The Memory Code: The Secrets of Stonehenge, Easter Island and Other Ancient Monuments

While working on her PH.D. dissertation on a different subject, author Lynne Kelly stumbled across an unrelated archaeological hypothesis while working with Australian aborigines. She pursued the idea, a new theory that relates and explains the many ancient monuments throughout the word. The Memory Code is the result of years of work testing her theory. This is a very detailed academic book with superscript numbers referring to notes at the end of the book. Will archaeologists accept her unusual interpretation? Only lay readers most interested in archaeology will enjoy this scholarly volume, and even then, they often need to look up archaeological jargon. It’s all about memory and how primitive societies were able to memorize vast amounts of information using song lines, dances, rituals, and carefully prepared physical objects to pass that memory from elders to future generations. What Kelly calls memory spaces is a concept that occurs in every culture. Kelly demonstrates the concept using mnemonics in her surroundings. Then she analyzes in detail many of the world’s great ancient monuments like Stonehenge, Chico Canyon, megalithic complexes, and so on. These take the physical places of previous memory spaces after societies settled down to agriculture.