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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."

24 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. The Druids by ENOENT · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nobody knows who they were
    Or what they were doing...

    (But they did have the sense to make Stonehenge a bit taller than 18".)

    --
    That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
    1. Re:The Druids by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Stonehenge!
      Where the demons dwell
      Where the banshees live and they do live well
      Stonehenge!
      Where a man is a man
      and the children dance to the pipes of pan
      Stonehenge!
      Tis a magic place
      where the moon doth rise with a dragon's face
      Stonehenge!
      Where the virgins lie
      and the prayer of devils fill the midnight sky

      And you my love, won't you take my hand
      We'll go back in time to that mystic land
      Where the dew drops cry and the cats meow
      I will take you there
      I will show you how

    2. Re:The Druids by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      But these are not the Druids you're looking for.

      (Yes I know, lame joke and not in context, but then, how often do you think you get the chance to post that joke on /.?)

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. A place for the living? by sczimme · · Score: 4, Interesting


    The article calls Durrington Walls a "place for the living"? The houses appear to have been abandoned while still intact, given the artefacts found within them.

    Silly question: where did everyone go?

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    I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
    1. Re:A place for the living? by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's pretty obvious isn't it? The wind knocked over one of the stones. One of the Druids came back and told a few of his mates over a beer. The word got around and people figured the sky was falling, so they ran for the hills.

      And with absolutely no evidence either way, that story is as good as any other.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    2. Re:A place for the living? by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Silly question: where did everyone go?

      More importantly, does anyone know who they were, or what they were doing?

      --
      This guy's the limit!
    3. Re:A place for the living? by kfg · · Score: 3, Funny

      Silly question: where did everyone go?

      Brighton.

      KFG

    4. Re:A place for the living? by jd · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Well, I wouldn't get too caught up in the theories from the archaeologists on this. The buildings are associated with Stonehenge by proximity in time and location, but only just. The area is littered with relics from the past (Avebury - which makes Stonehenge look like a roadside memorial, Silbury Hill - one of the largest man-made hills of ancient times, Woodhenge, the White Horse, the Giant, a veritable forest of longbarrows and roundbarrows, a giant meeting center roughly a hundred feet high and twice the area of a modern American Football field, etc.)

      How can we be so sure this has anything to do with Stonehenge? The buildings are described as similar to those in Skara Brae, and those people were as close to indigenous as anyone in Britain gets. Yet we know that Stonehenge's builders displaced the Avebury builders by force and were a relatively modern society. The theory put forward simply doesn't add up. You can get cut shaving with Occam's Razor, but I think it's safe to apply it here - the theory linking this settlement to Stonehenge requires too much unnecessary complexity and should not be accepted.

      To answer the question - the buildings were never abandoned as they were never really inhabited. They were summer houses, if you like - places for the rich and famous neolithic people to rub shoulders and get their cave paintings taken. The buildings were simply never returned to, at some point, possibly because the tribe's real home was wiped out in a fight, though it might be that the paparazzi ran out of ochre. The history of the area is confusing, though less because of the facts and more because of a desire to dramatize. There really isn't any need to make things sound more amazing than they really are, and all the archaeologists do when they do that is make themselves look stupid to anyone who knows even a little of the history of the region.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    5. Re:A place for the living? by Bluesman · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think the problem just may have been that they were in danger of being trampled by a dwarf.

      --
      If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
    6. Re:A place for the living? by TapeCutter · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "The history of the area is confusing, though less because of the facts and more because of a desire to dramatize. There really isn't any need to make things sound more amazing than they really are, and all the archaeologists do when they do that is make themselves look stupid to anyone who knows even a little of the history of the region."

      One of the "facts" is that the buildings showed no real evidence of people living in them (ie: no domestic waste from "holiday makers"). That kind of shoots down your "I know better than the archeologists" rant that is based on a little knowledge and an apparent predisposition to translate everything into modern cultural terms. Occam's Razor may be good for deciding the simplest theory that explains a particular phenomena but it's is of no real use when talking about human behaviour in a very distant culture. (eg: A rain dance may be performed repeatedly until it rains at which point it is declared to have "worked", the dance is simply a random ritual and as such is more or less immune to a logic tool that removes unessasary random components).

      "There really isn't any need to make things sound more amazing than they really are, and all the archaeologists do when they do that is make themselves look stupid to anyone who knows even a little of the history of the region."

      I agree that a little knowledge can lead people into wild fantasy, but I don't think that particular problem lies with the archaeologists in this case. The archaeologists evidence for their version of events may be weak, your questions may be pertinent but your bald assertions don't even register.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  3. anecdote by OriginalArlen · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Nothing to do with Stonehenge per se, just an anecdote. We have a neolithic stone, known as the Long Stone, a ten minute walk down the road from where I'm writing this, which is on the edge of the Wye Valley , right up against the Welsh border. It's a single stone, sticking up at an angle of about 75 degrees, perhaps seven feet tall. A few years ago I had to walk from my village to the nearest town to sign on the dole - a tedious 40 minute slog along unmaintained road verges - but passing the stone, I always felt compelled to reach out and give it a pat. I'm a hardcore, Dawkins-type rationalist, but I don't see any contradiction between that and a consciously irrational but of behaviour like patting the stone... it fits my brain, somehow, and it feels good to be connected with the people who lived here four thousand years ago. Poor bastards, it must have been miserable during the winter nights.

    --

    Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
    1. Re:anecdote by AlHunt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We have a neolithic stone, known as the Long Stone, a ten minute walk down the road from where I'm writing this, ... and it feels good to be connected with the people who lived here four thousand years ago
      And, of course, some whistledick modded you down.

      Connection to the past is kind of the point of preserving Stone Henge and other historic' places. I live in a house built around 1875 and even that short time is a great connection to the past.



      It's easy to stand somewhere like Stonehenge, Long Stone or my parlor and imagine all the people that went before you. It creates a sense of place, of permanence, a sense that long after you're gone people will be standing in the same place doing the same thing you're doing.


      --
      1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
    2. 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.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  4. Previous henges by Ambitwistor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Before Stonehenge, there was Woodhenge and Strawhenge, but a big bad wolf came and blew them down, and three little piggies were relocated to the projects.

    1. 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? :)

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. 4607 years, and we still commute to work by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Funny

    2 miles of walking is about half an hour each way. So the Stonehenge workers spent a hour-a-day getting to and from work.

    Some things never change.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
    1. Re:4607 years, and we still commute to work by jomama717 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Some things never change. This is exciting because the 2 mile stretch in between sites should be rife with ancient coffee shops.
      --
      while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
    2. Re:4607 years, and we still commute to work by wall0159 · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...except that they walked in beautiful countryside, whereas we drive in noisy steel boxes and breathe pollution.. ahhh - progress!

  6. oldnews by destroygbiv · · Score: 3, Funny

    no pun intended (or is there?)

  7. Re:Two miles by AndroidCat · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yup, there's various periods of Stonehenge, including when they got by with wood markers. I hear that all the tourists asking why the place was called Stonehenge drove the druids to do the later versions.

    --
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  8. BY2K? by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Funny

    BCE WTF?? At least Y2K is both culturally OK and well understood. I vote for BY2K.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  9. Re:Sinister by kfg · · Score: 5, Funny

    The SPLA: Stonehenge Project Licensing Authority official gift shoppe.

    "My parents visited Stonehenge and all I got was this lousy cloak"

    KFG

  10. 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.
  11. Biggest find by tbone1 · · Score: 3, Funny
    ... is Keith Richards' birth certificate.

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    The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines