Arcadia Discussion Zone

I've posted below a couple of articles from yesterday's Telegraph on the Cromlech of the A303, that I thought people might find interesting.

As you may or may not know, there has been an archaeological dig at Stonehenge recently, which has led to some new theories on both the age and the purpose of this site.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/3046095 ... gists.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... ealed.html

It appears that the henge may have been constructed some three hundred years later than people previously thought. It may also have been believed to have healing and restorative powers. This has been determined by the condition of some of the human remains found there, which show evidence of degenerative conditions, implying that the sick might have been taken there, and also chippings from the smaller blue stones found buried in the earth, which may have been offerings. However, this latter theory was being challenged by one rival archaeologist I saw on a news clip last night, who argued that the chippings were merely evidence of these stones being carved to a shape on site.

In any event, it's all very interesting. For those of us in the UK, there is a Timewatch documentary this coming Saturday on BBC2 at 8pm.

It is very interesting..... I like this quote here especially......

"....They note that "an abnormal number" of the corpses found in tombs nearby Stonehenge display signs of serious physical injury and disease.

And analysis of teeth recovered from graves show that "around half" of the corpses were from people who were "not native to the Stonehenge area".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7625145.stm

And think of the immense difficulties inherent in travelling any sort of distance back then - no roads, no modes of transport other than one's own two feet, much of it through thick and barely penetrable forest, and dangerous too.

You'd have to really want to get there, and evidently many people did.

So....it was a place to go to...to die....very much like Perillos, ( to mention but one.)

Sheila

I would agree with that analysis, it was a place of death. The same is true of all stone circles, you only have to look about them to see their association with barrow and mound graves, although grave is not the operative word I would use.
There is an association between stone circles and the treatment of the dead that has been lost in the mists of Christian obscuration. It explains why churches have graveyards in certain countries and others, like France and Spain, etc, do not.

Like Mike Pitt, I don't believe these chipping indicate that Stonehenge was a place of healing, but then I'm biased. I will try to watch the time team programme however. Unfortunately we would need a dish the size of Jodrrel Bank to receive BBC2 in this part of Spain, so I will see if I can catch it later on BBC Iplayer?

John

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Nice article, Jake, thanks. It's interesting to think how previous generations would have been inquisitive about this site, and also how it may have been venerated as a piece of landscape long before the stones were put there.

The scale of the endeavour is incredible - to drag something so heavy, so far, and with so much difficulty. That's why the bit at the end made me chuckle, where they repeat the old chestnut about the henge possibly being a calendar. I had dinner with a very interesting druid a while back - a friend set it up as he was an old time Rennie from back in the day, who she thought I'd find interesting (I did) - and he made the perfectly reasonable point that people in those times not only had greater preoccupations than determining the time of year, but many more practical and instinctive ways of doing so. That thing was built as an act of devotion; because its builders were completely in awe of something; or terrified of it.

For anyone interested, there is a Timewatch documentary on tonight at 8.05pm on BBC2 about Stonehenge. The synopsis is "Does the radical new theory that Stonehenge, far from being a place of burial as is commonly assumed, was in fact a place of healing bear up to modern day forensic science?" VAM

Just in from a hectic day's lambing and managed to catch the exciting last 8 minutes.........How old?......wow...this is big news.
VAM...give us a run down please?

Sorry you missed it Sheila - Try this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dtjy4

VAM

Find here a link for what I thought was an interesting article on Stonehenge.

By way of background, Lionel Sim is a member of the Radical Anthropologists Group. RAG have built on and tried to repair some of the holes in the theories of Frederick Engels that deal with anthropology and rise of class society. Sandy Hamblett referred to Chris Knight somewhere else on these boards who was the founder of the group.

Would be interested to hear any comments on this.

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/740/stonehenge.html

Attached is an article by Philip Coppens, taken from his website, speculating about connections between the stone circle at Stonehenge and those at nearby Avebury, which is an interesting read.

http://www.philipcoppens.com/stone_ave.html

Thanks Richard....and there was the Stonehenge/Durrington walls programme on the telly last night....well in France it was..........

which tied in with Filip's article about seeing "the bigger picture".

A nice English Heritage link attached including a 360 degree view of the Durrington walls.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/ston ... ls/01.html

For those in the UK, Channel 4 is running a 90 minute Time Team special on recent investigative works at Stonehenge at 2100 hrs this coming Monday.

Here's some blurb from the Channel 4 website:

Stonehenge is the nation's most famous monument. For centuries, its age and purpose have been subject to speculation, excavation and fantasy. But over the last six years, a huge new team of archaeologists have been digging not just the monument but the entire prehistoric landscape that focuses on Stonehenge, to reveal the truth about this near-mythical place and crack its secrets.

Time Team's cameras have been with the dig through those six summers. During their excavations the team discovered the biggest Neolithic settlement in Northern Europe, which suggests they have found the place where the people who built Stonehenge were based. But the digs also reveal that Stonehenge was just part of a vast ritualistic landscape where ancient peoples celebrated life and death in great man-made structures.

The archaeologists believe that the landscape was turned into a huge and complex special ceremonial route for the remains of the departed as they pass into the afterworld. But these theories are only proved in their last summer of digging in 2008, as the team start to dig in the stone circle itself. The results surpass their wildest dreams and this pivotal excavation finally enables the team to reveal not only when Stonehenge was built and how it was built but, perhaps most importantly, why it was built.

Tony Robinson, whose participation in C4's notorious hatchet job of a documentary, "The Real Da Vinci Code", a few years back, still rankles with many of us, will be presenting, but despite that, it still looks like a good programme, worth watching.

On the subject of standing stones, recommended is the dvd "Standing with Stones" by Rupert Soskin (Henry's younger son) and Michael Bott, a guided tour of over a hundred neolithic sites in Britain and Ireland.

Sheila gave us this nifty insight,,,So....it was a place to go to...to die....very much like Perillos, ( to mention but one.)

My 1st take was it also could mean when ya enter this forum its like going into Sauniere's terrible place Church. Ya get in, ya search all the corners, touch all objects like the computer simulation game MYST, and if ya end up in DUNNY to soon yer doomed, there is no way out.

Since granite is associated with radon gas I can imagine anybody who camps out too long around these large scale granite boulder places, drink water from wells dug on site contaminated with radon will end up much sicker than when they 1st arrive.

How many Druids were lost to their cause by staying there too long. Those piled up bodies could easily be many Druids who went there to kick the bucket, ring up the chimes, join the choir celestial, and all the rest of the Monte Python cliches thrown in.

From a recent article in the UK Daily Telegraph:

English Heritage has unveiled its designs for a new £25-million visitor centre at Stonehenge, in Wiltshire.

It continues:

The proposals for the centre at Airman's Corner, 1.5 miles west of the prehistoric stones near Amesbury in Wiltshire, and plans to close the nearby A344 have been submitted to Wiltshire Council.
The centre, designed by architectural firm Denton Corker Marshall, is ''sensitive to its surroundings and to the significance of the monument'', English Heritage said.
English Heritage's Stonehenge project director, Loraine Knowles, said: ''The new centre is designed to blend into the World Heritage landscape which visitors will pass through on their way to the stones.
''It will provide enhanced opportunities for education and interpretation, and have first-class facilities in keeping with Stonehenge's status as a world-renowned tourist attraction.''

This is an English Heritage photo of an artist's impression of the Denton Corker Marshall Design. Personally, I like it.


Exhibitions, a cafe, shop and toilets will be housed in a pair of single-storey areas - one glass, the other timber-enclosed - sitting beneath an undulating roof.

This is good news, if it gets the go ahead, because it's a dismal site, for visitors, at the present time - essentially, a car park by one of the busiest roads in southern England. This is at least attempt a step in the right direction. I live not that far away, go by there frequently, and it's an embarassment to see how little care and attention has been put into the presentation of this hugely important site, and many's the time I've almost run over a tourist clinging to the bank on the side of the road, trying to take a photo.

This will make the site generally a bit better, but the worst thing about Stonehenge is it's being located on such a busy road, and the proposal to move the road into a tunnel (cost c. £500 million) has not been revived. It was dropped some years ago on the grounds of cost, and that was back when we had money, so no chance of that ever happening now. Great shame, because the best visitor centre in the world will never cure the problem of being stuck by that road.

Anyway, a small piece of good news, nonetheless.

Here's a link to the entire article.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/trave ... entre.html

Another relatively recent piece of Stonehenge news:

Unearthed: prehistoric site that could be 'little sister' to Stonehenge
Archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric site, dubbed 'Bluehenge', a mile away from Britain's famous circle of standing stones at Stonehenge.

The article continues:

The new circle, unearthed in secret over the summer, is one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades, archaeologists say.
Already, dispute has begun about what the discovery means for Stonehenge, and what light it might shed on the reasons why both monuments were erected.
Bluehenge was put up 5,000 years ago – around the same time as work began on Stonehenge, and appears to be a miniature version of it, researchers say.
The two circles stood together for hundreds of years before Bluehenge was dismantled. Researchers believe its stones were later used to enlarge Stonehenge.
Bluehenge lies at the end of the 'Avenue' – a pathway that connected Stonehenge to the Avon. All that remains of the smaller circle are the holes of 27 giant stones set on a ramped mount. Chips of stone found in the holes appear to be the same as those used in Stonehenge.

Here's the link to the entire article by Laura Donnelly.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... henge.html

A detailed survey of every stone that makes up Stonehenge using the latest technology, including a new scanner that has never before been used on a heritage project in Britain, has resulted in the most accurate digital model ever produced of the world famous monument.
With resolution level as high as 0.5mm in many areas, every nook and cranny of the stones’ surfaces is revealed with utmost clarity, including the lichens, Bronze Age carvings, erosion patterns and Victorian graffiti.



http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/abou ... -unveiled/

http://www.stonehengelaserscan.org/stonehenge.html

Thank you; this is a very worthwhile project. Hopefully it'll get applied to other prehistoric sites in the UK, and elsewhere, now that they've developed the technology to do this with such accuracy.

From the BBC:

Archaeologists Make New Stonehenge 'Sun Worship' Find



Read more here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-15917921

Sort of Stonehenge news, or at least news of a Stonehenge replica, at an unlikely sounding location:





http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... ademy.html

Edit to Add: Here's a Youtube film of it - not very "Stonehenge-like" at all, really, that was just a lazy generic description, but a very beautiful location.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuFhleClirM