoneHenge) from 5500BC as part of the Megalithic cultures?
If not, why so?

Yes, probably. But anyway it is in southern Egypt, outside the map.
 
on Sardegna, there is the megalithic Arzachena culture in the north
I suppose you don't consider the Domus de Jana burial chambers as megalithic then, and Nuraghi were built after 2000 BC
there are cultures like Chasséen and Michelsberg which are quite similar to megalithic culture
they don't have actual megalithic structures, but they have earthworks like the British neolithic and they have jadeite axes which were also collected in megalithic societies
they also had flint mines like in megalithic societies
the jadeite axe trade was inititiated by I2a1b1-L161 which is predominant in the 7000 years genetic history of France and in megalithic Scandinavia
I2a1b1-L161 also pops up in TRB Esperstedt, Salzland
Salzland was interesting for salt deposits, a well-known trading commodity
salt was traded for jadeite axes, Michelsberg people probably had their own trading communities in Salzland, but they were driven out around 5,3 ka when Salzmünde was burned down by Scandinavian megalithic farmers allied with incoming globular amphora herders
DTW2dn_XkAARId3.jpg:large

e1db94f909d0b5b3376d255330fbdcb5.jpg

here is a very intersting video :

about Scandinavian megalithic societies infiltrating and dominating TRB farmers :
https://adnaera.com/2018/09/09/a-first-and-intriguing-glimpse-at-trb-west-group-adna/

The expansion is best documented for Central Germany, with the consecutive Tiefstich phases of Altmark Group (ca. 3500-3350 BC), Walternienburg (ca. 3350-3100 BC), and Bernburg (ca. 3100-2650 BC, possibly commencing somewhat earlier). While the initial spread concerned HG territory, Walternienburg marks the first expansion into a traditional EEF settlement area, around the Elbe-Saale confluence. The city of Bernburg is already deep in EEF territory, and by around 3100 BC, the Tiefstich sphere reached from Stettin in the NW to the south-eastern foothills of the Harz. This expansion is believed to have caused the transformation of the Baalberge Culture aka early TRB S into Salzmünde (late TRB S) [Ironically, the village of Baalberge has a few years ago been incorporated into neighbouring Bernburg]. The eponymous Salzmünde enclosure was around 3100 BC burnt down and destroyed by a GAC – Bernburg coalition, Afterwards, in the nearby Halle-Dölauer Heide enclosure, Bernburg people supplanted their stone cists over and across a Salzmünde graveyard, in obvious disregard of the latter.

the flint mines in Spiennes, Belgium had a nearby fortified Michelberg settlement

Spiennes_-_Mini%C3%A8res_n%C3%A9olithiques_de_silex_%281%29.jpg


when you study all this you'll realise the indoeuropeans didn't bring violence to Europe, it was already there
somehow the IE were 'better' warlords, probably sometimes fighting the megalithic clans, but sometimes also making alliances with some of them
it would explain Sonehenge
 

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