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Ancient Village Unearthed Near Stonehenge

Posted by kdawson on from the for-the-living dept.

cityhunter007 writes to point out coverage on CNN.com about an ancient village discovered two miles from Stonehenge that may have housed workers building the monument, or perhaps visitors after it was constructed. The village, at a site known as Durrington Walls, dates from about the time Stonehenge was built, 2600 BCE. The article says: "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... 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."

5 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Previous henges by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
    I don't know about Stawhenge, but there are at least three Woodhenge sites:
  2. Re:Previous henges by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, there is a Woodhenge. Strawhenge, I guess, would be hard to find after so many years.

    Though I doubt Stonehenge was built because of that. Wolves are extinct in Britain.

    Ain't it lovely how to kill a joke with facts? :)

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  3. Re:Previous henges by KoldKompress · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wolves are extinct in Britain now, but they were not extinct at the time of Stone Henge. In fact, wolves lived in England until they were finally fully exterminated in 1760. So for all you know, a wolf with a particularly bad case of flatulence might.. well, no, not really.

  4. Re:BCE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, domini is Latin for "lord". So AD, which in Latin stands for anno domini, means "Year of Lord". Not as ominous as you'd have it sound.. Err. What is it you think a Lord does to his subjects? Suggest things nicely? "Would you like to pay taxes, please?" "Do as I tell you, if it's no trouble?"

    The OP didn't say Domini wasn't Latin for "Lord", he said:

    Domini is the root for dominate Which is entirely separate from what you're saying, and correct, to boot.
  5. Re:anecdote by jd · · Score: 4, Informative
    There are 132 neolithic sites at the end of the Wye river, so it took me a while to find. There's a short writeup and some photos at The Modern Antiquarian. The Ordinance Survey coordinates are SO559120, and Yahoo maps places it somewhere along the Gloucester to Monmouth Road which I'm taking to be the Little Dean Road/Speech House Road, although the A4151/A4136 would also fit the description. I'm pretty bad at converting the OS system to long/lat, but if you have a calculator that can do that, you'll be better off using those.

    The Long Stone description shows no indication of any archaeological findings and a reference by BBC Gloucester only talks about ley lines.

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