[quote="Sanctuary"] ... great monuments built by them for the hierachy (from the Near East?). The 'near savages' idea put about may well have been true in the very Early Neolithic with the turnaround coming with the arrival of the agriculturists from the East. /quote]
Sounds very like the old "diffusionist" ideas that V Gordon Childe and others were keen on. Is there any evidence for agriculturalists coming from the East, or was it simply ideas that travelled?