You've just entered the theater of an alien sky.
If the words and images seem strange to you there's a reason for this,
our world was once a vastly different place.
To experience this won't hurt you
and there is nothing to fear.
Before the Counting of Time
In previous episodes of this series,
we've claimed that the first civilizations arose
under the influence of extraordinary natural events.
But these events including phases of overwhelming catastrophe
remain largely unrecognized today.
In supporting this extraordinary claim, we've offered global evidence
suggesting an ancient gathering of planets close to Earth.
We've called this planetary assembly The Polar Configuration
due to its alignment with the rotational axis of the Earth.
Documentation supporting a reconstruction of the configuration
comes down to us from cultures the world over,
we see the events reflected in the rise of kingship,
the emergence of the first writing systems,
of monumental construction,
and the great national wars of expansion,
all explicitly linked to intensely remembered events
when planets appeared to battle in the sky
as clouds of celestial debris shrouded the Earth
and great volumes of dust and rock fell upon our planet.
We've called this human memory "The One Story Told Around The World."
The universal tradition takes us back to an age of planetary gods and celestial wonders,
the universal source of the world's archetypal myths and symbols.
And so we've claimed that there could be no archetypes
without the implied global experience.
It's the common experience that gives the archetypes both their context
and their concrete detail the world over.
We now know that since the dawn of the great civilizations,
memories of fear-inspiring catastrophe pervaded all of human activity,
an outpouring of imagination and pervasive fear,
doomsday anxiety
showed its face in every culture that followed.
And above all else, this body of magical and ritual practices
sought to deflect or to forestall the return of remembered catastrophe.
Our historical argument is drawn upon evidence left by the great civilizations
starting with the appearance of formal writing systems.
But there is also a layer of prehistoric evidence
and this archaeological layer can help us to visualize celestial events
before the appearance of any written records.
This prehistoric evidence directs our attention to the human response
in the very midst of a deadly threat,
in other words, contemporaneous with Earth-threatening catastrophe.
Here we're not dealing just with a compulsion to reenact celestial dramas
but something more immediate and more urgent,
refuge.
Human beings either seeking shelter from anticipated catastrophe
or desperate to find refuge from catastrophe already under way.
Seen from this more radical perspective,
today's common picture of a prehistoric world
takes on nuances that archeologists appear to have missed.
Critical lines of evidence converge to suggest a human retreat into caves.
Or alternately to find refuge in crudely constructed stone enclosures
or earthen mounds
as defenses against rock and celestial debris falling from the sky.
To appreciate the perspective offered here,
we need only allow for the implied urgency,
and that's a consideration virtually never included in standard treatments of prehistory.
What was on the minds of those who entered caves
or raised giant stone dolmens or great mounds of earth,
seemingly with no clear motive to account for them.
How much of this activity might be explained in terms of perilous events
once occurring in the sky but not occurring today.
Such events could only mean that the present cannot be the key to the past,
and a fundamental premise of modern science must be corrected.
From this vantage point, certain features stand out.
The urgency is endlessly reflected in the crude architecture of the dolmens
that punctuate ancient landscapes across the British Isles
and Northern Europe, all the way to Russia and Korea
and even with counterparts in North America.
Such structures are readily distinguished
from the more ambitious and more obviously skillful architecture
that followed with the emergence of the great civilisations
of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
How significant for example
are the repeated indications of interruption and incompletion?
In numerous instances as if a massive undertaking was begun
but ended in tragedy and was never finished.
That should not surprise us if these undertakings occurred in the presence
of the very catastrophe that all ancient communities most feared.
In many instances, a partial seemingly irrational raised roof draws our attention,
entirely out of proportion to its support.
Indeed the massive stone roofs are commonly the most imposing structure.
Has any historian or archeologist ever explained
this human investment across the vast region?
When you see the undertaking as a defense against falling rock,
the mystery of human motivation instantly vanishes.
Other considerations also enter this picture.
The apparent role of celestial catastrophe will not permit us
to ignore the implied context of extended deprivation and nostalgia
as we can see in the conditions portrayed on the walls of caves.
In the catastrophic environment suggested here,
what might the paintings of human hunting and abundant game be telling us?
A familiar phrase from American Indian tradition comes to mind,
the happy hunting ground.
Not an illogical phrase if the actual condition was one of profound nostalgia.
Were the artist painting on walls of caves and rocky cliffs
nostalgically remembering something lost?
Psychologists know well that in a state of deep deprivation
the mind will become increasingly obsessed with what is missing
or what has been taken away.
That point was made explicit in an army experiment years ago.
When placed on a narrow diet of nothing but potatoes,
those participating in the experiment began to dream nostalgically
of the missing diet.
Perhaps of steak dinner, their favorite beer or her apple pie.
In this case we have two different themes,
humans retreating to caves
and their nostalgic remembrances,
both pointing in precisely the same direction.
Look again at the prehistoric paintings on the cave walls across Europe and beyond,
the hunting scenes and the abundant game.
Could we entertain the possibility that these scenes actually celebrate
a community life no longer available but actively remembered?
Why such pervasive nostalgia if nothing had been taken away by natural events?
With that concrete question in front of us, additional questions arise.
Is it possible to identify such an experience in the thematic links
of the cave dwellers to the emerging civilizations that followed?
Or is there a connection to the explosion of monumental construction
launched almost simultaneously in Egypt and Mesopotamia?
Since Napoleon first stood in awe of the wonder of the Great Pyramid,
scientific commentary was taken over by questions of technology and architecture
but have we missed something?
In the conditions of the time, what was the role of human urgency or protection,
in particular, the protection of kings and royal families.
And how might our picture of the ancient world,
the rise of kingship itself,
or the explosion of military conquests
be changed when seen in the light of an Earth-threatening sky?
Answering such questions will require us to see the ancient monuments in a new light.
And the Great Pyramid becomes something more than an enchanting monument
standing out on the ancient landscape,
more than just a dark chamber for practicing magical rites,
or recording hieroglyphic prayers to the gods,
or charting a sky map to guide the mythic ascent of deceased kings.
Of course, such motives are well documented
but could there be more to the story?
What was on the minds of those who invested vast resources in urgent construction?
In the following episodes, we'll consider a new perspective,
one in which all of the ancient motives converge
as a testament to remembered catastrophe.
In particular, a desperation for protection
against unpredictable rains of rocky debris from the sky
to which we shall add a noteworthy emphasis on the planet
repeatedly named as the source of falling stone,
the planet Mars.