6000-Year-Old Tomb Complex Discovered 83
duh P3rf3ss3r writes "National Geographic reports that a 6000-year-old tomb complex on 200 hectares (500 acres) has been discovered on the Salisbury Plain just 24 km (15 miles) from Stonehenge. The site has come as a surprise to the archaeologists who had thought that the area had been studied in such depth that few discoveries of such magnitude remained. The site, fully 1000 years older than Stonehenge, has been called 'Britain's oldest architecture.'"
crop mark != crop circle (Score:3, Insightful)
Given away by strange, crop circle-like formations seen from the air, a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex discovered in southern England has taken archaeologists by surprise.
Umm.. Crop marks [wikipedia.org], not crop circles [wikipedia.org].
Re:crop mark != crop circle (Score:4, Funny)
Umm.. Crop marks, not crop circles.
Oh come on, we all know it's discovery is actually due to all those cameras the UK government has installed on every street corner and in every crop field. Where's my tin foil hat? I need to have it upgraded to platinum to keep out the camera rays and ward off 6000 year old British zombies.
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There's two reasons now to fear the British government!
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Quite right! Two reasons to fear the British government:
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Re:crop mark != crop circle (Score:5, Funny)
...and ward off 6000 year old British zombies.
Or you could just park in the marked bays and buy a ticket so they don't fine you. 6000 year old British zombies are lawful evil and can't write you an infraction unless you break a by-law.
Re:crop mark != crop circle (Score:5, Informative)
Crop marks can indeed be shaped into looking like circles, but they're not the crop circles most people think of.
Yes, these are man-made, but they're certainly not attributed to UFO's, decorative burning, prank helicopter slash-and-burns, or hoaxes of the same sort.
Crop circle-like is an accurate way to describe it. They're not crop circles (per the popular definition), but they are similar. Accordingly, the article is more accurate than it could be if it said "crop circle formations", even if the terminology can be further improved.
Re:crop mark != crop circle (Score:4, Funny)
Good boy! You just keep believing that and let us take care of everything.
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Given away by strange, crop circle-like formations seen from the air, a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex discovered in southern England has taken archaeologists by surprise.
Umm.. Crop marks [wikipedia.org], not crop circles [wikipedia.org].
Amusingly, somebody had already added the Stonehenge discovery as an example on the Wikipedia Crop CIRCLE page. I undid that edit, so you owe me (since I saved you from the embarrassment of linking to sources that contradict your own point of course!) ;)
Re:crop mark != crop circle (Score:5, Funny)
We have this cool feature of the English language call the simile. With this simile, we can describe the features of an object by comparing it to another, unrelated object.
Example:
Joe is so strong, he is like an ox.
In this example, Joe clearly has no actual relation to an ox (we hope), however comparing him to an ox relates a charactaristic of Joe's, his strength, with a charactaristic easily noted when one looks at an ox - oxen are very strong compared to humans. This simile does not even imply that Joe's strength is equal to that of an ox, in this example hyperbole (more on that in another lesson) or exageration is used to highlight the quality of Joe that is being described.
In the example of the summary, they use simile by saying "crop circle-like" to describe what the formations look like. This does not imply that these formations ARE crop circle markings, in fact, the use of simile could actually imply that they are NOT the same thing. Had they simply said "crop circle", they would have either been incredibly inacturate or really, really bad at using metaphore (similar to simile, but not covered in this lesson).
In other words, you're an idiot.
Surprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they believed a few remained, why are they so surprised to find one of them?
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Oh the subtleties of the english language.
Well said sir!
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and one fewer now...
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If they believed a few remained, why are they so surprised to find one of them?
It's a figure of speech. If lots of them remained, they would not have been surprised. But few remained, therefore they were surprised. Seriously, how hard was that?
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Only for certain small values of funny.
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"If they believed a few remained, why are they so surprised to find one of them?"
BECAUSE only a few remain. D'oh!
If there are only a few lottery tickets with a top prize, and you drew one, would you describe your condition as 'surprised'? Or would you say that statistically it had to be drawn so this is not an unusual event....
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Linky [diffen.com].
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A large amount of excavation, study, exposure and seismic investigation into the greater Stonehenge area, has occurred for hundreds of years. In the 80's some groups were taking readings all over the place looking for the source of the stone that may have been long-buried, IIRC. Finding a previously undiscovered, massively large, underground structure, so close to Stonehenge now, is surprising.
Hello Cleveland! (Score:5, Funny)
Performed By Britian's Loudest Band
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In ancient times...
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people... the Druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
But their legacy remains
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Surprise? (Score:1, Funny)
6000 year old tomb complex... has come as a surprise to the archaeologists
And even more of a surprise to the young-earth creationists. WE'VE FOUND THE TOMBS OF ADAM AND EVE, EVERYONE!!!!11!!122!
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Nah only Cane and Able.
Wow. (Score:1, Offtopic)
This is Spinal Tap is on IFC Canada RIGHT. NOW.
If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.
British histroy is now complete. (Score:5, Funny)
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Careful, or someone will fetch the Comfy Chair!
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That's more true than you think, for contemporary archaeologists.
Ever wonder why anything they find is a "tomb", "ritual site" or "burial site" if it demonstrates even the least bit of architectural complexity and it's older than (say) 3,000 years old? IE, it couldn't possibly have served a functionality beyond some primitive goal, because people back then couldn't possibly have been technologically/intellectually advanced to achieve such a goal! The Giza pyramid is a perfect example of this: despite having
google maps link (Score:5, Informative)
Here it is on Google Maps... you can see a faint circle where the mound is located.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=damerham&sll=38.892091,-77.024055&sspn=0.487938,1.045761&ie=UTF8&ll=50.937232,-1.873689&spn=0.003086,0.00817&t=h&z=18
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And here it is on Bing - with the circles just barely visible: http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?v=2&FORM=LMLTCP&cp=50.937445~-1.874886&style=h&lvl=18&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&phx=0&phy=0&phscl=1&where1=50.937232%2C-1.873689&encType=1 [bing.com]. (You'll have to zoom in.)
Which shows how hard these things are to discover - different light angles and ages and types of crops change the visibility greatly.
I know there are some UK [aerial photography] si
I see no circles (Score:2)
Posted from Firefox 3.5 beta 4
Bing! wins again...
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It works with Firefox 3.5 (I got an update yesterday).
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Link works for me, with Firefox 3.5RC1 (released yesterday).
Try Help -> Check for Updates in Firefox, try again, and post your findings.
Pretty please.
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Heh,
I'm using 3.5b4 as packaged in Fedora 11. Guess what? Are you ready for this? The "Check for updates" menu item is grayed out.
If I hadn't seen it myself I'm not sure I would have believed it but there it is.
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It is because Firefox was installed as by yum. You are most probably running Firefox as a normal user, so you don't have permissions to overwrite installation directory - hence the grayed out option.
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It is because Firefox was installed as root by yum. You are most probably running it as a normal user, so you don't have permissions to overwrite installation directory - hence the grayed out option.
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Sounds like your version of Firefox is broken, as mine works just fine.
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So,
When a website works for everyone else, obviously it's the website that is broken when your browser can't display it correctly.
I think there is a flaw in the logic there, but I'm not sure where...
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Here it is on Google Maps... you can see a faint circle where the mound is located.
Aaaaah, clearly what this guy [google.com.au] is looking for.
(posting anon as I am ashamed of my puerile sense of humour).
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My first though when I pulled up the picture: looks like a water ring from a can left on the picture. ;)
I tried (Score:5, Funny)
I tried to RTFA but when it came time to click on to page two I got distracted by the "Jackass Penguins Freed After Rehab" link. Oh well.
Thoughts.. (Score:1)
"The site has come as a surprise to the archaeologists who had thought that the area had been studied in such depth that few discoveries of such magnitude remained."
Maybe their thoughts are limiting them ...
Re:Thoughts..for instance (Score:1)
"two massive, 6,000-year-old tombs that are among "Britain's first architecture,"
More Giant Circles (Score:3, Interesting)
We'll see what happens...
"I believe I have discovered circles similar to the ones referenced in your article 'Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"'.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090615-stonehenge-tombs-crop-circles_2.html [nationalgeographic.com]
There are two 380-foot diameter circles located at Longitude/Latitude 50.977866,-1.963204
These may be seen at Google maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=50.977866,-1.963204&sll=50.977866,-1.963204&sspn=177.15044,360&ie=UTF8&ll=50.977872,-1.963205&spn=0.01016,0.021865&t=h&z=16&iwloc=A [google.com]
There are variations in the color of vegetation at this site that indicate that there may be other circles as well, of similar size.
There is also a serpentine color variation about 750 feet long and 60 feet wide.
Please forward this to the appropriate researcher."
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Some more of these:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=50.977866,-1.963204&sll=50.977866,-1.963204&sspn=177.15044,360&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=50.954257,-1.975232&spn=0.004731,0.013937&z=17&iwloc=A [google.com]
I wonder what they are, even if theyÂre not more 6,000 year old structures.
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Here are more strange markings [google.com]. Clearly these ancient marks were made by sun worshipers - note how the lines radiate out from a central 'bright' area. Also note how there are 20 segments - clearly a nod to the ancient Mesopotamians who were enamored with the number 60 (and sub-multiples thereof).
Notice how animals are attracted to the 'tombs' - perhaps they are the descendants of ancient sacrificial animals bred specifically for that purpose and somehow retain a genetic memory of their fate.
Oh, and in case
Hyperbole (Score:5, Interesting)
This is hyperbole from National Geographic. Calling the structures 'tombs' in the title implies it's an underground complex, which it wasn't. This is the remains of Neolithic barrows, which the countryside around Stonehenge is completely covered in. These barrows that have just been discovered are only the remains too, where-as there are innumerable surviving barrows all over that area of countryside, and in many many places all over Britain.
Pete Boyd
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Anyway, the bodies ARE buried under ground. The ground is piled up over the tombs. Or does grass grow in the air ?
THESE ARE ...!
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I was saying that the 'tombs' aren't there any more, so they haven't _found_ tombs. They've found where tombs used to be.
I agree that I was wrong to read National Geographic's description as there being existing underground tombs.
But you're wrong to say the bodies are underground. Though you'd be right to say the bodies are under some ground, but that's not the meaning of the word 'underground' in English. The barrows are made of stone and in this case wood and the bodies placed within them, where there are
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No, I'm correcting what you said. Do you need me to spoon feed you the reason ?
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I'm curious why there's all this evidence of barrows (a type of tomb, in a sense) but none of the supposed living quarters of these people. Why is that, do you suppose? Maybe these were not "ceremonial buildings" but actual living quarters and they (like many a people group) buried their deceased nearby?
Aquila (Score:1)
I wonder if they found the buried space ship [wikipedia.org].
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Aw man, now you have me wikipediaing old childhood shows. I remember watching that.
Zombies (Score:1)
Great... 28 days later...
Britain is Freaky (Score:3, Funny)
In the U.S., we know how to handle an ancient burial ground properly: bulldoze it flat, then build a Wal-Mart on top of what's left.
StoneHenge Barrow (Score:1)
Yup... I already visited thoses mines, near the StoneHenge in Salisbury Plain... :D
No good loot, just a few beast to kill...
http://blog.danielgovier.com/wp-content/gallery/2002_February/DAoC_022202_1.jpg [danielgovier.com]
Re:Britain is Freaky (Score:4, Funny)
You think that's freaky?? Clearly you've never been in the basement at Wal-Mart.
Call in SG-1 (Score:2)
I'm surprised there has not been a Stargate SG-1 reference to Merlin's tomb yet. Isn't that an eerie coincidence?
6000 ? how about 12.000 ? check this out (Score:2)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe [wikipedia.org]
this region was a religious center BEFORE mankind domesticated wheat. one of the stunning things about this place is, they think that wheat was very probably domesticated here, because nearby wild grain dna is the closest to the dna of the modern wheat we use. this is probably the place where farming started.