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Television Media Science

Excavations at Stonehenge May Answer Questions 160

Posted by Zonk from the not-the-most-up-beat-tourist-attraction dept.
Smivs writes "The BBC are getting set to fund a dig at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. The two-week dig will try to establish, once and for all, some precise dating for the creation of the monument. An article from the BBC news website explains how the dig will investigate the significance of the smaller bluestones that stand inside the giant sarsen pillars. 'Researchers believe these rocks, brought all the way from Wales, hold the secret to the real purpose of Stonehenge as a place of healing. The researchers leading the project are two of the UK's leading Stonehenge experts — Professor Tim Darvill, of the University of Bournemouth, and Professor Geoff Wainwright, of the Society of Antiquaries. They are convinced that the dominating feature on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire was akin to a "Neolithic Lourdes" — a place where people went on a pilgrimage to get cured. Modern techniques have established that many of these people had clearly traveled huge distances to get to south-west England, suggesting they were seeking supernatural help for their ills.'"
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Excavations at Stonehenge May Answer Questions More

Excavations at Stonehenge May Answer Questions

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  • An alternate interpretation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Harmonious Botch ( 921977 ) * on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:24PM (#22927710) Homepage Journal
    Pardon me, but I'm skeptical when I hear all of the sweetness and light interpretations. How about something more bloodthirsty, but just as reasonable?

    A significant proportion of the newly discovered Neolithic remains show clear signs of skeletal trauma. Some had undergone operations to the skull, or had walked with a limp, or had broken bones.
    Slaves, kidnapped in other parts of England, forced to work building the monument. They had lots of skeletal injuries because it was dangerous work. ( Impromptu graveyards near the Egyptian pyramids had lots of crunched skeletons also )

    ...sacred circle at the monument is dominated by bluestone chippings...
    Theses were war trophies, brought home and shattered to destroy their magic.

    • Re:An alternate interpretation (Score:5, Funny)

      by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:31PM (#22927738)
      Pardon me, but I'm skeptical when I hear all of the sweetness and light interpretations. How about something more bloodthirsty, but just as reasonable?

      Why are you skeptical? It's pretty well-known that primitive tribes were peace-loving herbivores who lived in harmony with Nature. It wasn't until the white man came and introduced war and slavery that these tribes came to know such things.

      • Re:An alternate interpretation (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo ( 1000167 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @12:43AM (#22928092)
        You were modded funny but you bring up a really good point about the myth of the noble savage. There are mass kill sites all over North America where various American Indian tribes stampeded thousands of buffalo over cliffs in order to get a few hundred pounds of meat. I doubt very much that there was much in the way of ancient, mystic, natural magic going on. The average life span of a Neolithic man was somewhere in the range of 29 years.

        • It's even worse (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @05:27AM (#22929042) Journal
          It's even worse. Massacring buffaloes, well, I guess some animal rights people would be appalled, but it's really no worse than a modern slaughterhouse. (Though, granted, it does disprove the myth of the enlightened herbivore living in harmony with nature.)

          The worse thing is: we have plenty of proof that they massacred each other just as well.

          E.g., there are remains of a village in Sand Canyon Pueblo which was, effectively, exterminated by some attackers in the 13'th century. (I.e., centuries before those guys saw a white man at all.) The attackers literally slaughtered everyone where they could catch them, smashed whatever they could smash, and burned the village down. It was never re-occupied.

          While that's admittedly a rather extreme example, simple raids to steal each other's food and women were a lot more common. As little as 13% of the tribes could count as "peaceful", in that they only raided their neighbours no more than once a year. So they killed a few, had a few of their own killed, life went on.

          Plus, here's an interesting thought for the noble savage proponents: if those tribes were so peaceful and living in harmony, how'd they get a warrior culture in the first place? You don't get a seafaring culture if you're on a mountain top, and you don't get a warrior culture if you're a peaceful confederation of tribes.

          Or long before Stonehenge or any contact with the white man, in Nubia there's a 12,000 year old cemetery where half the people had died of violence. It would be another 8 millennia or so until their conquest by Egypt, or 7 until Egypt itself got united by force, so it's hard to blame it on learning violence from the Egyptians.

          Just about the only "bright" side is that there's little evidence of neolithic slavery. They just killed male prisoners. If you were lucky, they'd kill you quickly and eat you. If not, they'd slowly torture you to death. (The Iroquois, for example, among many others, were pretty good at it.)

          Women were usually bounty of war, though, so I guess by modern standards it would count as sexual slavery. That practice continued all through the bronze age and early iron age (i..e., as late as ancient Greece and early Rome), by which time though it was properly filed as slavery. (Though still considered perfectly normal and civilized warfare.) Of course, the places which had remained tribal and largely stone age, continued it well after the fall of Rome.

          The history of Europe and Middle East is funny too in that aspect, in that we have the iron age catastrophe. We still don't know exactly what happened there, but whole cities were razed (and some never recovered or were abandoned and never rebuilt), whole populations displaced or enslaved, and generally it's destruction on an unprecedented scale. Europe rushed into the iron age arguably prematurely (bronze was still tougher than early iron) because, whatever happened there, thoroughly disrupted the tin trade, and created a bronze shortage.

          And for a parting thought, here's a funny one: population losses in modern warfare are measured in single digit percent. The USA lost some 0.32% of its population in WW2, the UK 0.94%, Germany lost a whopping 10.47%, and the big hit was the USSR with a whole 13.71%. (And in the USSR, probably half of them were due to Stalin's catastrophic leadership, so they could have been avoided.) The average for all countries involved is 3.70%.

          Well that's peanuts compared to tribal warfare. By tribal warfare standards, anywhere between 25% and 60% of the population would be killed in the nearly continuous raids and fighting. Roll that around in your head. You'd be anywhere between 2 and 5 times more likely to die in a war as a member of some "noble savage" tribe, than in the USSR during WW2.

          Heck, even Leningrad in 3 years of siege, famine and bombing, lost about a third of its population. And we see that as a major tragedy. (And rightfully so.) Now think this: in many tribes you'd be more likely to be killed in tribal war, than if you happened to be in Leningrad in WW2. Now that's a scary thought.

          • Re:It's even worse (Score:4, Interesting)

            by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @09:35AM (#22930152) Journal
            "...remains of a village in Sand Canyon Pueblo..."

            My understanding (IANAPA I am not a pre-historic anthropologist) is that current speculation about the Sand Canyon Pueblo history is that there was some evidence of cannibalism by the Sand Canyon people over a long span of time, preying on neighboring tribes. The inference is that the neighbor tribes either finally got strong enough or fed up enough to resist, annihilate the Sand Canyon residents completely, and declare the place evil enough that nobody would ever live there again.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by Cyberax ( 705495 )

            And in the USSR, probably half of them were due to Stalin's catastrophic leadership, so they could have been avoided
            No, most of losses in USSR were civilian losses on occupied territories. Military losses don't even come close.

            It's a "little known" fact, but nazis wanted to exterminate Slavic people along with the Jews. For example, in Belarus alone about 3 million people were killed by nazis.
            • Last I've seen some numbers, it was closer to 50-50 between civillians and soldiers. That's including the 5 to 8 million USSR civillians killed in the Holocaust. Well, ok, maybe closer to 60-40, but still, the military deaths do come relatively close AFAIK. Still, I see your point.

              But more importantly, you illustrate an aspect that I failed to: that it took some senseless mass murders of epic proportion to come even to 13.71% number. If that senseless extermination policy on one side and Stalin's own terror

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Cyberax ( 705495 )
                No. It's NOWHERE that close. The civilian losses of USSR was the mindboggling 26 million people, military losses were about 9 million people (including the partisan forces).

                However, I completely agree with your second point.
                • I thought it was 26 million _total_, including some 10 million soldiers?

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Cyberax ( 705495 )
                    Yes, almost right.

                    I cited these numbers from my memory. I now looked it up - the total losses are estimated from 23 millions to 32 millions of people by different studies. About 60%-75% of losses are estimated as civilian losses.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by dajak ( 662256 )
                the nuclear bombs at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, don't come even close to the percentage of people killed with stone axes and stone-tipped arrows in tribal conflicts. I find that a scary thought.

                This is true averaged out over the population of Japan. For the population of the inner city of Nagasaki and Hiroshima it was 100% inescapable and unforeseeable death. Same with the numbers for Russia, Germany etc: locally death rates are considerably higher. I find that lack of influence over one's fate scary myself. I

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by malsdavis ( 542216 )
          'Average life span' can be extremely misleading due to the high levels of infant mortality which really hit average life span figures hard.

          Even in ancient times there are records of people living to 100 and it wasn't that uncommon for many to live into their 50's, 60's and even 70's. It's just that for everyone who lived to 70, several would also die at an age of only 6 months or so.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by zippthorne ( 748122 )

        It wasn't until the white man came and introduced war and slavery that these tribes came to know such things.
        Till.. the white man.. came.. to England..

        Heh. Clever what you did there.
        • Bloody Sais - trampling on us real Britons!

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by c0p0n ( 770852 )
          Aye, bizarrely enough it seems from genetic evidence that the first inhabitants of the British isles came from north of what it is today Spain and Portugal.

          • Aye, bizarrely enough it seems from genetic evidence that the first inhabitants of the British isles came from north of what it is today Spain and Portugal.
            Yes, perhaps; and before that they came from Asia, and before that, Africa, like everyone else. What's your point? The first inhabitants of Britannia were still white. For that matter, the first inhabitants (and indeed current inhabitants) of Iberia were white. Were you thinking of American-style "Latinos"?

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by electrictroy ( 912290 )
              The people that settled Europe were likely black or brown, and over time lack-of-exposure to the sun caused their skin to fade to white or pink.

              (Dark-skinned humans would have suffered vitamin C deficits in colder, darker europe, leading to an evolutionary pressure in favor of light-skinned persons who absorbed more light through their skin & survived longer.)

              • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

                by Vellmont ( 569020 )

                Dark-skinned humans would have suffered vitamin C deficits in colder, darker europe

                It's actually Vitamin D, (the body can't make vitamin C), but otherwise you're completely correct.

          • Aye, bizarrely enough it seems from genetic evidence that the first inhabitants of the British isles came from north of what it is today Spain and Portugal.

            Who'dve thought they'd be French?

    • Re:An alternate interpretation (Score:5, Informative)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:46PM (#22927816) Homepage Journal
      The injuries were inconsistant with Stonehenge-type construction, mostly very standard Neolithic injuries. The skull modifications are known from elsewhere as very primitive surgery with an amazingly high survival rate. They've found evidence of healing from the cranial modifications and they've found the tools used - superior to anything less than modern surgical steel. They also have the settlement where the workforce lived and are able to show that the workers were not the ones buried. Also, the Neolithic people were bigger on stealing magic for their own use than destroying it. This is backed up by the fact that those blue stones were deliberately quarried for Stonehenge (they found the quarry). You don't make an enemy something they can use so that you can destroy it... unless you're from Fox News or SCO. In short, the bloodthirsty theory doesn't hold with the available data.

    • Slaves, kidnapped in other parts of England, forced to work building the monument. They had lots of skeletal injuries because it was dangerous work. ( Impromptu graveyards near the Egyptian pyramids had lots of crunched skeletons also )

      Yes, that's certainly more bloodthirsty. But it doesn't answer the question of why it was built. That would just answer part of the who.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by MrPloppy ( 1117689 )
      Yeah you must be right, I am sure the researchers have no idea what their talking about and came up with their ideas whilst throwing back beers at the pub in Amesbury. "Theories about Stonehenge are cheap; proof is precious," commented BBC Timewatch editor, John Farren.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Crunchie Frog ( 791929 )

        Yeah you must be right, I am sure the researchers have no idea what their talking about and came up with their ideas whilst throwing back beers at the pub in Amesbury.
        Ah, I see we have met the same archaeologists.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ozbird ( 127571 )
      According to an ABC News [abc.net.au] story I heard this morning, there's a simpler explanation for the bluestone chips:

      "In the early 1900s there were signs in Amesbury (the nearest town to the site) offering the hire of a hammer so that people could come up here to chip off their own bit of bluestone," Darvill [archaeology professor at Bournemouth University] said.
      • Did they offer spades too, so the chips could be buried 6ft down?

        They're excavating the site for a reason.
    • The interpretations are what the physical evidence points to, it was almost certainly a religious structure after all. Are you suggesting we should ignore the large body of physical evidence in favor of the more stereotypical, 'ruthless barbarian' society advanced by the invading Romans?

      From a factual point of view, there isn't really any evidence at all of widespread 'war slaves' etc. being used by the stone age tribes of north-western Europe. It's the sort of thing which is quite easy to research. In Egyp
      • Ya know it's possible to have slavery on a small scale. If Stonehenge was built, not in 30 years time like a pyramid, but over many hundreds of years, it could be done with just a few slaves procured from local farmers.

        That would not leave behind any trace of slave trading.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 )

        The interpretations are what the physical evidence points to, it was almost certainly a religious structure after all.

        Not that I disagree with you...

        But this statement reminds me of things said when we first started investigating ancient writing - that writing was used almost exclusively for religious purposes.

        Or so we thought until we started translating the stuff - then we found it was mostly tax records....

  • It would be cool.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:27PM (#22927716) Homepage Journal
    It would be cool if the BBC could get Spinal Tap to do the soundtrack for the program!!!

    • Re:It would be cool.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by xPsi ( 851544 ) * on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:48PM (#22927826)
      Indeed, now we can get finally down to the business of figuring out "who they were" and "what they were doing." Not to mention important followup questions like: "where are they now, the little people of Stonehenge? And what would they say if we were here tonight?"

      • Re:It would be cool.... (Score:4, Funny)

        by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @12:19AM (#22927970) Homepage Journal
        If our ancient ancestors were alive today, I think the biggest thing on their minds would be "why is it so dark in here?" (with apologies to Terry Pratchett)

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by zippthorne ( 748122 )
          Indeed. Although Pratchett wasn't the first to make that joke.

          But more in the spirit of today, we should, as a society, build a <really big monument> as mysterious and long-lasting as possible, just to jerk around our long-off descendants.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
        What would they say if they were here right now??

        Probably, "Get off my lawn!!"

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by elrous0 ( 869638 ) *
        They would probably become lawyers...unfrozen cavemen lawyers whose noble words would ring every bit as true today as they did in their own time.

        • They would probably become lawyers...unfrozen cavemen lawyers whose noble words would ring every bit as true today as they did in their own time.
          Cavemen lawyers?

          So much for "Noble savages"...
    • I hear they tried to, but a discrepancy with the units used to measure the thing set in string an unfortunate chain of events. The band built a model of stonehenge to practice to, but in doing so unlocked the inner dark magic of stonehenge, unleashing an army of angry dwarves that devoured the drummer. The band were quoted as saying they would feel worse if they weren't sedated, but nonetheless could not go on to do the soundtrack.

  • The BBC andTimewatch are running this bigtime (Score:4, Informative)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:38PM (#22927766) Homepage Journal
    I know, it's the evil site [kuro5hin.org], but you'll find every link I could find from the Timewatch team and the BBC. The Timewatch website gets daily podcats from the dig and hourly news bulletins, so this is no minor event.

    • Just saw... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      The Grauniad [guardian.co.uk] has an excellent description of the dig and what they expect to find. Knowing they are making such a small dig and that holes are involved likely means they used GPR to sweep the area and find sections of ground that were clearly disturbed in ancient times and were about the right size and depth.
      • Many of yesterday's finds are believed to have been the remains left from a 1920s excavation, making establishing context hard. They have also found one piece of possibly shaped blue granite and evidence of flint knapping. Flint knapping may go along with the idea of a medical centre, as shaped flint (as others have pointed out in this discussion) is comparable to surgical steel and easy to sterilize. I'm not seeing any mention of quern stones, which is interesting. (Quern stones are heat-crazed, superheate

  • They're going to find the plans (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:39PM (#22927776)
    Drawn on an ancient napkin...

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by dkleinsc ( 563838 )
      Except that they'll find that the original plans called for stones 36" tall rather than 36'.

  • How Many Date Nuts in a Bowl? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Prius ( 1170883 ) on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:42PM (#22927794) Journal
    I didn't know you could actually get the 'exact date' it was built. I bet they built it on a thursday. Not monday, because nobody wants to do any serious work after the weekend. I know I don't. Not tuesday because that's Take Your Kid to Work day, so they can only make little Stonehenges. Maybe Woodhenges. Then they spend all wednesday cleaning up after the kids and deciding never to do that again (even though they always have another one). On friday, everyone leaves early so they can't get yelled at all weekend by their bosses and clubbed to death. And nobody works on Saturday and Sunday. Only crazy people. That just leaves thursday because they eventually get guilty about not doing any work and decide to do something.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      If they do isotope dating, there might possibly be enough material to get to within a few years. In other cases, although they don't know what year Silsbury Hill was made, they do know it was made in August (due to a specific larval stage in insects found in the chalk.)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by rts008 ( 812749 )
        Was climate/seasonal differences accounted for when deciding on August?
        I am seriously curious about this.

        Interesting info, thanks!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jd ( 1658 )
          I don't believe so, no. The larvae had wings, and the only month that insect has wings is August, but in all the studying of archaeological texts and English Heritage books, I have not seen any mention of whether climate or seasonal variations could change this. The fact that it doesn't get mentioned suggests either that has been shown not to be a factor - or that you're the first to think of it. My best recommendation is to e-mail English Heritage and find out if they've any record on what studies were don
    • Maybe Woodhenges.

      Woodhenge is about an half-hour to hour walk (past the barrows) roughly to the NE from Stonehenge. There is no wood left (obviously), but brown-painted concrete posts have been placed to replicate the original locations. more... [this-is-amesbury.co.uk]

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by geminidomino ( 614729 ) *
        Of course there was no wood left. Woodhenge suffered the same fate as Strawhenge. Big bad wolf blew them down and three little piggies were relocated into the projects.

        (How this story lasted this long without an Eddie Izzard reference is beyond me)

  • over time (Score:4, Funny)

    by evwah ( 954864 ) on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:52PM (#22927840)
    isn't this a bit simplistic? I imagine that over the thousands of years, it was used for many purposes, built, rebuilt, rearranged, burned down, fell over, THEN sank into the swamp. wait where was I?

  • Stonehenge is overrated (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Centurix ( 249778 ) <centurixNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday March 31, 2008 @11:52PM (#22927842) Homepage
    I lived in Amesbury for a short while (I'd say a stonesthrow away from Stonehenge), Avebury circle is much more interesting, plus it has a pub in the middle with a haunted well. After getting drunk, you can stagger down the road to Silbury hill and fall asleep at the top.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      I believe the more prosaic description is that if Stonehenge is a church, Avebury is a cathedral. Avebury - two stone avenues, a giant stone circle, two mini stone circles, and an eight-foot-deep, three-quarter-mile-across trench, is an amazing site/sight. If, however, there is an afterlife, I will personally hunt the ghosts of those who shattered the stones at Avebury with fire, and I will be doing such things to them that should be ectoplasmically impossible.

  • "as a place of healing" (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Schraegstrichpunkt ( 931443 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @12:04AM (#22927904) Homepage

    Researchers believe these rocks, brought all the way from Wales, hold the secret to the real purpose of Stonehenge as a place of healing.

    Sounds like they've already made up their minds.

    Of course, this could be bias introduced by the uninformed.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kestasjk ( 933987 )
      It's a hypothesis that they're testing.. Why does everyone on Slashdot think that they know better than the people who spend their free time studying this stuff?
      • Are you serious?

        You must be new here.

        Also, remember this kiddies:

        In Soviet Russia, hypothesis tests YOU!

      • Re:"as a place of healing" (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @01:01AM (#22928168) Homepage Journal
        For 90% of Slashdot, its the reason for being. For Slashdotters familiar with British archaeology, there is also a certain level of malice. Many sites in Britain were plundered for treasure by the profession, destroying much. That's why Silbury Hill needed emergency repairs - the damage was about to destroy the remains. We also remember Woodhenge, whose postholes were pumped with concrete, destroying any archaeological data to be had. We remember Seahenge, where the site was destroyed and then the notes kept secret (so when a fire destroyed the warehouse they were in, the data was lost forever). We remember listed monuments, such as a Napoleonic wall in Derbyshire, being illegally destroyed with English Heritage remaining silent. We remember English Heritage destroying more than a few ancient buildings themselves. We remember the campaign to drive a road underground by Stonehenge, which would have destroyed the very sites they are now uncovering.

        I think, from what I've seen, that this work is competently done. But to trust an archaeologist much beyond that is asking a lot.

        • Re:"as a place of healing" (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anubis350 ( 772791 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @03:41AM (#22928690)
          We remember Seahenge, where the site was destroyed and then the notes kept secret (so when a fire destroyed the warehouse they were in, the data was lost forever)

          Links? All I can find is that English Heritage moved the site, under controversy (mostly, it seems, by modern "druids" who have no connection to whatever religion or culture built the site, and no idea of it's original purpose), to be preserved instead of allowing the sea to destroy it. It was studied, and the findings were published in Nature [bbc.co.uk]. It's going to be open to the public, preservation work now done, this month in Lynn Museum [bbc.co.uk], near the original site.

          So, do you have any proof to this or any other claim, or are you just trolling?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jd ( 1658 )
            Start with this report [bbc.co.uk], and tell me why no backups existed, when even the most juvenile delinquent in modern science has that drummed into them. Then tell me how you leap they should have kept better notes to they should never have excavated. A leap even Superman would envy. We have no contextual information, so any display will be generalized and if it includes the primary timbers (the circle was linked by wooden trails to other wooden circles, some of which were also excavated), those timbers can be place

      • Why does everyone on Slashdot think that they know better than the people who spend their free time studying this stuff?
        I don't think I know better than someone who studies this stuff. I just think the people who study this stuff have very little to go on, and make up a lot of untested (and perhaps untestable) theories.

        It's interesting they're doing some more excavations (though I'm not sure why it wasn't done before). I'm not really certain how it's going to give evidence to this theory one way or anothe

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by p0tat03 ( 985078 )
      Bias is unavoidable. As long as there are other people studying to prove different theories, we'll be fine. Our main trouble would be if everyone unites behind a single theory, then we don't get anywhere unless completely incontrovertible evidence is (accidentally) discovered disproving it.
    • You have to understand that astronomy is central to agriculture. If you get your calendar wrong, you have problems growing things. Hence most ancient agrarian people tended to put a lot of emphasis on astronomy. In Egypt, the year was measured from the rising of Sirius at dusk because this was a good predictive measure of when the Nile would flood.

      The next bit has to do with the sorts of gods one would believe in. Well, if you are agriculturally centric, you have weather, land, the sun, and possibly the
  • Geoffrey of Monmouth's ~1136 book _History of the Kings of Britain_ says that Merlin brought Stonehenge from Ireland [britarch.ac.uk].

    I say that the British just copied an Irish model, instead of schlepping all that rock across the Irish Sea.
  • A bit early maybe?
  • Of course, if you talk to archaeologists, they will tell you that the best evidence about Stonehenge is to be found in the Aubrey Holes. Unfortunately, many of these were destroyed when English Heritage and their 'culture as tourism' friends built the new car park and the underground tunnel. Given the way that the BBC behaves these days, we can expect minimal real research work, with maximal hype. This is a damn shame. Yet more Wiki-Science...
    • AKA "English mindless bureaucracy and cultural vandalism ltd."

      English heritage is the thing we have that, had it existed at the time, would have prevented every single one of our ancient monuments from being built. They also employ people who, not to put too fine a point on it, lie about buildings and monuments in order to get them included in the scope of English Heritage. These are the plonkers who waited till Michael Eavis (he of Pilton Festival fame) had restored the Pilton Tithe Barn, then Grade A list

    • ...
    • And the druids! Long robes, long beards, (early transvestites, didn't get their shaving together).
    • They built Stonehenge, one of the biggest henges in the world.
    • No one's built a henge like that ever since.
    • No one knows what the fuck a henge is.
    • Before Stonehenge there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge.
    • ...
    - Eddie Izzard, Dress to Kill
  • I think Stonehenge was a Neolithic Beer Hall.

    RS

  • I'm being serious. I can't tell. Was this supposed to be dated April 1st?
  • Just from reading the article, it seems that the people who are doing the study have a preconceived notion of what they want to find or will find. And in just two weeks. Is this a science-like fluff piece by the BBC or is this supposed to be a true scientific dig that will be documented by the BBC?

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