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The original Stonehenge? A dismantled stone circle in the Preseli Hills of west Wales
Cambridge University Presd ^

Posted on 02/12/2021 3:11:06 PM PST by ameribbean expat

The discovery of a dismantled stone circle—close to Stonehenge's bluestone quarries in west Wales—raises the possibility that a 900-year-old legend about Stonehenge being built from an earlier stone circle contains a grain of truth. Radiocarbon and OSL dating of Waun Mawn indicate construction c. 3000 BC, shortly before the initial construction of Stonehenge. The identical diameters of Waun Mawn and the enclosing ditch of Stonehenge, and their orientations on the midsummer solstice sunrise, suggest that at least part of the Waun Mawn circle was brought from west Wales to Salisbury Plain. This interpretation complements recent isotope work that supports a hypothesis of migration of both people and animals from Wales to Stonehenge.

Antiquity , Volume 95 , Issue 379 , February 2021 , pp. 85 - 103

Introduction

In the oldest story of Stonehenge's origins, the History of the Kings of Britain (c. AD 1136), Geoffrey of Monmouth describes how the monument was built using stones from the Giants’ Dance stone circle in Ireland. Located on legendary Mount Killaraus, the circle was dismantled by Merlin and shipped to Amesbury on Salisbury Plain by a force of 15 000 men, who had defeated the Irish and captured the stones. According to the legend, Stonehenge was built to commemorate the death of Britons who were treacherously killed by Saxons during peace talks at Amesbury. Merlin wanted the stones of the Giants’ Dance for their magical, healing properties.

This 900-year-old legend is fantasy: the Saxons arrived not in prehistory, but only 700 years before Geoffrey's own time, and none of Stonehenge's stones came from Ireland. Yet the fact that Stonehenge's ‘bluestones’ derive from Wales—far to the west of Salisbury Plain—has led to speculation that there may be some truth in Geoffrey's pseudo-history.

(Excerpt) Read more at cambridge.org ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: archaeoastronomy; beakerculture; chalcolithic; godsgravesglyphs; megaliths; solstice; stonehenge
Welsh about to go Elgin Marbles on England.
1 posted on 02/12/2021 3:11:06 PM PST by ameribbean expat
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To: ameribbean expat
First in.


2 posted on 02/12/2021 3:18:59 PM PST by DoodleBob (Gravity's waiting period is about 9.8 m/s^2 )
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To: ameribbean expat; SunkenCiv

Medicine Wheels go back a lot farther than 5,000 years I suspect.

It’s just the earliest ones where not as durable as where those erected later.


3 posted on 02/12/2021 3:58:44 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

Went to see a Medicine Wheel in Wyoming.

Asked the guy there how long it had been there.

He said “A few years”.


4 posted on 02/12/2021 4:01:31 PM PST by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
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To: blueunicorn6

Sort of like one episode of Ancient Aliens in which they interviewed an elderly man in a Native American tribe and asked him where his ancestors came from before settling in the American Southwest.

He cheerfully pointed to the sky and smiled and said “From the stars.”


5 posted on 02/12/2021 4:08:12 PM PST by frank ballenger (End vote fraud, harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: BenLurkin

I thought I remembered reading that they’ve found where posts were in an outer circle around Stonehenge that were carbon dated to 10,000 years ago.

I’ve been to both Stonehenge and the quarries in Wales that the inner stones come from.

Come to think of it, I’ve also been by the quarries that the limestone pieces come from too.

Did a day tour from Bath to Stonehenge, Avesbury circle, Laycroft and some other little village said to be the most beautiful in that area. Later, on a tour to Wales, went to the quarries there.


6 posted on 02/12/2021 4:08:53 PM PST by NorthernTraveler
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To: frank ballenger

7 posted on 02/12/2021 4:14:22 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire. Or both.)
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To: BenLurkin

Georgio Tsoukalos gif....

Thanks. I love the show for literal escape TV to get my mind off my obsessive worries about the end of American freedom.

Once when he was being interviewed about the show, Georgio said “On Ancient Aliens we believe nothing is a coincidence.” He was suppressing a laugh.

Some people believe Hillary and Obama were innocent, Pelosi and Biden are Catholics, the 2020 election was fair and honest and Kamala is qualified to be President. And they laugh at Ancient Aliens.


8 posted on 02/12/2021 4:27:31 PM PST by frank ballenger (End vote fraud, harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: ameribbean expat

The chieftain’s wife said “Not here, I want it over there.” So, they moved it.


9 posted on 02/12/2021 4:53:51 PM PST by IndispensableDestiny
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To: BenLurkin; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...
Thanks BenLurkin.

10 posted on 02/12/2021 10:49:09 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: ameribbean expat
Stonehenge Transported from Wales?
11 posted on 02/13/2021 1:10:23 AM PST by Winniesboy
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To: SunkenCiv

Interesting!
From Siencemags article -
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/02/england-s-stonehenge-was-erected-wales-first
“Parker Pearson’s team then measured the last time sediments inside the socket holes at Waun Mawn had been exposed to light, using optically stimulated luminescence; they also radiocarbon dated charcoal found inside the pits. They estimate the missing stones were erected between 3400 and 3200 (BC) and then removed 300 or 400 years later, around the time the first construction at Stonehenge began,”

“Researchers say the dismantling of Waun Mawn and the rise of Stonehenge could have been part of a larger migration from the Preseli Hills to the Salisbury Plain. Human and animal remains found at Stonehenge have chemical signatures suggesting their early years were spent on the Welsh coast. “We’ve got regular contact between the two regions,” Pollard says.”


12 posted on 02/13/2021 5:51:05 AM PST by Varda
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To: ameribbean expat

Maybe they got evicted from the original location


13 posted on 02/13/2021 10:03:11 AM PST by a fool in paradise (Call on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity. )
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To: a fool in paradise

The grooving with the Picts was bothering the neighbors. Those druids are real kill-joys.


14 posted on 02/13/2021 8:25:30 PM PST by refreshed (But we preach Christ crucified... 1 Corinthians 1:23)
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To: refreshed

Groovy


15 posted on 02/13/2021 8:53:44 PM PST by a fool in paradise (Call on Joe Biden to follow Donald Trump's example and donate his annual salary to charity. )
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To: SunkenCiv

Every architect makes a model.....................


16 posted on 02/15/2021 5:30:08 AM PST by Red Badger (SLEAZIN' is the REASON for the TREASON .................................)
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To: ComputerGuy

ping


17 posted on 08/02/2022 3:55:37 PM PDT by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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