Construction dates to about the same time as the Great Pyramid.
Posted on 06/22/2012 3:40:45 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The teams, from the universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Southampton, Bournemouth and University College London, all working on the Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP), explored not just Stonehenge and its landscape but also the wider social and economic context of the monument's main stages of construction around 3,000 BC and 2,500 BC...
Previous theories have suggested the great stone circle was used as a prehistoric observatory, a sun temple, a place of healing, and a temple of the ancient druids. The Stonehenge Riverside Project's researchers have rejected all these possibilities after the largest programme of archaeological research ever mounted on this iconic monument. As well as finding houses and a large village near Stonehenge at Durrington Walls, they have also discovered the site of a former stone circle -- Bluestonehenge -- and revised the dating of Stonehenge itself. All these discoveries are now presented in Parker Pearson's new book Stonehenge: exploring the greatest Stone Age mystery published by Simon & Schuster. The research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, National Geographic and many other funding bodies.
(Excerpt) Read more at shef.ac.uk ...
How timely, publication is just in time for the Summer Solstice.
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And now both Egypt and Britain are being destroyed by Islam. How droll...
this guy's analysis. Far too many alignments to be random.
Not so much random as arbitrary and contrived. Even Hawkins repudiated it.
I guess that picture was taken before Chevy Chase got there in European Vacation.
What’d he say?
Nah, there aren’t nearly enough decapitated skeletons and piles of skulls to be a stone age “unification” site.
Drunken Welschmen...and wimmen...naked...grooving together with some Picts.
Thats what I heard.
No that happened in the streets of London last week.
If that was me back then, I wouldn't have ordered a 100 ton stone to be transported across entire country. I'd rather get it from the nearest quarry. Most people back then (and until the invention of railways) did not travel far. They didn't have much need to, and they had every reason to be afraid for their life (until the 20th century a British gentleman, like Dr. Watson, carried a revolver.) People who do not travel regularly cannot tell the difference between one stone and another. Few were trained geologists back then anyway.
“there was a growing island-wide culture – the same styles of houses, pottery and other material forms were used from Orkney to the south coast. This was very different to the regionalism of previous centuries.
Well, perhaps those guys know far more about past of British Isles, but it's not very believable that in 2,500 BC people would be cognizant of such things. They couldn't even read and write! They probably spoke regional languages; they probably had warring tribes (or kings). Unification is possible only when it is beneficial to every participant. What possible benefit would there be to a local king that has to give up his power and gain a lord? And how would they communicate with their central government? This was a serious concern just a century ago.
Similarities in houses and pottery and things are related to the natural process of exchanging ideas. Good ideas were adopted; old, inefficient ways of doing things died out. If you look at medieval Europe, it had houses of a similar style, and clothes of a similar style, and pottery, and everything else - all the way from Britain to Russia. But that doesn't mean that they were in any way unified politically or nationally or in any other sense.
The whole conclusion looks more tailored to the modern society, where a bunch of hippies could get together and, to signify their love for each other, they construct a pointless network of stones that would have no meaning whatsoever to anyone at all. It's just even modern hippies don't do such things because it would make no sense.
It is also important to note the level of effort that went into this. As I understand, the stones are pretty far from the nearest quarry. This means that the site itself is important. However why would a field be important if it is indistinguishable from any other? That would be the case only if it is related to a certain event, or a certain "place of power." Today we'd consider a memorial on a battlefield. But Stonehenge doesn't look like a war memorial. Besides, wars were cheap back then, small, and common as dirt.
The best explanation is that the site is related to astronomical and/or religious purposes. Only the religion could command enough labor and maintain interest to do the job. As others indicated, the arrangement of stones is quite specific and is related to astronomical events. Burials within the site are also signifying religious purpose.
Nobody in his right mind would bother constructing such a huge and expensive monument just because three neighboring tribes decided to be friends, for now. But even if they did, why would they align stones to the Sun? Why would they bury anyone inside?
3,000 BC was the age of 100% religious coverage and of firm belief (that remained until a few centuries ago) that deities operate the world and it is essential to continually mollify them, or else. Incas were dead sure about that very recently. There are religious monuments all over the planet, from nearly every significant culture that we know of. However there are very few (approximately zero) monuments of unification of the land. Even Genghiz Khan did not bother to mark his empire in any way; neither did Romans. If anything, there are monuments built by kings that may have done some unifying with a sword, and they were built for kings' specific purposes. But even that is a far cry from national monuments. The whole concept of a nation is a recent invention, made possible only by modern means of communication and by development of the idea of human rights. Until then Romans and Mongols just captured slaves and made them serve. Why would they grant them citizenship on a wholesale basis? It would be very counter-intuitive.
I'd be interested in the site as I hadn't heard that.
That’s much too early for Arthur. I’m not buying this theory.
“...Parker Pearson’s new book Stonehenge: exploring the greatest Stone Age mystery published by Simon & Schuster.”
Lies. All lies. The title even says so. The megastuff at Malta is way more a mystery than Stonehenge.
Seems an awful lot of work just to commemorate a unification, when a simple handshake would have done the trick. Maybe a mug of beer.
Color me skeptical.
One ring to rule them all?
The Maltese stuff is older as well. :’)
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