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Author Topic: Mysterious Avebury  (Read 1424 times)
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Solomon
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« Reply #15 on: March 11, 2007, 05:53:49 PM »

Doc: GPR was first used for surveying in 1929, became popular in the 1960s and commercial production of units began in the early 1970s. It is now standard kit for archaeological surveying. English Heritage - the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England - is part of the UK government.

Solomon
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« Reply #16 on: March 11, 2007, 05:59:41 PM »

Solomon,
Now I fully understand. I have mostly been involved in the marine end of history. My first exposure to the use of GPR for archaeology was the article posted on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I had no idea that GPR kit had been around as long as all this. It certainly has come a long way now, hasn't it?
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Doc
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Solomon
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« Reply #17 on: March 11, 2007, 06:11:57 PM »

Yes, Doc. The history of its development raises a number of questions in my mind:
- How does this relate to the later military development of radar? The use of radar to survey glaciers in Austria predates the start of WW2 by 10 years.
- Why were US military aircraft crashing into Greenland ice in the 1950s, misreading ice for the ground? Didn't the USAF know of or believe in radar? Quite amazing.

Solomon
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« Reply #18 on: March 11, 2007, 06:18:53 PM »

Solomon,
Your question; Why were US military aircraft crashing into Greenland ice in the 1950s, misreading ice for the ground? Didn't the USAF know of or believe in radar? Quite amazing.
Not really, perhaps the radar saw the ground thru the ice so the planes crashed into the ice.
Cheers,
Doc
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Solomon
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« Reply #19 on: March 11, 2007, 06:34:57 PM »

Doc:

Yes, the USAF was not aware that their radar looked through ice, even though this was how GPR was first used.

Solomon
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Solomon
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« Reply #20 on: May 12, 2007, 01:01:49 AM »

This is the archaeological dig that started me off.

Engineers have reopened a tunnel that goes deep inside the ancient monument of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire.

The tunnel, dug in 1968, was the last of many made over the centuries by archaeologists exploring the site.



Engineers are planning to stabilise the 5,000-year-old structure, which is believed to be the world's largest man-made prehistoric mound.

Archaeologists will also try to unlock the site's ancient secrets and find out how, why and when it was built.

Earlier this year, archaeologists found traces of a Roman settlement at the landmark.

English Heritage, which is conducting the stabilising work, believes there was a Roman community at Silbury Hill about 2,000 years ago. It says the site may have been a sacred place of pilgrimage.

"We don't know exactly what it was for but it was probably part of a ceremonial and sacred landscape which centered on the Avebury henge," said an English Heritage spokeswoman.

The world recreated: redating Silbury Hill in its monumental landscape:
Alex Bayliss1, Fachtna McAvoy2 and Alasdair Whittle3

1English Heritage, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138-142 Holborn, London EC1N 2ST, UK 2English Heritage, Fort Cumberland, Fort Cumberland Road, Eastney, Portsmouth PO4 9LD, UK 3Cardiff School of History and Archaeology, Cardiff University, Humanities Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK

A classic exposition of the difficulties of dating a major monument and why it matters. Silbury Hill, one of the world's largest prehistoric earth mounds, is too valuable to take apart, so we are reliant on samples taken from tunnels and chance exposures. Presenting a new edition of thirty radiocarbon dates, the authors offer models of short- or long-term construction, and their implications for the ritual landscape of Silbury and Stonehenge. The sequence in which monuments, and bits of monuments, were built gives us the kind and history of societies doing the building. So nothing matters more than the dates.

Solomon
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« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2007, 03:40:49 PM »

Building work has been going on to stabilise the ancient monument of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire for six months but before sealing up the tunnel, media were allowed inside it.


Parts of the 4,400-year-old Neolithic site were thought to be collapsing because of the tunnels dug by archaeologists over many centuries - the last of which was created in 1968.


As engineers worked to stabilise the monument, archaeologists have tried to unlock the site's ancient secrets and find out how, why and when it was built.


Discoveries include medieval postholes on top of the hill and iron arrowheads, indicating there may have been a huge military building there during the Saxon or Norman periods.


One theory is that the top of the hill was lopped off around the time of the Battle of Hastings or even earlier.

Report 61/2004
Site Formation, Preservation and Remedial Measures at Silbury Hill. (PDF 1.2Mb)
MG CANTI, g Campbell, D Robinson and M Robinson
Centre for Archaeology

Silbury Hill, Wiltshire
English Heritage's Investigations into the Collapse at the Top of the Shaft and the Stability of Silbury Hill. (PDF  177Kb)
Rob Harding, English Heritage, Revised February 2005

Silbury Hill Review (PDF 111Kb)
Interpreting the seismic tomography data  By Professor Michael Worthington  And 
Silbury Hill: geotechnical work and investigation of voids  By Professor Richard Chandler

Silbury Hill Assessment  (PDF 5Mb)
An assessment of the conservation risks and possible responses arising from antiquarian and archaeological investigations deep into the Hill
Fachtna McAvoy, Archaeologist, English Heritage Fort Cumberland, Revised May 2005.
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« Reply #22 on: October 25, 2007, 01:20:06 PM »


Silbury Hill - reopening

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