Historians have branded a recently released children’s history book as an attempt to “brainwash” youngsters over dubious claims that England’s famed Stonehenge monument was built when Britain was a “black country”.
Nigerian-born British author Atinuke’s new illustrated children’s book, titled Brilliant Black British History, has asserted that “Britain was a black country for more than 7,000 years before white people came, and during that time the most famous British monument was built, Stonehenge.”
The book goes on to claim that “Britain has been a mostly white country for a lot less time than it has been a mostly black country,” according to The Telegraph.
Atinuke’s book, which is aimed at children seven and above, presents a supposed chronological history of the existence of black people in the country, starting with the ‘Cheddar Man’ — the oldest discovered human remains found in the UK dating back around 10,000 years ago. The book claims the pre-historic human had skin “as dark as can be”.
While some analysis of Cheddar Man’s DNA indicated that he may have had dark skin and blue eyes, other scientists, including geneticist Susan Walsh at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis, said that genetic modelling is not advanced to make a firm determination of his skin colour.
According to recent findings from the University of Porto in Portugal claimed that the people who inhabited Britain at the time of Stonehenge’s construction, approximately 5,000 years ago, likely had pale skin similar to modern-day Britons.
The children’s history book also contains a section on the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, in which it asserts that while “race does not scientifically exist,” black people still are impacted by “institutional racism”.
The book has drawn criticism from historians, including Dr Zareer Masani, who said that it “seems typical of the kind of wokedom that’s been colonising our schools and universities”.
Dr Masani went on to say that it is further “evidence of brainwashing children with outright lies, confusion and misinformation”.
Emeritus Professor at Cambridge University, David Abulafia added: “The Nazis claimed that the cultural achievements of the north were the work of blond, fair-skinned folk.
“Making skin colour a criterion for judging great achievements like Stonehenge is therefore not a new idea. It is also rubbish. It only gets interesting if their skins were blue or green.”