Stone Henge

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guthrie said:
...if they ever excavate one they will find some interesting stuff buried, but I'm not holding out much hope.
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I thought they were continually digging at them to keep the white showing? They haven't found anything then?
hmmm, maybe they could focus on a lost one that no body cares about and dig the hell outta that one.
 
And I have heard that Druids used Stonehenge and other monolithic places. But is there proof of that? Did they have writings?
 
IIRC, you get the white by clearing away the top layer of soil and plants, because there is chalk underneath, but they do not need to keep digging in the way you imply.
 
guthrie said:
IIRC, you get the white by clearing away the top layer of soil and plants, because there is chalk underneath, but they do not need to keep digging in the way you imply.
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in what way that I imply??
They have to keep digging at them or they will be lost to nature. It gets over grown and lost.
 
CLearing away the top inch or two of material or plants is not, in my book, the same as digging many feet down to see if there is any hidden treasure.
 
It's chalk - people tend not to bury stuff in chalk.
Especially in strips a foot or so wide.
 
Klippymitch said:
So where did the stones that make up the stonehenge come from? and how far did they move them?
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The blue stones came from Wales. As for how they got there; could have been deposited in periods of glaciation, or alternatively transported by boat(there is a river nearby with a trackway leading up to the henge).
Other stones came from slightly nearer but I forget where.
 
fishtail said:
A team of people tried to move a stone using rollers and rafts, they failed,
there are no glaciation marks on the stones.

http://www.britannia.com/history/preseli_blue.html
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Actually it says another earlier team tried something similar with a heavier block and succeeded in transporting it and floating it. So it's clearly possible. What it says failed in this attempt was the design of the raft, and then the project was abandoned due to lack of funds. I'm sure the people who built stonehenge suffered the same trial and error problems and a new raft could easily be designed, and for them funding isn't an issue.;)
I'm more inclined to believe they were transported due to them all sharing the same source, the composition of the rocks can easily be matched up to a source as they're as unique as DNA.
It's an interesting link and theory though. I suspect once we find out why other henges were built we'll learn more of an insight into this one.
 
The best theory as to why henges of various kinds were built is to do with astronomical observations of sunset/ sunrise. That there were variations in and additions to different circles and henges over time does not affect this conclusion. After all, if you just want to worship, a football stadium or barn will do just as well as a gothic cathedral. Yet we have cathedrals.
 
guthrie said:
The best theory as to why henges of various kinds were built is to do with astronomical observations of sunset/ sunrise. That there were variations in and additions to different circles and henges over time does not affect this conclusion. After all, if you just want to worship, a football stadium or barn will do just as well as a gothic cathedral. Yet we have cathedrals.
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Populations have increased over time, and at least people had wheels and iron tools to build cathederals.
Why would people bother to drag huge lumps of stone hundreds of miles
just to build an observatory, when they could build from a plentiful supply
of wood, (there was a wood henge), it makes no sence, it would take a huge chunk of peoples lives that could have been used for personal needs.
 
But they did the same thing for Cathedrals- many using specific stone from many miles away, even from across the sea. You are forgetting the probably importance of religion and how it was tied in with the timing of the seasons and their food crops. You will not be surprised to know that the earliest observatories were made of wood. However it seems likely that over time, partly as a matter of status displays, partly as greater decoration for their gods, etc, they would have upgraded the observatories using stones.

Personal needs? What are they?
 
guthrie said:
But they did the same thing for Cathedrals- many using specific stone from many miles away, even from across the sea. You are forgetting the probably importance of religion and how it was tied in with the timing of the seasons and their food crops. You will not be surprised to know that the earliest observatories were made of wood. However it seems likely that over time, partly as a matter of status displays, partly as greater decoration for their gods, etc, they would have upgraded the observatories using stones.

Personal needs? What are they?
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These people would have to be fed and clothed have shelter, i doubt any one could work at moving a great lump of rock and feel like going hunting gathering afterwards, say it took a team of 100 men to haul the rock, then
another 100 to find food and water for them, then you would need people cutting down trees for the rollers ,clearing obstructions.
It would take years to move one lump of rock to the site, and may be the people doing the work would not gain any advantage from their work, their
children or grand children may be.
 
Maybe they made rope out of hemp tied it around the rock, Probably tied some brushing around the rock to cushion it and than tie the ropes to some cattle?
 
You doubt?
Well, thats it settled then.
But if you argue that they were hunter gatherers, then consider that the last modern ones, in Africa spent only a few hours a day actually meeting their survival needs, leaving plenty of time for doing other stuff.

In reality, the people who built stonehenge and other places would have been farmers. Farming was spreading across Europe by 5,000BC, and was widespread in Scotland by 3,500BC. By this stage they were already building long cairns, many metres long and 2 or 3 tall, out of lots of small rocks. By the time of Stonehenge, there is no reason at all that the local farmers couldn't have spent a great deal of time working on moving rocks.
 
There's a guy somewhere who is building a duplicate of stonehenge basically by himself - it's not taking him that long. A few months, once he has the rocks more or less lined up, in his spare time. Clever use of leverage, balance, etc.

These rocks probably didn't take as much work to move as people nowdays assume. Stone age people were very ingenious with their stones.
 
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