Miniature Stonehenge Discovered In Wiltshire, UK 152
CmdrGravy weighs in with exciting archaeological news, "one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades" according to the article: a miniature Stonehenge a mile from the famous site. "Bluehenge," as the find is being called because of the assumed color of its (now-missing) stones, is believed to have been put up around the time of Stonehenge, 5,000 years ago. "All that remains of the 60-ft.-wide Bluehenge are the holes of 27 giant stones set on a ramped mount. Chips of blue stone found in the holes appear to be identical to the blue stones used in Stonehenge. The four-ton monsters, made of Preseli Spotted Dolerite — a chemically altered igneous rock harder than granite — were mined in the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire and then rolled, dragged, and floated the 200 miles to the site on the banks of the Avon in Wiltshire."
Re:What do you mean, the "actual" piece? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://stylemens.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/30/stone_h_2.jpg [typepad.com]
Re:Recent Stonehenge Excavations (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to have started on 'aristocrat', gone via 'edwardian mill-owner' and ended up on 'hackney carriage driver'.
Yes, alas, a lot of Americans don't seem to grasp that there are many quite different British accents. It all gets lumped into one non-existent "British accent", presumably spoken by aristocratic Scottish chimney sweeps born to the sound of the Bow Bells in Victorian-era Calcutta, growing up as Oxford educated street urchins in the back-alleys of Serbiton and eventually settling down in the East End of Cardiff.
Re:Henges? (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for the henge references - I shall seek them out on my next trip to Europe!
enjoy - there's lots to see! :)
i might be wrong, but here in the UK the biggest concentration of neolithic sites is generally understood to be in the Wiltshire area [wikipedia.org] - that's where you'll find Stonehenge (and its 'complex' / associated sites) and also Avebury and its 'complex' including Silbury Hill (plus lots of minor sites which are still interesting) - but there are also a lot of stone circles and henges in various parts of Scotland too.
personally i'd like to see the stuff in France like the awesome stone rows at Carnac - which are not just fascinating, they're truly mind boggling to comprehend imo!!
to be honest, sites that are simple henges - such as Thornborough in Yorkshire (which is undoubtedly of great significance), and many many others, aren't actually that interesting to visit - the more interesting sites are those which also feature standing stones. Avebury (and the sites in the surrounding area) is truly amazing - the henge is hundreds of meters across, and contains the whole village, pub and all! the stones are pretty huge, and the earthworks / bank and ditch is much bigger than that at Stonehenge - imo Stonehenge is only more impressive because of the trilithon arrangement of the stones. Silbury Hill (near Avebury) is (i believe) the largest man-made hill in Europe! - of course no one knows what it was for...
be sure to check out the recent 'Time Team' TV programme's episodes on Stonehenge (and indeed any of their other episodes on neolithic/prehistoric sites) which i linked to in another post of mine [slashdot.org] - hopefully you can still watch these from the US and they've not limited viewing to the UK only.
there's a wikipedia page on henges [wikipedia.org] - though you've likely already seen that if you followed links from the pages i've already linked?
(btw, i'm not after mod points - i already have excellent slashdot karma, and have had for years - i'm just providing this info because this is something that i'm truly interested in)
have fun! :)