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History's Hinge - 'Ain Jalut

[Administration]

Stonehenge Solstices 2002-2005
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/6AcCdaOB2ac" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/6AcCdaOB2ac</a>

[Administration]

BBC Newsnight report on the Battle of the Beanfield. Stonehenge 1985
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/tSuPqJnhWuA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/tSuPqJnhWuA</a>

[Bart]

Lynn News

East Anglia - 13 December 2006

4,000-year-old Seahenge to rise again ? but not until 2008

     CONSERVATION work on the Seahenge wooden circle is continuing apace ? but it will be at least a year before the Bronze Age monument will be on display in Lynn.




     Pieces of Seahenge, the mysterious Bronze Age monument uncovered on the beach at Holme in 1998, will be renovated and transported to Lynn Museum over the next few months, where a permanent display will be painstakingly created for them.

     The 4,000-year-old structure was uncovered by waves on the beach at Holme in 1998, sparking frenzied interest from the archaeological community.
In 1999 the pieces were excavated and preserved before they were handed to the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth for conservation, with the ultimate aim of putting them on display in Lynn.

     The pieces chosen to go on display in Lynn Museum are currently being removed from a waxy substance called peg, which holds the wood fibres together.
Over the next two or three months they will be freeze-dried to remove any remaining water, before they are cleaned by experts and transported to Lynn Museum.
Robin Hanley, area museums manager for West Norfolk, said staff will spend the following six months painstakingly creating mounts and supports for the individual pieces.
He said: "It is a slow and complicated process, and one which there is no value in rushing."
Work on creating the Seahenge display will not begin until work on The Story of West Norfolk display is complete.

     Half the museum will be closed after Christmas, and work carried out on the historical journey from the Iron Age to present day. It is expected to be complete by September.
When the display is up and running the other half of the museum will close, allowing work to begin on the Seahenge display.

     Mr Hanley said: "We hope to be able to allow people to see work on the Seahenge display going on for themselves." The display will also include audio tours of the gallery and animations illustrating the process of landscape change, which have been funded by a ?65,000 of Government money.

     He said: "We hope it will be open to the public by the start of January 2008, but we have to be flexible with the timing."

[Solomon]

Flag Fen
BRITAIN'S BRONZE AGE CENTRE   Peterborough | England
Seahenge - ancient wooden circle
Please Note: The Seahenge timbers are now being conserved in Portsmouth by the Link to Mary Rose Trust Mary Rose Trust
to ensure that they will be preserved for the future.

In the Spring of 1998 a circle of prehistoric timbers, exposed by the receding tide, was found projecting from the sands at Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. The site, soon to become known as 'Seahenge', would prove to be the most remarkable controversial and highly publicised archaeological find in Britain for many years.

Seahenge
Seahenge or Holme I is the name of a Bronze Age monument discovered in 1998 just off the coast of the English county of Norfolk at Holme-next-the-Sea. It is sometimes described as a timber circle but bears only an ostensible resemblance to this monument type.

Description of the site
The site consisted of an outer ring comprising fifty-five small split oak trunks forming a roughly circular enclosure around 7m by 6m. Rather than being placed in individual holes, the timbers had been arranged around a circular construction trench. Their split sides faced inwards and their bark faced outwards (with one exception where the opposite is the case). One of the trunks on the south western side had a narrow Y fork in it, permitting access to the central area. Another post had been placed outside this entrance, which would have prevented anyone from seeing inside. The timbers were set in ground to a depth of 1m from the contemporary surface although how far they originally extended upwards is not known. In the centre of the ring was a large inverted oak stump.

It is possible to date the creation of Seahenge very accurately through dendrochronology since the rings on the trees can be correlated with other overlapping tree ring variations; the date of felling the oaks was found to have been in the spring or summer of 2049 BC. The upturned central tree stump was 167 years old when it was felled. Between 16 and 26 different trees were used in building the monument with palynological evidence suggesting they came from nearby woodland. Analysis of axe marks on the timbers indicates that at least 51 different axes were used in working the timbers. The largest axe was used to cut the central tree and not any of the other timbers. The excavators interpret each unique axe as representing a different individual, and thus consider it likely that Seahenge was a community endeavour. Holes in the central stump indicate that it was pulled onto site by rope. Pieces of the rope, made from honeysuckle stems, were found under the stump.

Discovery
The site was discovered because of the actions of the tide on Holme Dunes, which is gradually wearing away the peat layers to reveal the landscapes laid down many thousands of years ago. In this instance the wooden posts and stump had been preserved in the peat and were revealed at low tides. Since the entire structure had been in an anaerobic waterlogged state for several thousand years, the logs had survived with little damage. In the early Bronze Age, the site was probably a saltmarsh environment, between the sea and the forest before the ocean encroached to form the modern coastline. Tidal action had scoured away overlying sediment which had built up in the intervening centuries revealing the timbers for the first time since prehistory.

Exposure to the air put the timbers at immediate risk; as the seawater which has slowly seeped into the timber over time began to drain away, it left the wood to dry out and crumble. Local archaeologists from the Norfolk Archaeological Unit and volunteers worked in the exhausting intertidal conditions to conserve and record the site.

Purpose
There is no evidence of activity at Seahenge in the centuries after it was built, and its purpose is consequently unknown. However, the presence of Middle and Late Bronze Age pottery at the site suggests that it became a focal point again several centuries after construction.

Theories about the site have focused on the idea of inversion, as represented by the upside-down central tree stump and the single post turned 180 degrees from the others within the circle itself. The theme of inversion has been noticed in some Early Bronze Age burials. Not all the split posts can be accounted for and it has been suggested that another structure was built nearby using them.

Seahenge is so named by analogy with Stonehenge and, rather like Carhenge in the United States of America, does not possess an extant henge and appears to have had little functionally in common with its namesake. The contemporary ground surface associated with the monument has long since been washed away meaning no associated features survive and the silt Seahenge stood in when found considerably predates the timber circle.

Controversy
Most archaeological excavations in Britain do not attract much public attention or controversy but Seahenge became the subject of a very public debate. The photogenic and ephemeral nature of the location attracted national media attention. Some people objected to the excavation ? some local people felt they had not been consulted about the fate of part of their local heritage and that it should be left alone, complaining that Seahenge would most likely be transported to London where it would be displayed, out of its local context, in the British Museum. Although the precise function of the site is unknown, some neo-Druids objected on religious grounds; and some people were not aware that the circle was really at risk from the sea. A great many people were attracted to the site to see it, or to protest, and the presence of such large numbers in themselves contributed further to the risk of damaging the site.

The Seahenge case has demonstrated several contentious subjects in the field of heritage management. Issues such as the views of local people and other interested groups compared with the aims of academia and the decisions that have to be made over what to preserve and what to leave to nature have had to be tackled by the archaeologists and government agencies connected with the site.

Preservation
In 1999, English Heritage arranged for the wood to be transported 50 miles to Flag Fen near Peterborough, where it was continually soaked in wax-impregnated water to slowly (over years) replace the cellulose in the wood with wax. It was later transferred to Portsmouth where maritime archaeology experts at the Mary Rose Trust continued the programme at their purpose-built site. When this conservation work is complete, it is hoped to recreate Seahenge near its original site, at the rebuilt Lynn Museum in King's Lynn when it opens in 2007.

Holme II
One hundred metres east, an older ring of two concentric timber circles surrounding a hurdle lined pit containing two oak logs has also been found. Known as Holme II, it dates to the centuries before Holme I (c. 2400-2030 BC) although the two sites may have been in use together. Although also threatened with destruction by the sea, this site has been left in situ and exposed to the tidal actions of the sea. Archaeologists have suggested that this decision by English Heritage relates to the controversy over digging Holme I.

The wooden 'henge' rescued from the sea off the Norfolk coast
Seahenge
29 December 1999

In the spring of 2050 BCE, a huge oak tree was felled and its stump upturned and half-buried on a site near to what is now Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. The following year, a number of smaller oaks were felled and cut into 56 posts, which were arranged in a circle around the central stump. The Bronze-Age monument, hailed by some modern archaeologists as among the most exciting ever discovered, could have formed some kind of ceremonial site, perhaps with special astronomical or other significance. Alternatively, it has been proposed that it could have been a place of 'excarnation', where bodies were laid out after death to hasten the process of decomposition and speed the spirit on its way to the afterlife.


Panoramic photograph ? Steve Shearn

Both the circle and the people who built it were long forgotten before the land on which it stood became submerged by the sea. Its existence had vanished even from folk memory until, almost 4,000 years after its construction, the shifting sands off the East Anglian coast moved again to reveal its presence. 'Seahenge', as the monument was to become known, turned into a minor archaeological cause c?l?bre as Druids and modern-day pagans organised sit-in protests against English Heritage's decision to remove and preserve it.

Agreement was eventually reached over the future of the 'henge' and, in the summer of 1999, it was finally recorded and removed to the Flag Fen Bronze Age Centre, near Peterborough. There, as well as being preserved, the ancient timbers were subjected to detailed dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) and carbon-dating techniques. It was from these that such a precise date could be arrived at for the felling of the trees that make up the Seahenge circle. The tree rings gave three possible dates, which were narrowed down to just one ? 2050 BCE ? after statistical comparisons with a series of carbon dating tests. The time of year ? between April and June ? was obtained by an examination of the final growth ring of the main stump, which showed that the tree had been felled in the spring.

Time Team's visit to Seahenge helped cast some fresh light on the circle, the people who built it and the techniques they used. It included the construction of a modern replica, which it is hoped will be found a home in the area permanently. As the first Bronze-Age monument that has ever been precisely dated, Seahenge provided an exciting special venture for the Team.

[Solomon]

I remember the excavation of this quite well. It is always fun to race the tide. 

For some odd reason, many of my experiences with archaelogy have involved water. There was the Roman trench in Cambridge, which we had to abandon because the sides were collapsing as we were pumping water out, and the director was nervous as on his previous dig, the sides had collapsed, killing an archeologist. My first dig as director was of a Saxon Shore fort that was half in the sea. Then there was Malta, followed by the South China Sea. Back in England, I dug into gravel beds on the Thames' south bank. My last experience, in 2005, was situated on a small island with a high water table.


Project II of History Hunters is on terrain with an exceptionally-high water table, also in the Fens. Good that I grew up as familiar with water as a fish.


Panoramic photograph ? Steve Shearn

Techniques similar to those used on Henry VIII's warship the Mary Rose will preserve the finger posts and the central, up-turned tree stump 'altar'.

The parallels with that example of maritime archaeology are good.

Solomon

[Diving Doc]

Tue Jan 30, 6:46 PM ET

WASHINGTON - A village of small houses that may have sheltered the builders of the mysterious Stonehenge ? or people attending festivals there ? has been found by archaeologists studying the stone circle in England. Eight of the houses, with central hearths, have been excavated, and there may be as many as 25 of them, Mike Parker Pearson said Tuesday at a briefing organized by the .

The ancient houses are at a site known as Durrington Walls, about two miles from Stonehenge. It is also the location of a wooden version of the stone circle.

The village was carbon dated to about 2600 B.C., about the same time Stonehenge was built. The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built at about the same time, said Parker Pearson of Sheffield University.

Julian Thomas of Manchester University noted that both Stonehenge and Durrington Walls have avenues connecting them to the Avon River, indicating a pattern of movement between the sites.

"Clearly, this is a place that was of enormous importance," he said of the new find.

The researchers speculated that Durrington Walls was a place for the living and Stonehenge ? where cremated remains have been found ? was a cemetery and memorial.

The wooden houses at the new site were square and about 14 feet along each side. They were almost identical to stone houses built at about the same time in the Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland, Parker Pearson said.

He said there were indications of bed frames along the side walls and of a dresser or storage unit of some sort on the wall opposite the door.

Stone tools, animal bones, arrowheads and other artifacts were uncovered in the village. Remains of pigs indicated they were about nine months old when killed, which would mark a midwinter festival.

Stonehenge was oriented to face the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset, while the wooden circle at Durrington Walls faced the midwinter sunrise and midsummer sunset.

Two of the houses, found by Thomas, were separate from the others and may have been the dwellings of community leaders or perhaps were cult houses used for religious rituals. Those sites lacked the debris and household trash that was common in the other homes, he noted.

Durrington appears "very much a place of the living," Parker Pearson said. In contrast, no one ever lived at the stone circle at Stonehenge, which was the largest cemetery in Britain of its time. Stonehenge is thought to contain 250 cremations.

The research was supported by the National Geographic Society, Arts & Humanities Research Council, English Heritage and Wessex Archaeology.

Stonehenge Riverside Project:

[Solomon]

Durrington Walls - An Overview
Durrington Walls is a massive circular earthwork, or henge, about 500 metres in diameter (nearly 1/3 mile), located north of Woodhenge. Despite having been much damaged by ploughing and cut through by the A345 road, its tall banks are still visible.

It was built in the Neolithic period (around 3100-2400BC). Excavations in 1967 revealed two circular timber structures and vast quantities of animal bones which could indicate that feasting took place there.

It has been suggested that Durrington Walls fell into disuse as a ritual centre when the stone circle was built at Stonehenge.
Pity the piece makes no attempt to put the elements of the story into a historical context. Stone henge, wood henge, houses, builders...


A conjectural plan of Durrington Walls and Woodhenge, showing the third entrance towards Woodhenge.

The Stonehenge Riverside Project: New Approaches to Durrington Walls
A project directed by Mike Parker Pearson
Durrington Walls and Woodhenge
A conjectural plan of Durrington Walls and Woodhenge, showing the third entrance towards Woodhenge.

Stonehenge may not usually be thought of as a 'riverside' site but its link to the River Avon via the Avenue, (together with the presence upsteam of the monument complex of Woodhenge and Durrington Walls) highlights a stretch of river which could have had significance as a funerary and processional route in the Later Neolithic.

Our work in 2003 has focused on the upstream end of this riverside at Durrington Walls - Britain's largest known henge. One of the entrances of Durrington Walls faces southeast towards the river and we wanted to find out whether it too had an 'avenue' linking the monument to the river.

While the first season of work produced few concrete results, it did produce many unanswered questions. We do not know for certain whether there was a ceremonial avenue linking the henge enclosure to the river. Nor can we yet be absolutely sure about the third and putative fourth entrance to the monument. Equally, the link to the Larkhill 'panopticon' - and the significance of that hill as a viewpoint - may be purely fortuitous. Yet these uncertainties ought to be resolvable though co-ordinated survey and excavation.

As well as tackling these issues we will, within the wider view, also hope to clarify the extent to which the Later Neolithic symbolic and processional axis - from Larkhill through Durrington Walls and southwards along the river to the Avenue and Stonehenge - represents a major re-ordering of an Earlier Neolithic east-west axis along the cursus.


Durrington Walls - Clues from Bones

Late Neolithic pottery and worked flint have been found within Durrington Walls. The bones of wild pigs and cattle were found in the outer ditch together with 57 deer antlers most probably used for its construction.

Inside the circular earthwork, domesticated pig and cattle bones were discovered in very specific places. Remains were discovered in holes dug to hold the upright posts, rubbish dumps and at a raised platform area that may have had a special use for rituals.

[Solomon]

Stonehenge Builders' Village Found

A prehistoric village has been discovered in southern England that was likely home to the builders of Stonehenge, archaeologists announced in January 30, 2007.

The village, located 1.75 miles (2.8 kilometers) from the famous stone circle, includes eight wooden houses dated back to around 2500 B.C.

The remains of a cluster of homes include the outlines of floors, beds, and cupboards. Tools, jewelry, pottery, and human and animal bones were also found.

The excavated houses formed part of a much bigger settlement dating back to the Late Stone Age, according to project leader Mike Parker Pearson of England's Sheffield University.

"We could have many hundreds of houses here," Parker Pearson added. "Our dates for the building of Stonehenge are identical to the dates for this very large settlement."

The village stood next to a newly revealed stone avenue, partly visible in the excavation ditch at top right, which once led from a large timber circle to the nearby River Avon.

The site was excavated in 2006 as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.

[Bart]

I love this Prices' enthusiasm, but his methods of conclusions may need to be watched. 

- Bart

Feb 20 2007
 
Sam Burson, Western Mail
 
   A MISSING stone which could be an integral part of rituals at Stonehenge may have been discovered by a Welsh archaeologist.

   Dennis Price, pictured below, who has done years of research on the mysterious stone structure, believes he has tracked down a previously lost altar stone, identified during one of the first studies of the site in the 17th century.

   He is convinced it is now in two pieces on either side of a road in a Wiltshire village, just a couple of miles from Stonehenge itself.

   Mr Price, who is from Monmouthshire, and now based in Exeter, has studied the archaeology of Stonehenge for years, and in 2003 filmed the excavation of the graves of the Welsh Boscombe Bowmen who helped build Stonehenge.

   He believes the stones found used to be the altar stone which was named and described by 17th century architect Inigo Jones.


   Jones, one of his era's most prominent architects, was the first person known to have carried out detailed measurements of Stonehenge. He did so in 1620.


   Now Price, 47, says he can account for the altar stone's history.


   The stones are made of Jurassic limestone - found in Dorset and the Cotswolds, but not locally. It is known not all stones used in Stonehenge were Welsh Preseli bluestone.


   And the stones, if put together, would look remarkably similar to one in a Victorian woodcut picture he has acquired. Price believes the stone was taken from the site in the Victorian era, when such raids were commonplace.


   He said, "We have a woodcut of an easily carved stone with a distinctive shape being cut in two at Stonehenge, and we have accounts of a curious altar stone as described by Inigo Jones being transported to somewhere called St James. We have drawn a blank at the Palace of St James, but when we look at the nearby village of Berwick St James, we find two standing stones that once formed two bridges across a stream, and if we mentally reunite the parts, they bear an uncanny resemblance to the stone in the woodcut.


   "There is always the possibility, however remote, that a few centuries ago, someone trekked either to Dorset or to the Cotswolds and back again with two ungainly and extremely heavy pieces of stone to make two bridges across a small stream in a tiny village in Wiltshire, while ignoring the established and well-documented practice of retrieving perfectly suitable stone from Stonehenge, just a few miles north."


   He added, "On the balance of probabilities, there can be little doubt that Inigo Jones's fabled and once-lost altar stone from Stonehenge now stands in two pieces in a nearby village either side of a small lane, in plain view of anyone who wishes to inspect them. There can also be little if any doubt that our ancestors went to great pains to select this stone and to transport it from either Dorset or the Cotswolds to Stonehenge, where it formed an integral part of the ancient observances and ceremonies there over four thousand years ago."


   Dr Julie Gardiner from Wessex Archaeology, a leading authority on Stonehenge, said many stones had been taken from the site.


   She said, "Lots have been broken up and taken away, especially by the Victorians." She added one "altar stone" was already accounted for, but admitted there could be more.


   Dr Gardiner said, "There is a stone called the altar stone, which is still at the site. It's under a larger stone and would have been knocked over when it fell.


   "But a lot of stones have been removed, and may have been given any number of names."


A brief history of Stonehenge


8,000BC - Before the stones themselves were in place, a wooden structure had been erected nearby.


3,000BC - A series of ditches and timber circles were created, possibly for cremations.


2,600BC - Stone first used, with about 43 huge rocks


1,600BC - Last known construction at Stonehenge.


1620 - Inigo Jones carries out a study, concluding that it was a Roman temple.


1640 - John Aubrey declares that it was druids who built Stonehenge.


January, 2007 - Archaeologists discover what could be an ancient village near Stonehenge.

[Bart]

Stonehenge - secrets of the builders being revealed

4 April 2007

Latest archaeology from Stonehenge provides a glimpse of its builders

   It is a paradox that the further we move in time away from a pre-historical event (that is before the appearance of contemporary written records) that the more we learn about the facts of that pre-historical event says our BNP culture correspondent.

   Victorian scholars believed that the great stone circle on Salisbury Plain was once a druidic temple. Researchers in the mid to late 20th century proven beyond doubt that Stonehenge was built 2000 years before the first druid stepped foot in Wiltshire. Today's researchers are uncovering much more than the previous generation of archeologists.

   Now a new find just yards from the Stonehenge site reveals the complex and highly organized society that our own ancestors had created - a degree of complexity ill at odds with the myth of lux orientalis the myth perpetrated throughout the past 300 years that all civilisations and all civilizing influences arose from the East.

   The amazing find unveiled in the past 24 hrs at Durrington is of a settlement thought to have housed the builders of the monument, and was an important ceremonial site in its own right, hosting feasts and celebrations.

   Excavations also offer new evidence that a timber circle and a vast earthwork where the village once stood were linked to Stonehengevia road, river, and ritual.

   Together, the sites were part of a much larger religious complex, the archaeologists suggest. Excavations revealed the remains of eight wooden buildings. Surveys of the landscape have identified up to 30 more dwellings, the site's chief archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson said, but it is possible that hundreds more houses could be uncovered.

   The initial stone circle at Stonehengethe so called sarsen stoneshas been radiocarbon-dated to between 2600 and 2500 B.C.

   The dates for the village are "exactly the same time, in radiocarbon terms, as for the building of the sarsens," Parker Pearson added.

   Six of the houses so far unearthed measured about 250 square feet each and had wooden walls and clay floors. Fireplaces and furniture such as cupboards and beds could be discerned from their outlines in the earth, Parker Pearson said.

   Our BNP correspondent reminds us that the great henge itself is almost certainly a giant calendar on the landscape with the stones aligned with the summer solstice sunrise and the winter solstice sunset - a remarkable feat of engineering, mathematics and organisation of labour suggesting a highly evolved community. It is also believed that Stonehenge had an important role to play in the funeral arrangements of the Neolithic community.

   Stonehenge archaeologist Joshua Pollard, of Bristol University says "Stonehenge is remarkable for the sheer quantity of human remains buried there."

   Manchester University's Julian Thomas is less sure about the exact nature of the ritualistic connection between Durrington and Stonehenge. But he said that their complementary relationship and connection to the River Avon is "immensely important. Rather than just focusing on Stonehenge as something in isolation, "we're seeing the way in which it relates to a whole landscape."

   The BNP culture correspondent adds: 'We are literally only scratching the surface of what lies inches below the soil and each find gives weight to the advanced civilization our ancestors were carving out of the early British landscape. It is our policy to combine greater research into the roots of our nation with education, to re-connect people with their roots, as well as to increase the protection currently afforded to our national monuments and places of cultural and historic importance. It is our duty to investigate our nation's rich and largely hidden, treasure house of antiquities whilst, at the same time, to preserve them for the benefit of future generations.

http://www.pr-inside.com/stonehenge-secrets-of-the-builders-r82154.htm

[Bart]

By Craig Childs - February 16, 2007

Architectural relics and modern structures show that we may not be much different than our ancestors.

   ARCHEOLOGISTS recently discovered what appears to be the other half of Stonehenge, illuminating what they believe is a much larger Neolithic complex than has long been envisioned. What is coming to the surface seems strangely familiar. Looking closely at Stonehenge and other Neolithic sites, we find the formative patterns of our modern world.

    Step out of your house and you might notice your street is fixed on a cardinal grid: north, south, east, west. This pattern defines many American and European cities, as well as Neolithic sites such as Anyang in China and the Mexican city of Teotihuacan.

   The new discovery, two miles from Stonehenge itself, is an elaborate residential compound now being excavated. It is a site where the builders of Stonehenge may have lived and where pilgrims may have stayed while attending feasts and ceremonies. Fascinating tidbits have been unearthed: a timber version of Stonehenge, evidence of different kinds of occupations in the 4,600-year-old village and a processional "road" leading to the nearby Avon River. These finds add to the picture of an enigmatic Neolithic religion, in which stone-paved roads are aligned with celestial features and great circles frame the rising and setting sun at key times of the year.

   This all has an uncanny resemblance to Neolithic sites in different parts of the world. The Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, dating back several hundred years, is a complex celestial calendar, its 28 spokes of aligned stones pointing to risings and settings of the sun and various stars. This medicine wheel, in turn, is similar to the Nonakado Stone Circle of Japan, from the 1st millennium BC, where standing stones mark important, calendrical events on the horizon.

   My friend and colleague, Kim Malville, recently discovered an Egyptian Stonehenge in the Sahara dating back more than 6,000 years. Malville believes that it acted as both a calendar and a temple for people living along the edge of an ancient lake, and it is the oldest known megalithic site in the world.

   My personal favorite Stonehenge look-alike ? at least in concept ? is in northern New Mexico, where in the 11th century, the Chaco culture built hundreds of miles of processional "roads." Rather than rings of giant standing stones, the Chacoans erected enormous masonry temples known as great houses. Many of these great houses are aligned to view celestial events through portals and windows.

   Looking at the way ancient people assembled themselves, archeologists see cults and primitive, celestial religions. But how primitive were these people's beliefs, and how different from them are we?

   I once ambled around the Colorado Capitol in Denver with a compass and notebook in hand. I had come to a modern landmark to apply the same questions we had been asking at ancient sites. I found that every aspect of the building's neoclassical architecture has alignments you see at many Neolithic ceremonial centers. Every bench is symmetrically arranged around the cruciform building, which is, in turn, set to cardinal directions. It lies within an array of other government buildings and open processionals, each holding to the same cardinal patterns.

   At the Chaco site, certain ruins were found swept clean, while nearby buildings were loaded with trash. The same thing was just unearthed near Stonehenge: some buildings littered with broken pottery and discarded bones ? what archeologists believe to be the leavings of feasts and pilgrimage ? and others remarkably clean.

   Julian Thomas of the University of Manchester commented that these clean rooms near Stonehenge may have belonged to special people, chiefs or priests. He also suggested that they were possibly shrines and cult centers.

   That day in Denver, tens of thousands of people were gathered in an open area at the foot of the Capitol for some kind of weekend fair. The atmosphere boomed with music and smelled of food cooking in numerous tents. What was I seeing? Pilgrims, feasts and cult centers? Were the meticulously kept buildings erected for priests and chiefs?

   The same kind of architecture can be seen in Washington, where countless astronomical alignments are constructed into the Capitol and its surrounding buildings and monuments. Most recently, Gerald Ford joined a long line of presidents whose bodies have lain in state inside the majestic, symmetrical Rotunda. Will future archeologists imagine the worship of ancient leaders whose bodies were kept within circular chambers before burial?

   So often we see ourselves as a lonely, cultural pinnacle, superior beyond all comparison. But if recent excavations at Stonehenge offer anything, they put our era in perspective, reminding us of an unbroken lineage shared across continents and cultures. We are simply an extension of an ancient age, living now in the next lost civilization.

[Diving Doc]

Bart,

I couldn't agree more with your posts. It was only a few months ago that Solomon was telling me from his personal knowledge that Stone Henge was built long before the Druids in spite of all published theory to the contrary.
Then we have the find at Durrington.
I expect that we are about to have another important Neolithic page of history opened for us.
I find it exciting and amazing at the same time.
Cheers,
Doc

[Bart]

Stonehenge Amulets Worn by Elite
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News
April 6, 2007

   Forget dressing for success: Clothing ornaments thought to confer supernatural power were all the rage among chiefs and other important people in England 4,000 years ago, say scholars.

   A recent find indicates some of these fashion trends might have originally been designed by Stonehenge leaders. While working two months ago in South Lowestoft, Suffolk, British archaeologist Clare Good excavated a four-sided object made of the mineral jet. It closely matches a geometrically designed gold object found far away at a burial site called Bush Barrow near Stonehenge in Wiltshire.

   The match is so close that experts believe the black artifact is a skeuomorph, or a copy in a different material. Good, who is with the Suffolk County Archaeology Service, told Discovery News that she made the discovery while investigating the remains of a probable funeral pyre dating to 1900-1700 B.C.

   The funeral pyre, she said, is "a normal sort of feature we come across every day while out digging."
She thinks someone placed goods, including a flint knife, pottery and the jet object, inside the pit after the body was burned.

   The findings are documented in the current issue of British Archaeology. Editor Mike Pitts describes the jet object as having "two parallel lines around the edge, supporting 12 pendant semi-circles inside with a double circle and dot in the center. Small floating lines of rocker decoration, some on the side facets, complete the design."

   "Rocker" refers to the rocking motion that the artist likely used when carving, drawing or chiseling out the design. Like Stonehenge itself, the meaning of the design remains a mystery, but the material ? though not as flashy and precious as gold ? held significance for the ancients, according to Alison Sheridan, head of early prehistory in the Department of Archaeology at National Museums Scotland.
 
   "Lots of substances are likely to have been ascribed magical powers, and were used as amulets," she explained. "Jet is a classic example, as it's electrostatic, as well as being rare and beautiful, and has been used by many people around the world and over time as an amulet."

   She added that this particular piece was made from a "large lump of jet" so it would have been "extra-precious." It might have even been a commissioned "studio piece," perhaps copying the Stonehenge wearer's overall design.

   Sheridan analyzed the jet piece and found traces of copper in 4 holes that were cut into the object. She said "it's likely that the lozenge had been fitted onto a garment by copper pins. This would suggest to me that we're thinking leather."

   Put together with the position in which the Bush Barrow object was found, she thinks both the jet and gold pieces probably were fitted onto leather garments at the chest.

   Sheridan, who came up with the term "supernatural power dressing," said these objects, and other evidence, indicate the Stonehenge-era elite were extremely "status and fashion conscious." While no one knows who these people were, she theorizes they probably were wealthy individuals, local leaders, or even maybe some kind of early royalty.

   She said, "(We) wouldn't want to conjure up images of Prince Harry, or maybe we would!"

[Bart]

28 June 2007

   A team of archaeologists from Bath has helped uncover an ancient stone circle in one of Britain's most remote locations.

   Members of the Bath and Camerton Archaeological Society (Bacas) have taken part in a two-week excavation on Foula, part of the Shetland Islands.

   The team was previously involved in an extensive geophysical survey on the island in May last year.

   They were invited back to investigate the possibility that an early Bronze Age ceremonial enclosure, aligned to the midwinter sunrise, had been discovered.



   Jayne Lawes, the Bacas director of excavations, said: "This year's excavation has proved conclusively that the stone enclosure is manmade.

   "It is similar in construction to others of the late Neolithic or early Bronze age.

   "The actual date of the construction has yet to be established, though one shard of pottery has been found buried under 60cm of peat on the floor of the enclosure.

  "That should help to provide evidence of a date when the site was in use."

   The team has also taken samples of the peat for further analysis in the hope that pollen samples may give further clues to the date of the site.



   Bacas member John Holbourn, who lived for most of his life on Foula before moving to Wiltshire, said: "The alignment of the stone ring to the midwinter sunrise is of real significance.

   "While in the summer the island is bathed in light throughout most of the day and night, in the winter daylight lasts for only a few hours.

   "The knowledge that the days will lengthen and get warmer is very cheering."

   From August 6 to September 14, Bacas members will be continuing to excavate the Iron Age and Roman site at Upper Row Farm near Norton St Philip.

   The site has previously featured on Channel 4's Time Team and anyone wishing to participate in this year's excavation is welcome and a training programme is available.

   There will also be an open day at the Upper Row Farm site on Saturday, July 21, from 10am to 4pm.

   For more information about the Foula excavation, or for details of the local summer excavation or open day, contact Bridget Hetzel on 0117 932 9939 or visit the Bacas website, www.bacas.org.uk

[Solomon]

The Kame, Foula (photo: Ann Bowker)



Foula Archaeology
A Discussion by Helen Bradley after completing her initial survey of Foula

The results of the survey (exemplified by Neolithic settlement and funerary evidence) challenge the assumption that Foula's initial occupation significantly post-dates that of Shetland by over 2000 years (see Ritchie 1997). That Foula is visible from not only the rest of Shetland but also from Westray aids in the rejection of this assumption, for it seems highly unlikely that a clearly visible location should remain untouched for so long. On the contrary, Foula's landscape reveals a rich human presence extending back as far as 5000 years into the past, often taking the form of concentrated areas of fixed occupation, where people have lived intermittently over thousands of years.



Occupation of the wider landscape works on a broader scale, where the seasonal movement of people and animals has left its imprint on many 'out of the way' places. These pathways along the coastline or from lower to upper ground have gradually altered or faded in accordance with social, climatic, or economic change and with fluctuations in population. Conversely, some traditions of landscape use have been maintained over longer periods; strategies for living and working in an often unforgiving environment, which have persisted through the tried and tested successes of generations. This delicate balance between continuity and change is manifest particularly where modern settlement continues to be successful, creating the rich palimpsest of landscape use visible today.

Certain points in Foula's landscape have been marked and set-aside as special places for the internment of the dead. These funerary monuments, in most cases, are placed in lofty locations overlooking areas of settlement. The tendency for such structures to dominate the skyline is a common theme in other areas (see, for example, Frazer 1984) and on Foula the importance of location is also exemplified by the visibility between monuments. The cairns on the Sneug, and at South Ness, Crougar, Harrier and Soberlie crest are all connected by their mutual inter-visibility, serving to draw attention to not only themselves, but to each-other. By the fact of their placement on prominent hill-top locations, these monuments will have been incorporated into people's understanding of the landscape throughout all periods succeeding their construction, and therefore retain an important role in the development of the landscape over time. It may be significant that the Lamus O Da Wilse, one of the largest and most impressively situated monuments, is also visible from these locations but with the notable exception of the Sneug cairns; a theme which could be developed in future research.



The archaeological remains encountered by the survey show elements of both similarity and difference from those on the mainland of Shetland. The architectural styles to Foula's prehistoric remains are in some cases paralleled throughout Shetland (for example with the morphology of house 37 on the South Ness). In other cases it appears that adopted mainland traditions have developed their own unique styles over time (for example with cairn 724 on the summit of the Sneug). More recent archaeological remains from the historic period also display some similarities to both building practice and to the character of land division on the mainland. Foula's physical remains therefore express many connections to mainland Shetland, whilst simultaneously highlighting the unique character of developing traditions on the island.

The re-use and elaboration of older structures is a common theme on Foula, and serves to complicate the histories encoded within the landscape. In particular this re-use prevents an a priori classification for the function of many features (especially dykes) which are likely to have seen multiple uses since their construction. For an island with such strong Norse traditions, it seems unusual that a Norse presence is not more apparent. However, it is difficult to flesh out this presence from the later structures which, in so many cases, are likely to be developments upon Norse (or earlier) remains. This tendency for re-use attests to the skilled exploitation of both available resources and ideal locations. Despite the difficulties of working a landscape in need of heavy maintenance, Foula's historical remains contradict the easy assumption that life on a remote island necessarily involves constant hardship, offering instead a picture of a knowledgeable and viable community, whose success derives from an independent and competent manipulation of the environment.

Geographical or environmental marginality is not necessarily accompanied by social or political remoteness (Coles and Mills 1996), and the evidence above indicates that Foula's position within the well travelled sea-routes of the North Atlantic seaboard has aided rather than inhibited the success of earlier communities. The sheer quantity of archaeological remains encountered by the survey is remarkable for an island of this size, and highlights the fact that Foula's position as marginal to our understanding of Shetland's history is entirely constructed, based in pre-conceptions rather than reality. Social, economic, and political change has increased in pace over the last 100 years or so, which in turn has engendered a new way of perceiving remote island communities as somehow 'left behind'. However, the perception of backwardness has more to do with the position and motives of the observers than with the fitness of an economy or society to provide the material means of survival' (Coles and Mills 1996: 9). To extrapolate modern political and cultural relationships onto past societies obscures the realities of people's lives for these periods. A wider concept of marginality as applied to Foula is an irrelevant concept when we consider the broad spatial and temporal scale within which this works, as it holds little efficacy for people's day to day lives on the island.

When considered on this large-scale, increasing climatic deterioration on Foula since the Neolithic, and the increasing centralisation of political and economic centres, paints a somewhat bleak picture of life in the 'harsh and unforgiving north'. Whilst to an extent this may be true, these vast spans of time do not operate within the individual experiences of a single lifetime or generation. Those people living on Foula throughout these periods may have regarded their situation from a more 'island-centred' perspective, where changes in the outside world were considered far less important or imposing than those living outside might expect. It may have been the case in the past, as it is today, that Foula is the centre of the world for those who live and work on the island, which creates an entirely reversed notion of the meaning of marginality for those living outside.

Helen Bradley  2004