Canada's Stonehenge: scientist says Alberta sun temple has 5,000-year-old calendar

Couldn't find this posted anywhere and couldn't think of where else this would go. So if it's in the wrong spot, can a mod kindly move it.

Canada's Stonehenge: scientist says Alberta sun temple has 5,000-year-old calendar

An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada's prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5,000-year-old calendar predating England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids.

www.google.com...

Just found this. I never thought of ancient-Canada as a the source of great knowledge, but this guy is challenging that notion.

I'm Canadian and I hadn't even known this place existed. Any one have any imformation on any possible ancient civilizations in the area? I never thought the First Nations of North America to be great civilizations so this news suprised me. The structure's older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids so I found it pretty interesting. It is "highly engineered" which leads me to ask, who or what could've built this in the area 5000 years ago?

What do you guys think?

canadastonehenge.com...

^^ This is the guy's website. He published a book on his findings.

The discovery of a 5000-year-old Sun Temple and its exquisite "time machine" -- a Stone Age calendar -- led scientist Gordon Freeman to ground-breaking discoveries in Stonehenge. During field work and research from 1989 to 2006, Freeman found striking similarities between the surface geometry of the two sites. These similarities push back the boundaries of written history and have far-reaching implications for North American and European history. Gordon Freeman's new book, Canada's Stonehenge outlines these discoveries using dramatic photographs and maps which throw new light on the genious of the First Peoples of North America.

The pictures on there are pretty interesting

EDIT: He mixes pictures of England's stonehenge with "Canada's". Kind of threw me off. But there are still some good pictures of this structure up there.

[edit on 30-1-2009 by Portugoal]

I'm bumping this thread definately. This is fascinating and a really good find. I had no idea such a thing existed here, and this is pretty amazing testimonial to the first nation peoples, and probably speaks volumes of their involvement with off planet peoples.

reply to post by Portugoal


That certainly was an interesting article, I wonder whether the site really is designed by man or if the skeptics and their "glacier" explanation can explain away such precise alignments.

It really leaves you wondering why ancient civilizations all over the world built these sorts of structures and many of them are lined up with the sun, moon, and stars. I suppose the sky was the way to mark time (and therefore mark growing seasons and such) but wouldn't a simple calender suffice? Why build such elaborate structures out of stone that weighs in the tons?

Definitely food for thought, yum

I've got mixed feelings about this one.

I'm aware of the medicine wheels and of that one, which is (if memory serves) really about 5,000 years old. They are culturally important to the Native Americans, and Canada has some of the best and best preserved ones. I know that different medicine wheels have different numbers of spokes in them, so some sort of connection with the sky is very likely. I think the idea of a main medicine wheel having a relationship to smaller ones is also plausible.

And I am *ALL* for the preservation of the site.

What is less convincing to me is that he mingles his Canadian photos (very scant material) with Stonehenge material, and we know that the two cultures are NOT directly connected. He draws lines on the photos but doesn't show many unretouched photos.

The "temple" aspect is the least believable, since Native Americans didn't do that sort of thing. Temporary sweat lodges, yes. I might even believe in sweat lodges aligned towards the stars or sunrise or moonrise... IF there was more cultural evidence of this. Their method of worship was primarily animism and as nomads, a fixed calendar site isn't that useful.

I think it's a sacred site. I think there's more to it than "just some medicine wheels."

But I don't believe all the answers he's showing.

Originally posted by Portugoal

Here's one that looks a lot like Stonehenge in England:

Erm... that's because it IS Stonehenge in England.

Well, this is an awesome find.

But I would dispute its predating the pyramids... I believe the pyramids are at the very least 10,000 years old.

But still... This is an awesome find!

One reason that he should not be dismissed. People in this area did make what can appear to be jumbled rock statues and the like. Peple who return through the same area over and over on a VERY large expanse of land, while following a herd might indeed use rocks assembled over time to track important information.

There are many interesting archeological sights in Canada, and many in Alberta. Most of them are ignored. Many of them are built on, such as the escarpment going out of Calgary.

The essential thought process does indeed seem to be predicated on the assumtion of the "native savage" not being capable of such things. Or that peoples who live nomadic lives being somehow less important or intelligent than agriculture based lives.

There is more on the plains in Canada and the US than is admitted. The essential bigotry underlying our pioneering people and our cultures agricultural bias blinds.

You will also notice that all cultural traits and astounding items found in the plains are tracked back to South or Central America. Whereas human genetics clearly shows that the movement of people went from North to South, not South to North. Why does everything have to track back to the Mayans or the Aztecs or some human-eating central american cave dwellers? That doesn't make sense. That somehow people who live closer to the Inuit would have cultural impact from the equator.

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by Portugoal

Here's one that looks a lot like Stonehenge in England:

Erm... that's because it IS Stonehenge in England.

I hadn't realized he mixed the pictures up. Sorry, I fix that post (notice the time between OP and Post 2. I had just found and wanted to get it up as quick as possible.

thanks for the heads up though.

As to what you had said before that, Native Americans in the past 1000 years in North America didn't follow the same beliefs as those in Europe, but how would we know what the followed 5000 years ago?

Any one got any information on ancient Native American religions?

As for the pyramids being older than this structure, that is false. The pyramids are about 3000 years old

this may be a weird coincidence but i can't get back onto

www.canadastonehenge.com

anymore. Any one else getting a Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage? My internet's working fine otherwise.

The only picture i could get of the sundial butte medicine wheel in alberta is a drawing

There are people who've noticed that the Innu and the Irish/Scottish pre-Christian religions and stories seem to have quite a bit in common.

Taliesin said that he went across the ocean and came back.

People always seem to assume that anyone who lived before a hundred years ago and wasn't Arabic was an superstitious lying moron and nothing they said was correct.

The vikings and the Algonquin had very similar familial structure, and town infrastructures that are quite unique.

In the late eighties, the laws forbidding the publishing of pre-Christian religions and stories came off in Canada. At the same time that law applying to the pre-Christian religions and stories in the UK also got dropped.

Interesting isn't it?

Originally posted by Portugoal

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by Portugoal

Here's one that looks a lot like Stonehenge in England:

Erm... that's because it IS Stonehenge in England.

I hadn't realized he mixed the pictures up. Sorry, I fix that post (notice the time between OP and Post 2. I had just found and wanted to get it up as quick as possible.

thanks for the heads up though.

As to what you had said before that, Native Americans in the past 1000 years in North America didn't follow the same beliefs as those in Europe, but how would we know what the followed 5000 years ago?

Any one got any information on ancient Native American religions?

As for the pyramids being older than this structure, that is false. The pyramids are about 3000 years old

Sooo the site's back up and running. But it's going really slow. Must be alot of hits on it right now

So it isn't out of the question that European and American beliefs were similar- but this was 5000 years ago and in the Praries (Western Canada). I doubt any Western europeans would be able to get that far. How long did it take Natives to get across the Bering Strait and across the continent to the Atlantic Ocean? Approximately what year?

If they shared similar beliefs with anyone would it not be Eastern Europeans? When did the Bering Strait go under?

Edit: And as the article states, cultural traits came from South to North. When would have humans established themselves in the South and then be able to pass information back northward? And as a member has already stated genetics show that humans went North to South, not the other way around

This whole theory has a lot of roadblocks.

[edit on 30-1-2009 by Portugoal]

It would be people from Siberia, Japan, etc.

(Interesting to note that those considered original in an area might not be what you think. The caucasoid tribe original to Japan seems counterintuitive to people.)

My examples are merely to show that there is story and cultural evidence of people going back and forth before the era that people expect.

There is also some evidence on the other side that shows that the Haida might have been visited during certain Japanese dynasties. The Haida's facial hair is theorized to be a genetic legacy of that.

The assumption that there was no cross cultural contamination after the Bering Strait and before Colombus is just that - A Great Big Assumption based on some bigotry. If the clues in North America and in Ireland and Scotland were ANYWHERE in the middle east or in central america it would be considered of amazing importance.

Originally posted by Portugoal
Sooo the site's back up and running. But it's going really slow. Must be alot of hits on it right now

So it isn't out of the question that European and American beliefs were similar- but this was 5000 years ago and in the Praries (Western Canada). I doubt any Western europeans would be able to get that far. How long did it take Natives to get across the Bering Strait and across the continent to the Atlantic Ocean? Approximately what year?

If they shared similar beliefs with anyone would it not be Eastern Europeans? When did the Bering Strait go under?

The structure is located near Bow River, Alberta 70 kilometres east of Calgary- a city with over a million people.

Wouldn't something like this have been already well-documented being so close to an urban center such as Calgary? Has anything else like this ever been found in Western Canada/North America?

I'll go with Byrd on this one. He is stretching the data to much and is obviously in love with his theory. People who are outside there area of expertise and who are in love with theory are often not rational about it.

Pyramids in Egypt were built around 2500 BP or 4,500 years old

Currents do and have taken boats of Japanese to the NW coast. The most famous case being

In 1834, after seventeen months at sea, three surviving crewmen (Otokichi, Iwakichi, and Kyuukichi, who would bcome known as the "three kichis"because their names all ended with "kichi"), washed up on the shores of northwest Washington. After being taken captive by local Indians, they were freed to a Hudson's Bay Company sea captain. Sent to England and then China, they made abortive attempts to return to Japan, but wound up living out their lives in Singapore and Macao.

Some claim contact with NW Indians with Polynesians too

reply to post by Portugoal


AIUI much of Canada has not been archaeologically surveyed, but then most of the world hasn't been either.

Originally posted by Hanslune
reply to post by Portugoal

 

AIUI much of Canada has not been archaeologically surveyed, but then most of the world hasn't been either.

Cool stuff. Never knew about contact with the Japanese and NW Natives.

But this is in the 1800s. We're looking for 5000 years ago.

In response to a previous post, he does seem to be too in love with his theory. But obviously there is something behind his thoery, looking beyond the fact that he's making amazing stretches in search of "truth".

If it was actually thought that Canada's ancient past was of any importance, wouldn't it be well-documented? What's so special about South American and Egyptian civilizations, while any possible Ancient Native civilization in the North gets no attention?

Can anyone give a specific set of people that settled in Western Canada at this time?

reply to post by Portugoal


This is an interesting story, thanks for posting it. I agree with Byrd that it's a maybe. I looked for more information and was surprised to find little supporting evidence. I noticed this pretty quick though...

An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada's prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta

Copy and paste it into Google and see what you get Professor Freeman is for real. His ideas are genuine, but at this point there's little evidence to suggest that the Alberta Stonehenge is more extraordinary than the familiar Medicine Wheels.

There's a good article here that describes the Oxbow People and the Medicine Wheels of Alberta.

Maybe someone will post something more substantial to support his ideas? It seems to have more potential than the African Stonehenge, 'Adam's Calendar' in a recent thread.

No. Canada is very open and wide with not a lot of people in it.

We literally have built over sites and never even noticed.

This isn't exactly a highly difficult thing to accomplish. The people in the area were nomadic, and not settled. They did tend to build rock jumbles to notate important things. I doubt very much that the founding euro-Canadian peoples would have noticed very much that they considered important. Too many cultural barriers, and the population not being overly educated, AND considering themselves more "advanced" than the people they encountered here.

There are archeological sites all over the prairies. They just aren't very important to anyone.

Originally posted by Portugoal
The structure is located near Bow River, Alberta 70 kilometres east of Calgary- a city with over a million people.

Wouldn't something like this have been already well-documented being so close to an urban center such as Calgary? Has anything else like this ever been found in Western Canada/North America?