Stonehenge LIVE

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

Here's a thought;we have stone circles here in Britain and western Europe,does this indicate that the same religion was practised in both areas by people linguistically related and that they could both originate in the meso before rising sea levels cut us off from the continant?has anyone done a comparative study of both lots to see what common ground there is?

[Windbag]

Looking at the distribution of different types of site, I recall that similarities do cross modern borders, with links between the Welsh coast, Brittany and northern Spain.
To me that shows the spread of ideas and practices along transport and trade routes (Irish Sea to Channel to Bay of Biscay and/or vice versa) rather than a preserved tradition dating back to the Mesolithic.
I think this is Colin Richards' (now at Exeter) thang.

[simon73]

quote:Originally posted by Dirty Dave Lincoln

I'm curious as to what is the connection between modern paganism in this country and prehistoric monuments-i thought no one knew what religion was practiced in the neolithic.[?]

well said No one knows what religion people had at this period in time and so many theories seem to be very easy challenge without any support or should that be evidance. But so long as you are Time Team you will know in just 3 days or if you English Heritage or the idiot Francis Priory then all will take your answers as gospel truth. Archaeology is full of know all's well so they think

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

What i was suggesting is that the religion itself has its origins way before the neolithic. We know that people of the late palaeolithic had some form of religion in western europe which would have carried on into the mesolithic,and before we got cut off with the rise of the sea level these people would have roamed across britain and western europe and could have had broadly the same form of worship with maybe some slight difference in names only.
But with the coming of farming west through europe and then into britain the idea of temple building could have been introduced into what was an existing religion.After all there isn't much difference between worshipping in a stone circle and a sacred grove of trees such as is mentioned by Tacitus for the ancient german tribes.

[BAJR Host]

I like the way you are thinking there... very lateral... and given that some of the amazing wooden circles look like a forest grove..... was Woodhenge older that stonehenge?

"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

[Oxbeast]

On the subject of this dig, they seem to have had some good results. I was sceptical at first, as in the first video Prof. Wainwright said that thay were permitted to dig to a depth of only 1 metre. However, this does not seem to have been a problem. A major reason for the excavation seems to have been to re-excavate Atkinson's trenches and record in section what was previously only recorded in plan. They got plenty of finds from the backfill as well, as well as a much more coherent story about the development of the monument.

The videos are pretty good. If you've only got time to watch one of them, go for day 9 "one trench, many sockets" when all the relationships of the features are explained.

I look forward to reading about their environmental results.

[Dirty Dave Lincoln]

I wonder if anyone has actually done a study of all the known stone circles instead of just looking at them individually,questions that spring to mind are:-
1,is their any geographic signifcance to their locations-or to each other?
2,can they be grouped by size of circles or by the number of stones or how many rings?
3,can they be plotted chronologically-are the earliest ones here or in europe,showing the idea spreading from the continant to Britain?
4,is Stonehenge the only one of its type?and why?
5,were the stone circles preceded by wooden henges?
[?]

[the invisible man]

Start with Gibson A. 2005 'Stonehenge and Timber Circles'. Stroud: Tempus.

Burl A. 2000 'The Stone Circles of Britain, Ireland and Brittany'