I always assumed the aliens hypothesis was halfway racist as in "how could a non-white culture build things we don't know how to do, ah yes it must be otherworldly".
The remnants of early European propaganda that justified a lot of their conquest is still strong today, we just forget it's origins.
I find it quite disturbing now that everything seems to be racist and this needs to be brought up as a cause of any issue. As a European, I always thought and always had the general impression as we are fully aware of the ups and downs and what a shithole the geographic location of current Europe was for a long time, while other places of the world thrived or had quite advanced civilisations. Things like "aliens" building the pyramids or other structures in South America are just extreme topics you used to find in weird magazines or entertainment shows on TV.
The problem is that people don’t consider Stonehenge to be part of Western civilization. The latter is usually traced back to the beginning of Mycenaean Greek civilization
> The problem is that people don’t consider Stonehenge to be part of Western civilization
I’m not sure I agree with this. As someone living in Britain, I can attest to the fact that the people living on this island definitely consider it an integral part of their own cultural heritage.
This can be interpreted as racist, as you do, but it can also be interpreted as religious proselytism pushing 'intelligent design' against the idea of random and continuous human improvement.
My example here is 2001: A Space Odyssey. It all happens because of the monolith. Without it, we would surely still be monkeys killing each other with bones and stones. It's easy to see the monolith as symbolism for one or other religion.
And I hate that this is repeated through many other science fiction works.
The remnants of early European propaganda that justified a lot of their conquest is still strong today, we just forget it's origins.