Stonehenge was built when Britain was a ‘black country’, new children’s book claims
- Brilliant Black British History is by Nigerian-born British author Atinuke
- It also claims ‘every single British person comes from a migrant’
Stonehenge was built by black people, a new children’s history book has claimed.
Readers of Brilliant Black British History, by the Nigerian-born British author Atinuke, are told the neolithic monument in Wiltshire was built while Britain was a ‘black country’.
The book, which is aimed at children aged seven and above, also tells readers that ‘every single British person comes from a migrant’ and that the ‘very first Britons were black’.
The introduction adds that Britain has been ‘mostly a white country for a lot less time than it has been mostly a black country’.
Atinuke also claims that the remains of the 10,000-year-old Cheddar Man belonged to someone who had ‘skin as dark as dark can be’.
Stonehenge was built by black people, a new children’s history book has claimed. Readers of Brilliant Black British History, by the Nigerian-born British author Atinuke, are told the neolithic monument in Wiltshire was built while Britain was a ‘black country’
Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, was constructed by Neolithic britons around 5,000 years ago
A facial reconstruction of Cheddar Man depicted him as having dark skin in 2018, although one expert involved in the project insisted it was a ‘probable profile’ rather than a certainty.
Brilliant Black British History is published by Bloomsbury and promoted by literacy charity The Book Trust, which itself is funded by the Arts Council.
READ MORE: Was Cheddar man white after all? There’s no way to know that the first Briton had dark to black skin says scientist who helped reconstruct his 10,000-year-old face
The book takes readers through an overview of the presence of black people in Britain.
It says that Britain was ‘a black country more than 7,000 years before white people came and during that time the most famous British monument was built, Stonehenge.’
But research published in 2019 suggested the Neolithic farmers who built Stonehenge had paler skin and were descended from populations originating in Anatolia in what is now Turkey.
They also likely had brown eyes and black or dark-brown hair.
Atinuke’s book also features illustrations of Britain during various periods of its history.
One page shows an image of a black Roman legionary fighting a white Celt.
The author claims the Romans had ‘turned back to Europe and pushed north’ after trying and failing to conquer the African kingdom of Nubia.
By the Middle Ages, Britain was a ‘hodgepodge of people’, according to the author.
The population was made up of ‘original British migrants, Celts, Romans, Britons, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Africans and Normans’.
They also spoke ‘a hodgepodge language too -English’.
A page on the Black Lives Matter movement says that although race ‘does not scientifically exist’, black people suffer ‘institutional racism’.
The book is billed in its blurb as an ‘eye-opening history of Britain’ that focuses on ‘a part of our past that has mostly been left out of the history books: the brilliant Black history of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.’
It adds: ‘Did you know that the first Britons were Black? Or that some of the Roman soldiers who invaded and ruled Britain were Black, too?
‘Join this fascinating journey through the ages to meet those first Britons, as well as the Black Tudors, Georgians and Victorians who existed in every walk of life here.’
The book was published on August 31.
Brilliant Black British History is by Nigerian-born author Atinuke, who has written several books for children
The research into Cheddar Man was carried out by a team from University College London.
Cheddar Man’s remains – the oldest near-complete human skeleton ever found in Britain – were unearthed in 1903 in Gough’s Cave, in Somerset’s Cheddar Gorge.
DNA tests suggested he had black skin, dark curly hair and blue eyes.
Geneticist Susan Walsh at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, who helped create the reconstruction of Cheddar Man’s face, said soon afterwards that although it was ‘probable’ he had dark skin, DNA testing was not advanced enough to say for certain.
The new book comes after campaign group Don’t Divide Us revealed in a report how children are being exposed to controversial ‘anti-racism’ theories.
The investigation exposed a book that tells children racism started when ‘white people wanted more control’.
Another encouraged teachers to tell children ‘what white privilege is.’
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