Four Stone Hearth - Call for Submissions

The 68th edition of Four Stone Hearth will appear here at remote central, this coming Wednesday, June 3rd, and although the initial stages of assembly are under way, there's still plenty of time for those interested in contributing to the next edition to submit posts - these can be from your own blog or site, or indeed from anywhere within what might loosely be termed the anthro-blogosphere, as explained at the Four Stone Hearth home-page.

Submissions can be sent to me direct - my email address can be accessed through my profile page - or to Martin Rundkvist, administrator supreme of this particular carnival.

The 67th edition was held at Sorting Out Science on May 20th, whilst the 69th will be published on June 17th at Wanna Be An Anthropologist.

Hosting spots are available after Afarensis hosts on July 1st, and once again, a quick visit to Four Stone Hearth will furnish would-be hosts with the necessary details of how to put such plans in motion.

image 'Euskadi Tropical' - from Dual Music

Stimulus Respond :: 'Numbers' : Call For Submissions

Following on from recent news that Stimulus Respond now has a Spanish language edition of 'Skin' online, in this case going by the name of 'Piel', comes this advice that potential contributors to the next English edition, 'Numbers', have until May 29th to submit ideas for fully completed submissions that will need to meet a June 26th deadline. This from the editors...

We are currently soliciting contributions for the English edition of the next issue of Stimulus Respond, which will be titled and organised around the theme of Numbers.

Contributions might be literally or abstractly related to Numbers, and we encourage, as always, creative and experimental approaches to the theme. In congruence with Stimulus Respond’s undisciplined approach, we welcome submissions from new and established contributors from within, between, and beyond such fields as cultural studies, anthropology, literary criticism, fashion, creative writing, politics, visual cultures, architecture, theatre, film and screen studies, sociology, media and communications and philosophy.

Fashion editorials and photography should be sent as low resolution jpegs including credits where necessary. The deadline for expressions of interest is 29 May, with the final deadline being 26 June.

Potential contributors to the Literature section are to send an abstract of 200-300 words and an indication of the anticipated word length of the final article (within the parameters of 1000-4000 words) by 29 May. Authors of successful abstract submissions will be required to submit the final piece by 19 June and to be available to make any minor corrections by Friday 26 June.

The editorial contacts are:

Literature: Tara Blake Wilson
tara@stimulusrespond.com

Fashion: Jack Boulton
jack@stimulusrespond.com

Poetry: Ellen Sampson
ellen@stimulusrespond.com

For more information on Stimulus Respond and to download the current issue, Skin, please visit www.stimulusrespond.com.

Thanks very much for reading, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Warm regards,
Jack

And as mentioned at the top of this post, the Spanish language edition, 'Piel' is now online, as described here...

La edición Española del número Piel (Skin) acaba de publicarse en la red. Contiene poesía y literatura originalmente escrita en Español, y los apartados de moda, arte y música traducidos directamente de la versión Inglesa. Puedes descargarte el pdf aquí, o leerlo a través a issuu aquí.

En breve publicaremos el plazo para el envío de contribuciones para el próximo, Números. Y, por supuesto, puedes acceder a la edición Inglesa aquí, o descargártela en pdf aquí. Para cualquier duda, contactad conmigo en la dirección jack@stimulusrespond.com.

The Spanish version of the Skin issue has just gone online. It comprises new poetry and literature written in Spanish, with translated versions of the fashion, art and music from the English version. You can download a pdf here, or read the number through issuu here.

The call for contributions for Numbers, our next issue, will be released over the next few days. The English version is also available as a pdf here, or view it through issuu here.

Any questions, please email me at jack@stimulusrespond.com. Un abrazo, Jack

image :: Hubble Space Telescope :: Supernova 1994D (SN1994D) in Galaxy NGC 4526

They're Big, They're Boobs, They're Featured In The News - Hohle Fels Aurignacian Figurine Dated to 35 kya

Dienekes' Anthropology Blog: 35,000-year old female figurine from Hohle Fels Cave

Such has been the enthusiastic coverage of the 35,000 year-old mammoth ivory figurine found recently in south-western Germany, notably along the lines that this apparently represents the earliest known pornography, I was slightly surprised to see the phwooarr count in the tabloid press strangely low, although The Mail ran the story and published a nice few images therein.

The broadsheets did however go for this story with more gusto, with The Telegraph, (in their Arts & Culture section), chipping in with this timeless observation...

The prehistoric figurine, named 'Venus' after the Roman goddess of love, was no Kate Moss as small buttocks and a slender waist are very much a modern trend.

Cavemen were obsessed with big breasts and bottoms and exaggerated these traits in their art as they regarded these parts of the female anatomy as signs of fertility.

So now we know, and having digested that little gem, it's off to The Guardian who have gone with a little feature called Ancient Erotica: Art Through the Ages, in which they've availed themselves of the opportunity to post a series of 13 images from the distant past, depicting various parts of the anatomy and related activities in a tasteful, yet somehow still-a-bit-tabloidy fashion. The New York Times has a good piece by John Noble Wilford, and they too have a pictorial mini-feature on so-called porn of the past.

The London Times ran what appeared to be an informative article, sparking this response from one of their readers...

Looks more like a chicken to me

Lisa, Forsyth, US

Way to go, Lisa - meanwhile, over at The Independent, the following observation was made...

The latest Venus figurine is also adorned with enigmatic and possibly symbolic markings in the form of repeatedly incised lines that might conceivably represent the depiction of clothing, according to Dr Mellars. Other Venus figurines from the later period also show criss-cross designs or patterns etched on to their surfaces.

The Venus of Willendorf is a good example, as depicted here at the excellent Don's Maps site, as the head is circumscribed by lines that have been interpreted as possibly representing some sort of head-wear. The fact that someone went to the trouble of incising these lines on the figurine might well hint towards a more symbolic import attached to the figurine, rather than what in my opinion, are rather weak claims for this being a 'prehistoric pin-up', as described at Nature.


And thus having checked some of the newspaper stories, it's time to look at the abstract of the paper which is published in Nature Letters..

Despite well over 100 years of research and debate, the origins of art remain contentious1, 2, 3. In recent years, abstract depictions have been documented at southern African sites dating to approx75 kyr before present (bp)4, 5, and the earliest figurative art, which is often seen as an important proxy for advanced symbolic communication, has been documented in Europe as dating to between 30 and 40 kyr bp 2.

Here I report the discovery of a female mammoth-ivory figurine in the basal Aurignacian deposit at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany during excavations in 2008.

This figurine was produced at least 35,000 calendar years ago, making it one of the oldest known examples of figurative art. This discovery predates the well-known Venuses from the Gravettian culture by at least 5,000 years and radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Palaeolithic art.

As mentioned at Dieneke's Blog, there is a free online video at Nature, namely 'Prehistoric Pin-up', in which we hear from archaeologist Maria Malina, who is part of the Hohle Fels excavation team, and Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen.

Because the figurine is reported to have been found at the base of the Aurignacian levels, this artefact is being touted as evidence that anatomically modern humans began creating figurative art as soon as they arrived in this part of Europe, which had previously only been occupied by Neanderthals, whom it is claimed, didn't engage in this type of symbolic activity.

However, as I never tire of pointing out, researcher Robert Bednarik has assembled significant evidence of just such activities dating all the way back to the Lower Palaeolithic, and this linked article, 'Beads And The Origins Of Symbolism' is essential reading for anyone believing that lateral thought and symbolic representation only occurred as late as the Upper Palaeolithic; here's a snippet from that essay...

An animal tooth, such as the wolf’s incisor from the Repolusthöhle, is much more difficult to perforate. At the time of the advent of Upper Palaeolithic technology, between 40 and 30 ka ago, even stone materials were perforated, to be used as pendants. The earliest examples are the broken specimen from Shiyu wenhua in central China (Figure 5) and several items from Kostenki 17, made from stone, fossil coral and belemnites (Bednarik 1995d: Fig. 4). However, the sparse record available to us provides no indication of an ‘evolution’ in the standard of workmanship.

On the contrary, some of the older examples are much better produced than the more recent. The Libyan Acheulian beads are more carefully made than the Upper Palaeolithic specimens from India (Figure 3). The perforation on the Repolusthöhle tooth is significantly finer than the clumsily made holes in the two Bacho Kiro teeth, which are ‘merely’ 42 ka old (Marshack 1991).

There can be no doubt that even the earliest beads and pendants we currently have involved a great deal of skill and understanding of material properties in their production. The hominids who made them were outstanding craftsmen.

There is a debate surrounding the dating of this figurine, which Conard has suggested may date back even earlier, to 40,000 years, as we see from Science Now...

Conard used radiocarbon dates from bones and other artifacts found nearby to date the figurine. "It's at least 35,000 calendar years old, but I think it's much older than that," Conard says. The fragments were found within a few centimeters of each other close to the bottom of a layer that represents the first arrival of modern humans in Europe--a period known as the Aurignacian that dates back 40,000 years. "This confirms figurative imagery is part of the Aurignacian from day one," Conard says.

However, João Zilhão, who perceives anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals as being much more behaviourally similar to one another than this latest research suggests, disagrees, as we see...

Archaeologist João Zilhão of Bristol University in the United Kingdom says Conard is cherry-picking the best dates to reinforce his case that modern humans began creating art almost as soon as they arrived in Europe.

"It's a very important find and highlights the good work the Tübingen group is doing," Zilhão says, but he argues that the figurine seems likely to be from about the same period as the other artifacts found in the Swabian caves--5000 years after humans arrived in Europe. The art's timing plays into a larger debate over the origins of human behavior and whether early modern humans were cognitively more advanced than the Neandertals they competed with and eventually replaced (ScienceNOW, 13 September 2006).

All of which gets us no nearer to discovering whether this figurine and its later counterparts of 10,000 years later, were crafted by the hand of a woman, man or child.


Reference: Letters - Nature 459, 248-252 (14 May 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature07995; Received 24 January 2009; Accepted 17 March 2009 A female figurine from the basal Aurignacian of Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany


see also : John Hawks - Awkward Moments When Reading 1 & 2

and Zenobia: The Newest Uppity Stone-Age Venus


image from BBC News

200,000 Year-Old Human Hair Reported Found in Fossil Hyena Dung

200,000 year old human hair found in dung - Telegraph

The Telegraph is reporting on a find made near Sterkfontein in South Africa, where Dr Lucinda Backwell and colleagues from the University of Witwatersrand have found what they believe to be the oldest intact human hair, dating back to a time immediately prior to the emergence of anatomically modern humans, around 195,000 years ago.

The find is reported in Journal of Archaeological Science, and although the paper is behind a paywall, the abstract is available, and reads thus...

Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9000-year-old South American mummy. Here we report fossil hairs of probable human origin that exceed that age by about 200,000 years. The hairs have been discovered in a brown hyaena (Parahyaena brunnea) coprolite from Gladysvale cave in South Africa. The coprolite is part of a hyaena latrine preserved in calcified cave sediment dated between 195,000 and 257,000 years ago. This find supports the hypothesis that hyaenas accumulated some of the early hominin remains found in cave sites, and provides a new source of information on Pleistocene mammals in the Sterkfontein Valley.

The find seems fairly securely dated, and its rarity and possible significance are explained by Dr. Backwell, speaking to The Telegraph...

"This find is so unusual as the human fossil record at this time is exceedingly poor, and of course hair is relatively fragile and degrades easily. It is the first non-bony material in the early hominid fossil record. "As analytical techniques become more advanced they could shed light on what the person looked like, their state of health, and other aspects that cannot be investigated with current technologies."

Until now, the oldest known human hairs recovered by archaeologists date back 9,000 years to the oldest known (Chincorro) mummies, (PDF) from which hair belonging to a 3-year-old child was recovered.

This recent find at Gladysvale Cave comprises 40 strands of hair, which after comparison with samples from modern humans, primates and other species, were found to most closely resemble those of hominids. In this case, it is speculated that the hairs might have belonged to Homo heidelbergensis, a robust species of archaic human, although for reasons not entirely clear, there are thoughts that the hairs might even belong to an as yet unknown species of Homo.

The coprolites came from the brown hyena, Parahyaena brunnea, which were discovered in the context of an ancient hyena latrine in Gladysvale Cave, which over the past 8 decades has attracted the attention of palaeontologists, a site which has yielded an estimated 250,00 ancient fossils, including a 1.6 million year-old giant hyena skull, two teeth belonging to A. Africanus, and a find which apparently went missing, a hominid mandible reported to Robert Broom in the mid-1930s, that had vanished from the cave wall in which it was said to have been embedded, by the time he had got there to investigate.

Thus far it has not been possible to recover anything in the nature of genetic material from the samples, such as DNA, which would of course prove to be both highly interesting and revelatory, but it is hoped that future technologies, combined with similar finds may prove an unexpected source of illumination in our search for ever more clues to our own ancestors and the environments in which they resided.



Reference: “Probable human hair found in a fossil hyaena coprolite from Gladysvale cave, South Africa”. Lucinda Backwell, Robyn Pickering, Don Brothwell, Lee Berger, Michael Witcomb, David Martill, Kirsty Penkman, Andrew Wilson. Journal of Archaeological Science. Volume 36, Issue 6, June 2009, Pages 1269-1276.

via Leherensuge and Mundo Neandertal

image from Mundo Neandertal

see also: BBC News - Hyena Giggles No Laughing Matter

Qype :: London Restaurants, Bars, Gigs, Hotels, Events & more

London Restaurants, Bars, Gigs, Hotels, Events & more

Here's a quick heads-up to an online guide for London, namely Qype, (pronounced 'kwaip'), ideal for those wishing to visit the capital city for a vacation or weekend break, or indeed for people already living or working there, who might amongst other options, wish to plan and prepare the best evening out by checking online for available restaurants and watering holes, either before venturing forth, or upon arrival in a specific part of town.

Many Londoners will already be familiar with weekly print listings such as Time Out, but of course, not everyone has the time or inclination to head out to the newsagents, buy a magazine and then try to find somewhere to sit down and study it - in this high-speed digital age, many of us prefer instead to fire up the laptop, or go online with the mobile phone, in order to access specific information quickly and easily.

This is where Qype comes in, an online guide to London which is created by user-generated, categorised content in the form of short, written reviews with details of and directions to many of the multitude of restaurants, bars, pubs and nightclubs that are on offer in the non-stop metropolis.

Additionally, there are extensive links to places of interest in the Arts & Entertainment section, plenty more for those wishing to watch or participate in Sports, a very good Events listing, and for anyone with energy left after all that, there's even a Shopping section included. Everything is logically categorized, making navigation quick and easy.

So if you're planning on meeting friends for a meal, organising a work get-together, or simply trying to impress your date by plying them with food and drink in what you hope are suitably attractive surroundings, all you need to do is click the restaurants london link, and you'll arrive at a page listing what must surely be nearly every type of restaurant fare currently known to the human race.

Foremost amongst many people's favourite meals out is a decent curry, and by clicking 'Indian' on the link referred to above, you will find there are currently over 400 such Indian restaurants in London described. Each restaurant is described in its own caption, and once you've clicked the 'More' link, you'll find a brief review, address and contacts, a local map marking the exact location, details of public transport access, as well as links to other nearby places which might provide suitable alternatives - there's even an external photo for easy identification upon arrival.

Or if you're feeling a little more like heading out for an evening's drinking, the pubs london link is the one for you, where you'll find an impressive selection of no less than 5, 591 pubs currently described at Qype - again, reviews are given, maps are provided, and travelling tips are given.

Other main features of the site include an internal search engine, a multi-lingual reading facility, as well as Forums in which users who have signed up can meet up and chat online, whilst the 'More' link on the right hand-side of category tags provides access to more useful information on anything from holidays to educational resources, and legal services to beauty salons.

All in all, a very nice site, particularly notable for some of the very well written reviews added by people who have actually visited the places in question, and of course for the ease of access with which the site layout and design provides a very good product for both user and composer alike.

Four Stone Hearth 66@ Aardvarchaeology

Four Stone Hearth 66 : Aardvarchaeology

The latest edition of this anthropology blog carnival is now online, which as ever, has an excellent selection of posts which give added depth and insight into some of the stories and events that have appeared online in recent weeks.

Here's a message from host Martin...

The Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is currently going over a rough patch. For this instalment, I had no host and only two submissions.

So now I've been your host, Dear Reader, and I have rummaged around the web for a collection of mostly non-submitted great material. Anthro bloggers everywhere, submit your best new stuff and line up for hosting! It's a great way to make contacts and attract high-quality traffic -- smart people who share your interests!

The next edition is due out on Wednesday, May 20th.

image 'Aardvark' by Scott Andrew Spencer from here.

The Missing Years of Jesus - by Dennis Price - Book Review

The Missing Years of Jesus - The Greatest Story Never Told

The premise of this book by Dennis Price is that the character referred to in the New Testament of the Bible, as Jesus Christ, effectively goes missing between the ages of 12 and 30, as there are no accounts of his life during those years, and that this disappearance can be explained by the idea that during those missing years, he travelled to Britain with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, a man thought to have made part of his fortune by shipping tin back from mines in Cornwall, which was later used in the manufacture of bronze. It is further suggested that Jesus may even have drawn on lessons learned and knowledge gleaned during his putative sojourn in England from spiritual sources there.

As the author notes, for someone who is considered one of the most notable people ever thought to have existed, it seems strange indeed that there is no official record of the middle 18 years of his life, and accordingly an investigation is launched to ascertain whether numerous rumours, myths and legends suggesting JC visited England, have anything of substance to them.

This eminently readable and engrossing book is divided into three main parts, the first of which looks at accounts from the New Testament which might throw a light on the whereabouts of a man whose mid- life goes largely unrecorded, both in the canonical texts, and sundry other gospels that were excluded from the Bible, more of which I'll write later.

The second part takes us from the Eastern Mediterranean homelands of Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea to the physical landscape that comprised the western reaches of historic England and Wales, including natural features and archaeological sites that can still to this day be seen and visited, and which furthermore retain legends attesting to the presence and deeds of both individuals.

The final part of the book concerns itself with individuals and institutions throughout the last 2,000 years whose existence, words and actions the author feels should also be taken into consideration when attempting to discern the veracity of his own theories. To achieve these ends, Dennis Price casts the net far and wide, and in the process hauls in a very impressive selection of curiosities, anecdotes and enigmas, meaning that even if some readers aren't wholly convinced of the basic premise of the book, they will nevertheless find many fascinating insights into the distant history and mythology of Britain, as well as some rather surprising observations on various figures from our more recent past, including Sir Arthur C. Clarke and archaeologist R.J.C. Atkinson, who for many years seemed to hold exclusive excavation rights at Stonehenge. As we will see later, and this will come as little surprise to regular readers of the author's website, Eternal Idol, the site of Stonehenge is writ large across the pages of this book, whilst other sites such as Silbury Hill, Priddy and the Mendip Hills also feature prominently throughout.

The opening chapters set the scene by looking into the words of a poem that became a hymn that should by rights be the national anthem of England, namely 'Jerusalem', by William Blake, the first verse of which runs thus...

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark Satanic mills?

As we see from this snippet at Wikipedia, one interpretation of what those mysterious 'Satanic mills' might be, holds that...

An alternative theory is that Blake refers to Stonehenge; an illustration of it and other megaliths is featured in his work, Milton. However, he did not see ancient Britain as satanic, but rather saw the Druids and their supposed temple, Stonehenge, as precursors of Christianity.

We are introduced to the idea that Jesus had been away from the area of his childhood by various narratives describing other places around the eastern Mediterranean supposedly visited by him, as well as other accounts of how people found it hard to recognise him, as if they had not seen him for many years, during which time it is assumed his physical appearance had changed dramatically, as might be expected from one who had become a fully grown adult since his last known presence as a 12 year-old child on the cusp of adolescence.

Reference is made to the way in which Jesus is described in the New Testament as frequenting high and remote locations, such as the transfiguration event when having climbed a mountain with several disciples, whereupon Jesus was illuminated by a bright light, and the ghosts of the prophets Moses and Elijah appeared. During an episode describing how Jesus was tempted by the Devil, the action once again takes place in an elevated and distant location, whilst many more incidents are also recorded, all of which behaviour the author later suggests is a continuation of the way in which Jesus favoured the upland areas of western England and Wales.

There is an investigation of the Mendip Hills, under which lies a veritable underworld of openings and chasms, largely unexamined by archaeologists, but which have nevertheless yielded occasional artefacts suggesting ritual use of the subterranean realms dating back at least 4,000 years.

We are also pointed toward numerous references to Jesus having become an experienced mariner in the intervening years between childhood and adulthood, a set of skills he might have acquired during long ocean-going journeys to and from England, by way of the Mediterranean and thence northward to the shores of south-western England.

For example, there is the description of Jesus and his disciples being caught in a storm whilst on a boat; Jesus is reported as having fallen asleep, causing his worried disciples to awaken him, whereupon we are told that he rebuked the wind and the storm subsided. It is suggested that Jesus was able to sleep through a severe storm at sea as this is a situation he would have encountered many times before, testament to the idea that he was indeed a seasoned mariner.

Key to the putative seafaring adventures of Jesus was his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, with whom Jesus is posited to have set sail for England, and who is also described a secret or hidden disciple; after the crucifixion, it was he who apparently demanded the dead body, and who moreover is credited with having hewn the tomb from rock himself, a skill again suggested to have been reflected in his time spent in the depths of Cornish tin mines. His importance in the story of Jesus is underscored by the accounts of him demanding the body of Jesus after the Crucifixion, and his presence at the lamentation thereafter.

Further on into the book, reference is made to the Harrowing of Hell, when Jesus is said to have descended into Hell to rescue various souls trapped therein, and although most accounts state that that this event took place after the Crucifixion, it is suggested there may be some echo of this story in the swallets at Priddy. There are many versions of this story in canonical and non-canonical literature, including a few versions from English Mystery plays.

These are deep hollows in the ground, which it would appear, were the subject of ritual activity at least 4,000 years ago, and were likely associated with the mythical realm of the Underworld. Scant though excavations of these places has been, enough archaeological evidence in the guise of artefacts believed to have been associated with funereal ritual has been recovered to suggest that these subterranean realms had attracted humans for many thousands of years. A vast amount still remains unexplored, (this linked book, The Netherworld of Mendip, published in 1907 paints a very vivid picture of a world that lay beneath the feet of our earliest ancestors, still exists today, and will continue to do so long after this civilisation has ended. Very slow download, but well worth the wait)

A quick note on Renaissance Art - although there is passing reference to this in the book, there are no illustrations included, so for the sake of this review, I decided to illustrate some of the the points referred to in the book with a selection of images (see link at end) created in the mid 15th century, by Fra Angelico at al.

Fra Angelico was a mendicant (as opposed to an observant) within the Dominican Order, and is famous for having created and designed most of the work now on display at the Museo di San Marco, which included frescoes on the outer walls, as well as many that were painted in the monk's cells, there to be meditated upon at the end of each day by the monks who dwelt within.

The picture at top by the Fran Angelico stable of artists, depicts Christ at the Gates of Hell, on his way to rescue Adam, and this picture amongst others, depicts him carrying a flag, adorned with the Cross of St. George, which then, as now was the official flag of England. At the time the fresco was painted, this flag had long been associated with English crusader knights who had fought in the Holy Land for many years before their eventual defeat. I haven't been able to find anything that states why this choice of emblem was used in this work from the mid 15th century, or even why Jesus was carrying a flag at all, as it surely wouldn't have had as much practical use in that situation as for example a flaming sword or other weapon of choice with which to fend off the depicted demons.

Had I not read this book, I doubt that I would ever have made any connection between the flag-bearing JC and any idea that this signified a possible link to England, and indeed, it's quite possible that no such connection was implied by the artist. Moreover, Fra Angelico and his collaborators would have been aware of exactly what the Cross of St. George meant back in the day - the ill fated Crusades to the Holy Land had seen widespread use of this emblem by English and French knights, before it was adopted by England as its official flag.

Flicking around online, there are other paintings depicting the same scene which also feature JC flying the same flag, notably by Giotto, and other artists of the time.

Prominent to the Nativity scene is the depiction of oxen, which we normally understand to have been used to reinforce the idea that Jesus was born in a stable or dilapidated agricultural structure of some sort. I can't help but wonder if instead, the oxen were key, and signify the roots of Christianity being somehow entangled with what we know was a very ancient and persistent Cattle Cult, which had been in existence for many thousands of years, through the Bronze Age at Stonehenge, and possibly dating all the way back to Çatalhöyük, some 7, 500 years before the presumed birth of Jesus. In any event, mention is made of the voluminous collection of cattle bones recovered during past excavations at Stonehenge, which led John North to remark upon the tenacity of such a cult spanning many years, and presumably a wide area of the prehistoric world.

Another interesting aspect of these two images is the way in which the stable is depicted in front of a large rock or mountain, whilst in the second image, we can clearly see what appears to be a cave or tunnel extending back into the rock - thus we see a possible interpretation of this religion as having originated in caves or subterranean spaces, incorporating cattle or oxen along the way, with the birth of Jesus being hailed as some sort of renaissance, a new beginning for a new era, and one that was infused with light rather than shrouded in darkness.

Although we think of the discovery of Palaeolithic art to be recent, it should be borne in mind that around this period of Mediaeval history, Pope Calixtus III in 1458, is reported to have ordered the cessation of 'the religious ceremonies held in the Spanish cave with the horse pictures’ - the Pope was from Valencia, and it is assumed that the painted cave he was referring to was Palaeolithic. (Who knows, we may have lost a painted cave over 500 years ago because the Pope sent someone along to remove the paintings of horses from the cave walls). Thus it is quite possible that Renaissance artists - especially those who were part of the Church itself, could have been made aware of this art, even if they might not have appreciated the extent of its antiquity, or even seen it in person.

Moreover the Bible is replete with animal sacrifice and references to herd and flock animals are abundant, thus it wouldn't have been beyond the capability of a mediaeval mind to have conceived the process by which the Christian religion had manifested itself following early pagan religions that had begun within the depths of caves, moved out into the open as it evolved into cattle cults, and thence to Christianity itself, which cast its eye upward in the direction of heaven. Indeed part of the Renaissance philosophy held that this world and its imperfection and suffering were merely the precursor to an eternal life after death in Paradise, assuming of course, you toed the God-fearing line. This Renaissance idea has particular similarities to the beliefs of the Cathars who had all but perished more than a century beforehand, more of whom later.

Thus it should come as no surprise that a golden child of light, said to embody the very essence of God, should be thought of as having fought and conquered demons, especially in remote underworld locations, and who knows what folk-lore these mediaeval monks would have read or heard - if it was reported in a non-canonical or apocryphal source that Jesus had indeed visited England on a crusade of his own, and once there vanquished a deadly foe of the Underworld, perhaps it is possible to understand why a flag with the Cross of St. George was encoded into the allegorical fresco at top. As we shall see later, such unorthodox thoughts might well have been considered heresy if spoken aloud, or written in ink, but a painter could easily include what appear to be unrelated details such as flag with Cross of St. George, while claiming that this was purely an artistic device used to emphasise the power of the sign of the True Cross.

Of course, the reasons for this particular employment of a flag with a red cross on it could be for entirely different reasons; for example, in every depiction of Jesus, Fra Angelico and his collaborators and assistants always depict the golden halo of Jesus with a red cross included, though in these depictions, it's more of a Maltese Cross within a circular design, than an explicit reference to St. George or England.

The point the author makes in his book is to question whether the Harrowing of Hell was an account of a historical event, in the area of Priddy, whereby someone, possibly JC, descended into the depths of the Earth to battle with what were considered to be demons and evil spirits, vanquished them and returned back up to the surface in triumph.

Stonehenge comes in for particular scrutiny, with the suggestion that Jesus may have visited, and that in doing so, may have attempted to exorcise some sort of demon that may have been summoned or otherwise manifested, some 1,600 years earlier, when the site appears suddenly to have fallen into disuse, for reasons that have never been conclusively explained.

Reference is made to the way in which the site has repeatedly been associated not only with death, as evidenced by its funerary use in the Bronze Age, but its various association with the occult and the feelings of gloom and uneasiness which cling to the stones to this very day,

Although it has popularly been assumed that one of the reasons behind the design of Stonehenge was to capture the sunrise on the longest day of the year, at the Summer Solstice, a paper written by Lionel Sim, The ‘Solarization' of the Moon: Manipulated Knowledge at Stonehenge' proposes a somewhat different focus for the ancient megalithic structure.

Although researchers such as the late John North have written that Stonehenge could more easily be explained by seeking out lunar alignments, Lionel Sim has taken this argument a stage further by suggesting that the aim was to plot the 'longest, darkest night', which would have been concerned with a sky near the Winter Solstice, but one which lacked a full moon, which we in modern times have assumed would have been most important to our distant forebears.

By shifting the focus to the longest night of the year, during which there was no sign of the moon, a stronger association with the occult is implied, with the distinct possibility that some time around 1600 years ago, something happened that was so ghastly or disturbing that all such ritual activity ceased and the place fell into virtual neglect - the author suggests that Stonehenge became haunted or infested with evil, and that part of Jesus' work in England may have involved trying to banish the perceived evil from that place. However, the site wasn't devoid of all human activity, as several changes and modifications were carried out at various times.

There is a very interesting section of the book which deals with the strange matter of the ancient axeman depicted on a stone pillar and on various coins of about 30 AD. Thought to be the Gaulish god Esus, part of and dating from the time of Emperor Tiberius, the author wonders whether people at the time drew a comparison between the warlike god and his association with wood-cutting, and Jesus who was opposed to the militaristic Roman Empire, and who was further rumoured to have been a carpenter, as his mortal father Joseph had been before him.

Further, there are coins dating from around this period upon which the name Eisu has been found; these coins were minted by a tribe known as the Dubunni or Dobunni, who inhabited an area around the Mendip Hills. It is recorded that they surrendered to the Romans before the invasion of 43 A.D., the reasons for which are unclear; it is suggested that there may have been some thing or some person in their territories that they wished not to be sought out and destroyed or killed by the Romans, with the further suggestions that Jesus may have fathered offspring during his stay, and they remained behind in England after he had departed home.

Most of the Eisu coins, in common with others of that era described as being of Celtic design, feature a three-tailed horse, though the meaning or symbolism of what this represented is lost to history.

The author notes that despite many legends linking the rumoured presence of Jesus in this part of the world at the same time, nobody appears to have remarked on the similarities of his name to the other two names of Esus on the Stone Pillar of Sailors, and Eisu on the coins of the Dubonni, and Jesus, or any connections that may exist between them.

The final chapter of the book is titled, 'The Sound of Silence', in which the author asks us to consider why information that Jesus had visited England would have been kept quiet, rather than shouted from the roof-tops and proclaimed from bell towers.

The author asks why the mediaeval monks of Glastonbury apparently chose not to officially state that Jesus had once been in the immediate vicinity, an opinion held by historian Geoffrey Ashe, who cited their reticence on the subject as evidence that no such legend had existed in the Middle Ages.

In response, we are told that a fire at Glastonbury in 1184 consumed many of the books that had been there, and in which it is presumed, texts confirming the presence of Jesus might have existed. But as we know, legends don't always depend on the written word to survive, and it's likely that any such revelatory tales would have lived on in the minds and on the tongues of those who survived the conflagration.

Five years after the fire at Glastonbury, the doomed Third Crusade was heading off to the Middle East, there to meet a mighty new foe in the guise of Saladin, who had galvanized the Islamic armies into becoming a far more effective military force. The fact that this Crusade was headed by an all-star line-up in the guise of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, newly crowned King Richard I, Cœur de Lion, of England, and King Philip Augustus of France, underscores the determination of those involved to reclaim what they regarded as the Holy Land in the Middle East. One of the many ostensible aims of the Crusades was to allow pilgrims to visit the locations mentioned in the Bible that were associated with the deeds of Jesus, which to all intents and purposes were perceived to have taken place exclusively in the lands of the Eastern Mediterranean. Obviously, any ideas or rumours that the western reaches of England could equally have been considered holy in the sense that Jesus had spent part or much of his life there would certainly have lessened the claims of the Crusaders with regard to attacking lands from which he may have been absent for anything up to 18 years.

In the midst of these Crusades to the Middle East, came the infamous Albigensian Crusade, unleashed by Pope Innocent III in 1209, in which the Cathars of Languedoc in the south of France, were on many occasions more or less slaughtered to the last man, woman and child - simply because they held what were considered heretical beliefs, not the least of which was that Jesus was more a phantom than real human being, that all matter was inherently evil, and that the Papacy was little more than an armed gang that grown rich by robbery, and moreover had corrupted the intended message of Christianity.

Very little in the way of texts have survived from the Cathars - most contemporary writings were compiled by their adversaries, and it is presumed that whatever writings were in existence were destroyed at the time of the Papal genocide, were hidden by the Cathars, or have otherwise been lost or obscured from view. The legend of the Cathars' Treasure might mean that there were texts considered so important that they were hidden from harm, either by the Cathars themselves, or even by the Vatican, in whose archives they may yet remain.

As such, there doesn't appear to be any specific evidence they considered Jesus to have visited England, either in the meagre literature, or from any source which discusses their supposed beliefs - for example, there is no record they objected to the Crusades on the basis that Jesus might have spent the majority of his life elsewhere, or specifically in England.

We turn next to the late and somewhat maligned archaeologist of yore, R.J.C Atkinson, who between 1950 and 1964 spent many long seasons excavating at Stonehenge, and whom the author opines discovered something important at - or about - the site which for reasons unknown, he chose not to divulge. It was Atkinson who infamously declared that the builders of Stonehenge were 'howling barbarians', although without explaining exactly why he chose those specific words.

It seems clear from contemporary reports that operations at Stonehenge were conducted poorly, and moreover, Atkinson and fellow archaeologist Stuart Piggott proved more of a hindrance than help, apparently to the extent that those reporting on the excavations took a very dim view of their conduct and behaviour.

The author claims Atkinson's curious behaviour may in part be explained by his intense dislike for the place, and although that may well be true, 14 years seems an awfully long time to have spent on a single site - it seems likely that as he was considered a leader in his field, he could easily have closed the Stonehenge excavations, declaring there to be nothing of interest, and found other sites to excavate.

The fact that he chose to spend so long at Stonehenge, even visiting in subsequent years when he could be seen digging further holes, speaks more of an obsession with the place - whether this was based on finds we know nothing about, is of course impossible to say.

My overall opinion is that whether or not one believes that Jesus really existed, or that the canonical texts of the Bible can be regarded as an accurate documentation of events that took place so long ago, there are plentiful points of interest throughout a very well written and clearly expressed set of ideas, many of which draw the reader's attention to people and places that may not be immediately familiar to all.

My only gripe is that various sections of the book could have done with a great deal more in the way of pictures and illustrations, but this is something that could easily be resolved by the making of a TV documentary, in which many of the artefacts, landscapes, sites and people involved could be viewed. But suffice it to say, this book should be of great interest to anyone who likes a good mystery, and wishes to decide for themselves to what extent a discrete set of data points could be assembled to form a coherent explanation to a mystery that has for the most part, never been fully explored in over 2,000 years.

Although I've covered some of the salient points raised in this detailed and analytical book, I have by necessity given a greatly abbreviated account in this review, partly because there is so much material to cover, and partly because it should be for the reader to embark upon an adventure which through various twists and turns, makes for one of the most readable books I've encountered in a very long time.

I've added some supplementary images here.

Eternal Idol - website of author Dennis Price