Stone Henge
- Thread starter fishtail
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because its a part of the british heritage thast why, and it is a beautiful and lovely peaceful place, i do the summer soltice there
Fraggle Rocker
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As others have pointed out, the Mesolithic Era (hunter-gatherers) had come to an end long before Stonehenge was built. These people were farmers. In an era when the nutrients in the soil had not been depleted, there was still plenty of wood for heat and construction, and--perhaps most importantly--modern medicine was thousands of years off so the infant mortality rate was astronomical and the population was not expanding quickly. Life was fairly easy for these people. Much like it was for the first European settlers in North America, who found a land not yet exploited by civilization and claimed it was their spirit and not their insanely good luck that built our country. The people of Stonehenge had full bellies and lots of free time.
As Captain Picard said, "Humans cannot resist a mystery. It simply must be solved." In addition, to a certain extent most of us appreciate the benefits of civilization and feel a bit of respect--if in most cases unconsciously--toward the people who participated in the early processes of building it. If it weren't for all the little experiments like Stonehenge and Easter Island, proving that a community could accomplish far more by working together than as individuals, we wouldn't have supermarkets, recorded music, antibiotics and the internet.
didn't those people strip their island bare of anything to eat?
Sort of. They used up the trees, and ended up with some impressive intensive agriculture to survive. Read Jared Diamonds "collapse" for more details.
For the same reason people ruin their cosy life by fasting, or by taking up marathon running. After all, what possible benefit can you get by risking injury in training intensively for a race which is unlikely to have any real prize at the end of it?
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Have you ever had the "cozy life" of a Neolithic human? You raise your crops, you feed your livestock. Do a few repairs to your house, maybe the upkeep on your canoe or fishing nets. If you're the village weaver you make a couple of shirts, if you're the cobbler you make some shoes, if you're the brewer you look in on your vats, if you're the fletcher you make some arrows. You eat, you work, you sleep. Maybe once in a while you go hunting, but the explosion of the human population has reduced the game population severely and your livestock out-competes them for pasture. You have a hundred companions--give or take a factor of two--whom you've known since birth and you see every single day. You have a few primitive musical instruments and maybe ten songs, no books but several of you can recite the tribe's history and they just did it after dinner last Monday when you tried the latest batch of pomegranate wine. The whole bunch of you hasn't had anything new to do or to talk about since Joe made the week-long trek from his village and told you about his boring life three months ago.
I think you'd be looking for something to do. The crazier the better.
there was video of a dude in Michigan who built stonehenge in his backyard,from big concrete blocks,..and all by himself too
,I think it was on www.ebaumsworld.com could have been www.fungod.com am not sure right now
You have maybe a hundred songs, if the stats from the early collectors are any indication. And plenty to do in the way of husbandry, repair, etc - at your neighbor's, if not your own. And various festivals, fairs, weddings, funerals, etc, to get ready for. You are making your own booze, cheese, pickles, winter food; You have to weed, pick bugs, fence, etc. And you play - with your kids, even.
The days are full. But the young folks do travel, with relatives scattered all over - and the travellers do come by, thieves though they tend to be, and untrustworthy around the daughters - - -
All by himself wtih hand tools - no power equipment. In a few months.
The modern assumed crudity of people who lack power machinery has always bugged me - the official estimates of the manpower needed to build Stonehenge could easily be an order of magnitude high. Those people knew all about leverage, balance, etc. They were not primitive, as in crude, in their handling of material.
Yes I know....a few months ago I watched a contest in which several groups of 'experts' attempted to build a 10 ft re-creation of an Egytian Pyramid...they all looked more like something that had been extracted from a jelly bowl. Pathetic.
The Egyptians would leave us standing when it comes to construction.
When we create one of the 7 wonders of the world I might be impressed..so far we've come up with a rust bucket called the 'Northern Angel' standing sadly by the side of a motorway on the road to Newcastle..
..the difference is of course that the Ancients could lift our Soul whilst we only lower it to sheer misery. Its no coincidence that the Ancients were a more Spritual people...
Spritual - Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Beethoven.
Nihilistic USA = Kurt Cobain and Violent rap.
Call that progress?
Evolution, my arse!
The Egyptians would leave us standing when it comes to construction.
When we create one of the 7 wonders of the world I might be impressed..so far we've come up with a rust bucket called the 'Northern Angel' standing sadly by the side of a motorway on the road to Newcastle..
..the difference is of course that the Ancients could lift our Soul whilst we only lower it to sheer misery. Its no coincidence that the Ancients were a more Spritual people...
Spritual - Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Beethoven.
Nihilistic USA = Kurt Cobain and Violent rap.
Call that progress?
Evolution, my arse!
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Well okay, so you're looking at a time-lapse snapshot of the Neolithic Era much later in the series than I am. Agricultural technology had become more pervasive and there were more villages. Since they were closer together there was more contact for the exchange of goods, services, technology, culture and DNA--plant, livestock and human. They were on the verge of coalescing into a civilization so they were already enjoying some of the benefits of it.
I'm glad they have a hundred songs, but I'm a musician who can play many times that number and I would be bored to the point of suicide if that were all the music I could ever experience.
And when those young folks managed to find their way to one of the cities they heard of in the fantastic tales of travelers, they often stayed. I would have spent my life searching for the rich catalog of songs that the occasional traveling musician brought with him from one of those supposedly mythical cities.
Yes you're certainly right about that. Premodern people figured out how to knap flint, string bows, fletch arrows, tan hides, preserve food, weave fibers, cultivate plants, domesticate animals, fire pottery, and an entire catalog of important technologies without knowing they were possible. Things you and I couldn't do in three lifetimes even with the reassurance that they can indeed be done.
They had the same brains as we have, and they were just as good at using them.
Stonehenge was built very late in the British Isles' Neolithic Era, when cities were already thriving within easy sailing distance of Europe. If the Romans hadn't colonized Albion, the pre-Indo-European people who built Stonehenge (perhaps relatives of the Picts) or the Brythonic Celts who supplanted them might well have invented civilization on their own, just as the Olmec and Inca people did without help.
The stones were transported on roller logs. Pulled and pushed, the ones in the rear taken out as the stone advanced and put in front. Block and tackle devices may have been used. A road was built to smooth the transportation.
To set the blocks, they dug a trench in front of them and slid them down in at an angle, then used a system of pullies to put them in place. The cap stones were rasied by building earth ramps and pulling the stones up in place. Then the earth was removed.
No mystery here, all could be done in that time, or today with proper supervison.
Religion and study of astronomy are currently thought to be the reason for building it.
Older wood hinges have been found at the site and a complete wood hinge some miles away.
I've been there twice. There is someting very special about it and the site. You can feel it.
To set the blocks, they dug a trench in front of them and slid them down in at an angle, then used a system of pullies to put them in place. The cap stones were rasied by building earth ramps and pulling the stones up in place. Then the earth was removed.
No mystery here, all could be done in that time, or today with proper supervison.
Religion and study of astronomy are currently thought to be the reason for building it.
Older wood hinges have been found at the site and a complete wood hinge some miles away.
I've been there twice. There is someting very special about it and the site. You can feel it.
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