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Our Ancestors"As we launch ourselves into the future, we can take up the experience of our creative and peaceful ancestors which is an inherent part of our history and deep within our psyche. A Golden Age of peace and creativity in a united Europe has happened in the past and there is no reason why it cannot happen again."* In Europe's Lost Civilization,* seafarer and writer Peter Marshall recounts his journey from Scotland to Malta. En route, he visited many of the most renowned Stone Age monuments in England, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Tunisia. In studying the stone circles, alignments and other sites constructed between 5000 and 2000 BCE, Marshall discovered that they all share similar features. They not only display an understanding of geometry but are also aligned to the movement of the Sun and Moon. These megaliths, including Callanish, Stonehenge, Newgrange and Carnac, are the remnants of our ancestors' society, the evidence for Europe's lost civilisation, the work of a sophisticated, intelligent and profoundly spiritual people. Our neolithic ancestors, living in western Europe before the territorial conflicts of the militaristic Bronze Age, lived in a golden age. Their society was pacific and they revered Nature, the provider of life, often personified as a great maternal goddess. Neolithic communities were small and ones in which cooperation and egalitarianism mattered. There is little evidence of hierarchy or domination in their social structures which were notably communal: solidarity, sharing and mutuality were central to their life. Most importantly, men and women, although different, were recognised as being of equal worth. Culturally, the late Stone Age was sophisticated. Our ancestors engineered huge monuments, practised intricate religious ceremonies, understood geometry and astronomy and engaged in pottery, painting and carving. Neolithic people did not kill each other on a large scale. Instead, they supported each other, cared for the Earth and revered the heavens. The stone circles and other sites they created demonstrate their magical understanding of life in that they linked the human world with Nature and the cosmos. Sky, Earth and humans were, therefore, seen as an interdependent whole, which is in itself evidence of an ecological awareness. Their sacred sites demonstrate a sensibility to landscape and to the wider Earth, a sensibility that translated into daily life as a deep respect for Nature. Nature was not exploited or abused, she was honoured. The ancestors knew that Nature is a complex web of life, that they were part of this biodiversity and that, in order to sustain it, they had to take only what was necessary. They trod lightly on the Earth. 
Neolithic society shows that humans need not be selfish and violent. We need not seek power and inordinate wealth. The golden age of European civilisation teaches us to create a society that is sustainable, cooperative, in harmony with Nature. It teaches us to recognise the Earth is sacred and to honour all living beings. Our creative, peaceful, spiritual ancestors are, perhaps, pointing the way from the past towards our very survival in the future. *Marshall (2004). See the resources page for full details of all sources.
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© David Hand 2005 All rights reserved |
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