The Meaning of Stone

Ramilisonina, a native Madagascar archaeologist, compared the sacred "ancestor stones" of Madagascar to the megaliths of Stonehenge, Bluestonehenge, and Woodhenge erected in Neolithic England. He and Mike Parker Pearson have come together to propose a theory analogous of the more recent Malagasy ancestor worship to explain these mystery stones erected 9,200 km apart. Blogger Brian John questioned that comparison, skeptical of transposing one modern-day belief system to an ancient one.

A dramatic moment at Stonehenge (source)

MPP and Ramilisonina are not wrong to propose this theory for the purpose of the henges. MPP has found cremated remains at the site that could possibly be from a single dynasty. So, logically, it could very well have been a sacred place for the dead. Ramilisonina seems confident that similar forms indicate a similar function—this is where I split from MPP/R and agree with Brian John. That analogy is probably too far.

But while John is right in describing the comparison between belief systems a "grave mistake" (pun intended?), his criticism of MPP for imposing a sacred meaning on the stones is too far. It seems that the majority of belief systems we've encountered as anthropologists do indeed include an afterlife, so the discovery of massive man-made structures and human remains together naturally elicit a sacred connotation. If there are some massive structures containing human remains that are not "the domain of the dead," I'd love to research them. But for now, I'd place my bets on MPP.

The Malagasy "ancestor stones" (source)

Without written records or a time machine, it's impossible to know for sure what the function of England's monoliths were. Ramilisonina may be a little ambitious in claiming a universality of ancestor worship at monoliths, considering the ancestors of the Malagasy and the henge erectors probably shared their last common ancestor tens of thousands of years ago. But I don't think he and MPP are too far off the dot.