Haven’t you often wondered why there is an almost surprising total absence of megalithic sites in the Inner Continent (i.e. south and east of Germany and further south, around the Balkans)? Of course, there is an awful amount of wooden paraphernalia (both material and monumental) which is long gone, but "surprising" because this became the first centre of Neolithic Europe two or three millenia earlier than here.

For the casual observer of stones, it may be "amazing" to know that more than 100,000 Neolithic figurines almost certainly representing ancient divinities have been found so far. Even many border-bound archaeologists disguise their own ignorance by using the common phrase 'we will never know what the ancients, blah blah' without even looking beyond the limits of their county parish. Without even bothering to look into the evidence, it is a common thing to call those who are at least re-visiting these paths *the Fringe*. But let’s not forget that even Stukeley is now being reclaimed.

http://groups.msn.com/AncientWisdomCulturesPeople/vinca2.msnw

http://www.rastko.org.yu/arheologija/vinca/vinca_eng.html

http://www.snaga.org.yu/Ilustrovana_istorija_srba/tekst/engleski/01/01-02-neolit.html

And the beauty of these human, half-human, phallic or pregnancy representations is worth the effort. Although there is a big lack of sculpture in Megalithic Europe (excepting the areas round the Mediterranean), it is almost certain that with the spread of farming from the Balkans came the spread of religious ideals, in the same way that many of the central European henges precede the Insular ones in 2,000 years or even more. Atlantic Europe was on the fringe of these developments and was slow to adopt (even conservative) in the *main areas* of the West, where I am convinced megalithic monuments were started JUST BEFORE the arrival of farming. I have here long ago raved about the early dating of the cromlechs around Evora, making them the first pre-Neolithic thangs, and with the dates in the British Isles also being pushed further backwards, it's going to make Stonehenge (ca 2,000 BCE) look one day like a relic of the Modern Industrial Age.

During the Mesolithic environmental conditions around the Atlantic were exceptionally good in terms of plant-gathering and seafood. The famous Mesolithic shell deposits at Muge (Portugal) or the ones in Denmark coincide with the areas which would start creating monuments very early on, always not too far from the ocean. I mean even the Ur-temples at Carrowmore have their own shell deposits!!! It may have been a casual coincidence for an Irish researcher to find huge amounts of shells in Ireland, but when they look outside their window to find that it was the general trend all over the Atlantic during the centuries preceding the Neolithic then it can only mean that the Land was Overflowing. And that there was no need for farming. At least until someone put far too much salt in the ocean.