Making comparisons between features of "cultures," whether contemporary or ancient, can be an enticing method of making inferences on human behavior. However, variability in environment and social history mean that no two "cultures" will have the exact same contexts, often making such comparisons negligible, and at times very misleading.
In my opinion, one such pitfall presents itself in Ramilisonina's comparisons between Stonehenge (along with "Bluestonehenge") and megaliths in Madagascar. In a conversation with a journalist (See http://archive.archaeology.org/1001/etc/conversation.html), he suggests that there is a correlation between the (inferred) sacred use of rock in both Stonehenge and modern funerary monuments in Madagascar. He appears to infer that as a result of this connection, the funeral practices of Neolithic Britons may therefore be similar to that of modern Malagasy (definitively had to look that up).
My biggest complaint with this comparison is that it could be used to imply that burial culture is either more "primitive" in Madagascar than in other locations (as it is being compared to a 3500 year monument) or even worse, that burial culture in Madagascar has been static since ancient times.
Naturally this produced criticism beyond my own, Dr. Brian John being an example. Since summarizing a blog post in a blog post is redundant, I'll just drop another link http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.ca/2010/11/sacred-stones-and-madagascar.html.
I agree with most of what John has to say in his response, particularly on the faults of implying that there existed a "universality to the belief system involving ancestor stones." A few years of taking anthropology in university has pounded the idea that there exists no human universals (besides perhaps incest taboos and separate gender roles) firmly in my head. I think John is more disappointed that the Madagascar/Stonehenge comparison has become popular in the media, rather than that Ramilisonina proposed it.
One thing I don't think is addressed in either the interview or the response is that perhaps stone appears to be such a prevalent part of early British monuments simply because it preserves better than other materials such as wood.
While I'm on the topic of human developmental universals, I might as well discuss what could be the "opposing extreme" which is that culture (by now it should be simply implied that "culture" is always surrounded by imaginary brackets) and technology is developed by people sharing their ideas with each-other, rather than developing independently. Generally this path of thought is associated with culture history.
In my opinion, one such pitfall presents itself in Ramilisonina's comparisons between Stonehenge (along with "Bluestonehenge") and megaliths in Madagascar. In a conversation with a journalist (See http://archive.archaeology.org/1001/etc/conversation.html), he suggests that there is a correlation between the (inferred) sacred use of rock in both Stonehenge and modern funerary monuments in Madagascar. He appears to infer that as a result of this connection, the funeral practices of Neolithic Britons may therefore be similar to that of modern Malagasy (definitively had to look that up).
Stonehenge, made of stones!
Naturally this produced criticism beyond my own, Dr. Brian John being an example. Since summarizing a blog post in a blog post is redundant, I'll just drop another link http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.ca/2010/11/sacred-stones-and-madagascar.html.
I agree with most of what John has to say in his response, particularly on the faults of implying that there existed a "universality to the belief system involving ancestor stones." A few years of taking anthropology in university has pounded the idea that there exists no human universals (besides perhaps incest taboos and separate gender roles) firmly in my head. I think John is more disappointed that the Madagascar/Stonehenge comparison has become popular in the media, rather than that Ramilisonina proposed it.
One thing I don't think is addressed in either the interview or the response is that perhaps stone appears to be such a prevalent part of early British monuments simply because it preserves better than other materials such as wood.
While I'm on the topic of human developmental universals, I might as well discuss what could be the "opposing extreme" which is that culture (by now it should be simply implied that "culture" is always surrounded by imaginary brackets) and technology is developed by people sharing their ideas with each-other, rather than developing independently. Generally this path of thought is associated with culture history.
Everyone's favorite culture historian, Gordon Childe.
Well, close enough.
Anyways, this method has been used in the past to attempt to track potential migrations of peoples based on when certain technologies appear in geographic locations. The usual example I find in archaeology classes is the spread of beakers and other pottery throughout Europe, and past attempts to prescribe them to movements of people. The advent of advanced dating methods in the latter half of the 20th century eradicated several inferred migrations made by archaeologists, and can generally be said to have proven this theory to be faulty.
I however, find this a tame example. A couple years ago I came across a documentary on the History Channel which attempted to prove that due to the apparently numerous number of similarities between Egyptian and South American pyramids, Egyptians must have migrated to South America. Besides similarities in structure, the documentary argued that there apparent trace finds of cacao in Rameses II corpse, and a successful modern crossing of the Atlantic in a reconstruction of an ancient Egyptian boat, clearly meant that cross Atlantic travel was both possible and occurred. Unfortunately my tinfoil hat wasn't nearly thick enough to truly digest this.
Of course, if cross Atlantic travel was impossible during the bronze age, we can always rely on parasitic aliens using pyramids as spaceship landing pads.
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