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  • 2016-09-16 (xsd:date)
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  • Massive Stone Age Tunnel Stretches from Scotland to Turkey (en)
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  • Since at least 2011, web sites dedicated to spreading rumors about spirits and the underworld have been claiming that a connected network of tunnels dating back to the Stone Age and stretching across Europe from Scotland to Turkey has been discovered. The yarn has wended its way across conspiracy theory sites and hubs of fiction such as Ancient-Code.com and SimpleCapactiy.com: The story seems to have originated from a gross misinterpretation of a 2011 article in the German news magazine Der Spiegel that detailed mysterious tunnels found throughout parts of Europe known as Erdstall. The myth version also references the work of a German prehistorian, Heinrich Kusch, who along with his wife Ingrid authored a 2009 German-language book about the Erdstall tunnels. The Kusches believed the tunnels were built 5,000 (not 12,000) years ago, and scientific evidence places Erdstall at an even more recent timeframe than the Kusches suspected: The Erdstall tunnels are not an interconnected highway between Scotland and Turkey (which would have required people with rudimentary tools to dig a tunnel under the North Sea or the English Channel to reach mainland Europe). The tunnels comprise multiple unconnected passageways that have been found mainly in Germany, Austria, France, Ireland and Scotland: While there isn't evidence that Erdstall tunnels have been discovered as far east as Turkey, large and sophisticated underground cities in that country's Cappadocia region have been unearthed and explored in recent years, perhaps the most famous of which is Derinkuyu: While the underground labyrinths in Turkey were relatively advanced and were used to shelter residents from danger, the purpose of the European Erdstall tunnels is still mysterious. Unlike the underground structures in Turkey, where a 300-year old Ottoman paper trail guided modern researchers to key infrastructure, there are no written records about the Erdstall tunnels in Europe. According to Der Spiegel, there is disagreement as to whether they were shelters from marauders and robbers, spaces for perceived spirits or souls of the dead, or even toilets. Except for a few seemingly random items such as an iron plowshare and a few millstones, the tunnels are not just empty but swept clean, which seems to add to the mystery of their purpose. While research on these archaeological phenomena is bound to continue and more answers may be forthcoming, we found no credible evidence of the existence of a 12,000-year-old subterranean highway system stretching from Scotland through mainland Europe, all the way to Turkey. (en)
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