Huge Ritual Arena Discovered Near Stonehenge

New submitter pabloApicco writes: A row of 90 megalithic stones has been found buried beneath a grassy bank only two miles from the world-famous site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. Believed to have been a huge ritual monument, the long line of megalithic stones lies 3 feet underground, and was found using sophisticated radar equipment. “What we are starting to see is the largest surviving stone monument, preserved underneath a bank, that has ever been discovered in Britain and possibly in Europe,” said Vince Gaffney, an archaeologist at Bradford University who leads the Stonehenge Hidden Landscape project. “This is archeology on steroids.” Here's a satellite map of the new site.

Comments

That's cool.

[o_ferguson]

n/t

Re:That's cool.

[gl4ss]

the map link sucks.

would be fine if it outlined the area and placement or something.

Re:That's cool.

[Booz]

the link is broken and results in a 404 not found error.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

Map link didn't work with AdBlock/Privacy Badger... oh well, there's a good enough video & map in the first link.

It's funny they call this a monument/ritual area. To me it looks like a defensive structure - large stones to break up horse attacks, quick drop offs to either fill with oil/water or just to break legs/slow attacks of infantry/horses as they charge in. Opening is closest to the stream for easy access to water. Pretty standard looking military fort/permanent settlement to me.

Re:That's cool.

[wheelbarrio]

This is claimed to be a Neolithic structure; the earliest evidence of horse domestication in Britain is from Bronze Age times, military use even later.

Re:That's cool.

[gtall]

I think the researchers are missing the obvious explanation, structures like this were community toilets. The ring shape was so the Druids could exchange news of the day.

Re:That's cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

The link is this. You shouldn't trust the .gl link because the article mentions no involvement of Greenland in the research.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

Those types of defenses would have similar effects for both horse and infantry attacks so it could be it's just meant for the latter. Stones cut the attack area in half/funnel attackers between them causing "log jams", ditches have two effects, first sudden drop offs in terrain force attackers to either slow down or risk injury by jumping down and second cause a slowdown as they try to climb up the far side and sets them off balance for defending forces to more easily dispatch them. Horses or not it suggests a permanent military encampment of some sort.

Re:That's cool.

[Rei]

There's no reason why a person would go through the effort to haul such massive stones when they could build an equivalent wall out of smaller ones.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

There's no reason why a person would go through the effort to haul such massive stones when they could build an equivalent wall out of smaller ones.

Physics 101: 200lbs man vs large rock: large rock wins. 200lbs man vs pile of small rocks: man wins.

Besides the obvious, this wasn't a wall. Think of it like primitive hedgehogs (not the animals). The goal isn't to wall yourself in but put obstacles in the way.

Re:That's cool.

[Rei]

Physics 101: 200lbs man vs large rock: large rock wins. 200lbs man vs pile of small rocks: man wins.

Not according to every stone wall built throughout human history. There's a reason they're made out of smaller (albeit still heavy) rocks: it's far, far more practical.

Re:That's cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the lower right-most photo it looks like a cliff in the background. Given that I would assume that wild game herds would be driven towards the stones at the lower left and then up towards the cliff where some would be forced to jump to their deaths. Much like a paleolithic grocery store - good eats.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

Physics 101: 200lbs man vs large rock: large rock wins. 200lbs man vs pile of small rocks: man wins.

Not according to every stone wall built throughout human history. There's a reason they're made out of smaller (albeit still heavy) rocks: it's far, far more practical.

a) Not a wall
b) Small stone walls, if piled, would need to be nearly as wide as it is tall to have the same effect. These rocks are up to 4.5m tall which means you'd need ~5,000 1x1x1 stones vs ~200 large stones. Since 1x1x1 stones aren't that common you'd probably be looking at closer to 20,000 stones.
c) Every stone wall built throughout human history that was narrow, tall, and unsupported was easy to knock over because: physics.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

Here's a video demonstrating the concept of what I'm talking about in my other reply: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:That's cool.

[drinkypoo]

Not according to every stone wall built throughout human history.

Eh, wot about the Pyramids mate? That's got funny walls, but...

Seriously though, there's some pretty staggering direct counterexamples in Sudamerica... Nobody really knows why they bothered and in some cases still don't know how they managed it.

Re:That's cool.

[NotDrWho]

Yeah, it shows us conclusively that a long time ago people did some stuff that they thought was really important at the time, but ended up not meaning anything.

Re:That's cool.

[BlackHawk-666]

This would only make sense if there was anything of value inside the stone structure that is worth protecting - but there isn't. There's no remnants of housing or a castle or anything inside the semi-circle. You don't just take your army up the hill and park it inside a stone circle to protect it from invaders - you have to *also* protect your farms, cattle, granaries, etc.

There's more chance it's a ritual site or calendar than some sort of defensive structure.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

I would venture a guess and say that it was the home of Neolithic long house(s). The orientation would put the single doorway away from the prevailing winds and facing the opening near the water. These were, generally, not made of stone. That might also suggest that Stonehenge was a megalithic tomb.

Re:That's cool.

[Rei]

The pyramids were tombs, not walls. The difficulty of moving such large stones was part of the point.

I don't know what Sudamerica examples you're thinking of.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

Doing a little research I learned, they have found neolithic floors inside the circle and they believe it to have been a village though much of it was destroyed by later farming and road construction. If it was filled there may have been as many as 1000 structures inside but that sounds a bit high to me.

Re:That's cool.

[rahvin112]

They didn't have the means to move these stones other than with human power (dragging them on the ground). The time and effort expended to move stones that large would not be comprehensible for anything other than ritual and religion. This would have taken hundreds of years to build, long beyond the range of any ruler or military defense. Much like the cathedrals of europe that took multiple lifetimes to build the only way to supply labor for these types of things is to make that labor free through religious worship.

It's completely impractical to suggest this was for defensive purposes when the entire area is littered with varying sizes of monuments that are identical circles, much like the composition to stonehenge, a known religious site. Like Stonehenge this would have most likely been a religious site. This area was special to the people of this time period. As I noted previously there are many many sites all over this area varying in size and age. Last thing I remember seeing on these stonehenge like structures said there were several dozen sites scattered over a few square miles. Stonehenge was one of the few to survive, probably because it was further away from the settlements.

Did the Egyptian's build the pyramids for defensive purposes or religious purposes?

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

They had beasts of burden, they knew how to roll stones on logs. It would not have taken hundreds of years. These are not the 9m/50 ton stones found in Stonehenge, these are MAXIMUM 4.5m & ~15 tons. A dog can pull 5 tons on rollers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - these rocks would have been nothing for a couple 1 ton bulls rolling them over logs.

Re:That's cool.

[Trax3001BBS]

the map link sucks.

would be fine if it outlined the area and placement or something.

I checked before submitting this article myself. I'd of posted http://www.usatoday.com/story/... as my link which shows the stones that have been uncovered.

Re:That's cool.

[Agent0013]

They didn't have the means to move these stones other than with human power (dragging them on the ground). The time and effort expended to move stones that large would not be comprehensible for anything other than ritual and religion. This would have taken hundreds of years to build, long beyond the range of any ruler or military defense. Much like the cathedrals of europe that took multiple lifetimes to build the only way to supply labor for these types of things is to make that labor free through religious worship.

Did the Egyptian's build the pyramids for defensive purposes or religious purposes?

It's funny you mention the Egyptian pyramids because I was going to use them as a counter point. All the experts say they were build to be burial chambers for the pharaohs. The problem with that theory is that no body has ever been found in any Egyptian pyramid. Even ones that appear to have been undisturbed. Once a theory takes strong root in the academic community, it can be very hard to change. Plenty of people interpret everything they see in light of the theory they have been told is correct, but turns out was made up out of whole cloth by some guy who didn't know what is was talking about. It is possible these henges were not religious in nature.

It also probably didn't take as long as you say it would to build them. There are plenty of structures around the world build using stone blocks soo large that our modern earth moving equipment and heavy cranes can't even pick them up. They must have had a way to build these things and we just don't know the trick. There is the coral castle near Miami Florida build around 1923 by one man working alone. He claimed some sort of magnetic effect that apparently removed gravity. Even if that is not true, he still build a structure out of blocks weighing many tons each, some up to 30 tons, completely by himself.

Re:That's cool.

[Agent0013]

The pyramids were tombs, not walls. The difficulty of moving such large stones was part of the point.

I don't know what Sudamerica examples you're thinking of.

No bodies have ever been found in a pyramid. What they were for is still up for question, but they certainly weren't tombs. The "egyptologist" who claimed that just made it up and everybody has interpreted things in that fashion ever since.

Re: That's cool.

[LinuxLuver]

The Map link takes me to Westminster in London. Nowhere near Salisbury.

Re:That's cool.

[RockDoctor]

This was built something like 2000 years before the Druids. OK, we'll allow the Druids significant existence before the Romans mentioned the : 1500 years before the Druids.

In American (well, I'm not very familiar with American archaeology), this would be in excess of two millennia before the first Maya empire, closer to three thousand years before the Mound Builders. Close to 4 millennia before Americans started speaking English (after a fashion).

Re:That's cool.

[RockDoctor]

ditches have two effects, first sudden drop offs in terrain force attackers to either slow down or risk injury

This would be true if there were ditches designed for defence. But they're not ditched defences, they're henges. Archaeologists use the term "henge" to describe one structure, and "ditch and rampart" to describe a different structure. ditches and ramparts, exactly as you describe them, greet the person attacking from the OUTSIDE of the structure with a drop into a ditch (up to 20ft deep and 30-40 ft wide), then the attacker has to climb out of the ditch, up a loose rocky slope, to the top of a bank of debris cut from the ditch, and then finally deal with the defenders at the top, who typically had erected a several-metre-tall wooden pallisade at the top. An effective defensive structure, found in multiple rings around hundreds of "hill forts" in the country, with narrow, complex gate areas where attackers are funnelled into what are called "kill zones", because they are zones designed for killing people. Plainly the Neolithic builders understood defensive construction as well as you do.

"Henges" on the other hand, are different structures. The bank is on the OUTSIDE. They're not on hills. They have wide entrances next to sections of ditch which were never dug. Exactly how they were used, we don't know. but defensive structures they were not.

By the way, has anyone come up with a good description of how those Mounds in various of the US states were used?

Re:That's cool.

[RockDoctor]

b) Small stone walls, if piled, would need to be nearly as wide as it is tall to have the same effect.

You plainly have never seen a drystone dyke.

Re:That's cool.

[RockDoctor]

Actually, the living areas were built a millennium or so AFTER this line of stones. This is under the well-known Durrington Walls site. (The "Walls" part of the place name is unrelated to what is being so airily and incorrectly described as a defensive structure up-thread.)

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

I am not describing a rampart at all, merely the reality of both halves of an 18m deep ditch or henge enclosure if you prefer. While the wikipedia entry claims archeologists currently discount the defencive benefits of such a structure basic logic would seem to indicate this is false. If you were a group of bandits/small army charging on foot you would have to stop, carefully descend down an 18m steep incline (difficult to safely jump down), then climb 18m back up the other side. Or have a board/bridge long enough to cross but that would be easy to push into the henge. Villagers would be able to toss rocks/use spears/bows/etc to kill you while you tried to do get through this obstacle. The main reason it could be considered a poor defencive enclosure is that the opening is not retractable - if the enemy gets through the main gate then you've got the same problem getting out as they would have had getting in. I freely admit that it's primitive and flawed, and likely why the settlements didn't survive, but these were Neolithic/early Bronze Age times and towns of ~5000 people at most. Not master works of defencive engineering & design.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

b) Small stone walls, if piled, would need to be nearly as wide as it is tall to have the same effect.

You plainly have never seen a drystone dyke.

Actually, we have one on our property. If you knew about maintaining dry stone dykes, you'd know that they often have to be rebuilt in small sections due to wind or animals knocking them over. While something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... looks nice and sturdy, it's susceptible to collapse from lateral forces, especially the higher it gets.

Re:That's cool.

[RockDoctor]

You've missed the point. In a dyke and rampart structure, as you describe, the villagers on the inside (where there are remains of round houses, hearth, sometimes workshops, fenced corrals with elevated soil phosphate from all the shit, and lots more evidence of occupation) can indeed climb to the tops of the rampart and hurl abuse at the attackers down in the ditch. But if the same people lived in the middle of henge (without leaving evidence of settlement such as that detailed above), then on attack they'd have gone to the inside edge of the ditch and then waved up at the attackers who had walked up to the top of the rampart from the outside, and invisible from the village. What happens at the indefensible "gateways" (typically 4 of them, with no postholes to support gateworks or any other defensive works.

We do not know what people built "henges" for - or the various other structures, such as the multiple timber circles in the henge at Durrington Walls - but they are repeated events (around 100 identified) with a consistent form and they differ from the defensive ditch and rampart structures built in the same area at the same time.

Attempting to fit defensive stories onto structures like this is like trying to describe a Mississippi valley mound like Cahokia as a water-treatment plant. Not a good fit.

Incidentally, 5000 would have been the largest city in Britain at the time, and quite likely in the whole of Europe. A typical settlement of Neolithic times would have been dozens to around a hundred.

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

I did not describe a dyke and rampart structure. I described a U shape in the ground - no rampart at all. From what I read on the subject the latest from Durrington Walls was that, being a henge enclosure (area > 300m in diameter) and finding neolithic floors, they believe it to have been a village. Based on what they found they believed there to have been as many as 1000 small structures. As to the gateways, I don't believe these henges were designed to be perfect defences - rather a way to make it easier to defend a village. You'd force the enemy to engage you at a "gateway" or be at a disadvantage dealing with the henge. Without the henge an attacker could come from any direction with ease. Placing the "gateway" towards the river would have made it that much more difficult to mount an assault since you'd have to either cross the river to attack it directly or come at the village from another direction and then turn into the "gateway". With regards to the post holes, that is at the Woodhenge site (or South Circle if you prefer) and they have a fairly good understanding of what it likely looked like: https://www.english-heritage.o...

Incidentally, 5000 would have been the largest city in Britain at the time, and quite likely in the whole of Europe. A typical settlement of Neolithic times would have been dozens to around a hundred.

I agree that's a high estimate. Though it being a large town/city does fit with the current theory on Stonehenge, that it was built as a place to unify the tribes of Britain and therefore would have been a place to draw people/have commerce/etc. like modern capitols do.

Re:That's cool.

[RockDoctor]

Though it being a large town/city does fit with the current theory on Stonehenge, that it was built as a place to unify the tribes of Britain and therefore would have been a place to draw people/have commerce/etc. like modern capitols do.

That is ONE of the theories. Which is hampered by problems like, we don't know of any unusually large concentrations of population in the area (compared to the rest of the country). There are no real increases in the finds of "trade goods" in the area (yes, they are there ; but they're also everywhere else in the country ; when you try to contour the intensity of such finds, you don't really see anything apart from the activity of 18th and 19th century "antiquaries" moving things to London). And, of course, we don't know the tribal structure of the area (well, we have Roman reports, but relying on evidence like that would have Britain today being governed by competing tribes of Syrians (Roman auxiliary troops stationed in Britain 2000 years ago), Italians (the Romans themselves) and simultaneously, Danes and Germans ; the groups would overlap in time.

You're describing a detailed supposition which goes far, far beyond the evidence that we have in the ground. Do you get you ideas from TV programmes bent on sensationalism, or from the archaeological literature?

Re:That's cool.

[JMJimmy]

Academic journals mostly, check the work of Professor Parker Pearson

Rituals ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did it involve human sacrifices?

Re:Rituals ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgin? well I guess the archeology department or pure math dept is the right place to find them - Oh unless you meant female virgin then you wont find one of them there nor in Wiltshire for that matter.

Re:Rituals ?

[Trax3001BBS]

Did it involve human sacrifices?

If created by the Druids almost a certainty. Reference: "MANKIND (The story of all of us)" History channel broadcast (12 episodes), Netflix

Academia is boring.

[Anonymous Coward]

Intelligence is boring. Heads are just computers, and some are more powerful computers than others.

Or, on the lighter side...

[Rei]

We’re full and don’t have room for more henges, archaeologists told

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't bit racist and arrogant to think that people were just doing rituals and nothing important ?

Re:Hmm

[peon_a-z,A-Z,0-9$_ !]

Millennia after the impending nuclear war, archaeologists (under a different name in some new language, presumably "fjjakkjalers") will unearth evidence of a giant ring 27km in circumference on what is now the Franco-Swiss border.

Finding various "artifacts" (perhaps called "harahalnangs" in the future language), the fjjakkjalers will construct a 'theory' of polytheism, since the different sizes of identical tools found repeatedly throughout the site were obviously connected to many gods of different sizes.

Upon further inspection, they might see that this giant ring had fragments of a tube throughout its circumference, perhaps alluding to the passage of some material through this tube in the shape of small balls ("balls" in the future language), which would have been identified as a form of torture yet to be fully explained by the torturers of the future ("internet commentators", in the future language).

Re:Hmm

[Gravis Zero]

Millennia after the impending nuclear war, archaeologists (under a different name in some new language, presumably "fjjakkjalers") ...

Ég, fyrir einn, velkomin nýja íslenskum okkar overlords.
(I, for one, welcome our new Icelandic overlords.)

Re:Hmm

[known_coward_69]

it's like junk DNA in 15 years ago and dark matter now. religious rituals is the catch all we don't know what it is term for archeologists

Re:Hmm

[Rei]

Fjjakkjalers is of course not Icelandic. And its formation is not Icelandic either - you don't see "jj", and the -ers sounds Dutch or something; in Icelandic, groups of people usually end in -menn (ex. Bandaríkjamenn), -endingar (ex. Íslendingar), or -ar or -jar, esp. verjar (ex. Frakkar or Pólverjar).

What you're trying to say is something like "Sjálf(ur) fagna ég nýjum íslenskum harðstjórum okkar" (er (TH)að ekki?). What you wrote was something sort of like "I, for the benefit of the number one, welcome(adjective) new(different declension) Icelandic(yet another different declension) our overlords (not an Icelandic word)"

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it a bit arrogant of you to assume that rituals are not important?

Re:Hmm

[Rei]

We're whalers on the moon, we carry a harpoon...

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have thought so too, but the double k indicates that there is a Finnish component to it.

Re:Hmm

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Or even Saami

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good point. These "monuments" might have served a purpose we can't even imagine in our current technology paradigm. We can't even figure out how they moved and carved the stones. Give them some credit. They were obviously intelligent and had engineering skills.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

well they patently were - when they stopped doing them they all died out.

Re:Hmm

[indeterminator]

I would have thought so too, but the double k indicates that there is a Finnish component to it.

In Finnish, a double consonant (as in, two *same* consonants) would be followed by a wovel (probably exceptions, but can't think of any). Also, there's no double j, and there are very few words that end in r.

If I were to blame that word on someone, it would be Norwegians. ;-)

Re:Hmm

[caseih]

Whenever I read about some new archeological site that is deemed to be of religious importance, I think of this wonderful piece of satire (great art too) about uncovering the remains of 1980s hotel in the year 4022:

http://www.amazon.com/Motel-My...

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu...

Great stuff. Especially the picture of the archaeologist demonstrating how to wear the ceremonial toilet seat, I mean head dress.

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu...
http://people.virginia.edu/~sf...

Re:Hmm

[Coren22]

https://translate.google.com/#...

He used Google Translate.

Re:Hmm

[Kyont]

A moose once bit my sister...

Re:Hmm

[tehcyder]

In related comedy news, Swedish chefs do not actually go around saying "bork bork bork".

Re:Hmm

[RockDoctor]

"Ritual" is archaeologist's English for "they were doing something, and they were doing it in an organized and consistent way, and it wasn't farming, or fighting, but we really don't have any real idea what they were actually doing. It's an expression of archaeologist's ignorance as much as anything else.

(And any archaeologist you cared to ask would have told you this. It's no secret.)

Re:Hmm

[ChrisMaple]

Of course. They say "Bjork bjork bjork".

Wot?

[Ginger Unicorn]

No spinal tap references?

Re:Wot?

[rjforster]

Exactly. All the dwellings of the various demons should be fully enumerated by now. Similarly the standard of living of the Banshees should be compared and ranked against the leading countries today.
Are the tunes that the children dance to available on Spotify? Inquiring minds wish to know.

Re:Wot?

[JSG]

It's Stonehenge turned up to 11.

Re:Wot?

[blane.bramble]

There's no need to make a big deal of it.

Re:Wot?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> long line of megalithic stones lies 3 feet underground

I believe they meant 3 INCHES underground.

Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[Greyfox]

They were working on a particle accelerator, but were interrupted.

Re:Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[Rei]

Am I the only one who can't read one of these articles without picturing the "It was aliens!" guy?

Re:Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[gtall]

Giorgio Tsoukalos is one of the finest deep thinkers the planet has ever produced. One can tell just by looking at the electric hair. Where Einstein failed to find the Grand Unified Field theory, Giorgio has partially succeeded: Aliens run the entire universe secretly. This is only partially true, cats rule the Aliens and hence us.

Re: Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[Anonymous Coward]

Ancient Alien Theorists agree!

Re:Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[meta-monkey]

"Is it possible, possible, that these giant stones were placed here by visitors from another world? The answer...is yes!"

Re:Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[Applehu Akbar]

"They were working on a particle accelerator, but were interrupted."

In those days particles were the size of pebbles, and were accelerated with leather catapults. After ISIS gets through with Europe, this will be true once again.

Re:Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have the power of the 4 sided timecube, the aliens are inconsequential.

Re:Pre-Historic Particle Accelerator

[Coren22]

I tried to make a catapult out of leather, but it was just floppy and wouldn't cast the stone.

Sat img link is b0rk3d

[Anonymous Coward]

404

As confused as Nigel

[Hognoxious]

Lucky somebody didn't mix up the units, or it would have only been 3 inches deep.

For Ritual Read ...

[JasterBobaMereel]

the word "Ritual" in archeology is shorthand for we don't know what this was for perhaps it had some ritual purpose ?

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

That describes the topic of "History" in general.

I recall watching a documentary about how they now thing Tutankhamun died.

It was the most absurdly convoluted story I've seen involving him falling off the back of a chariot and landing in just the right manner to fracture his leg, for him to then have been up on his knees (despite his leg being fractured) and then getting hit by the wheel of another chariot at just the right angle to do some damage to his chest followed by a further bunch of random reasons why he then had to be buried quickly.

And that's okay, theories are good, but the problem is there was absolutely no real worthwhile evidence at all - they'd effectively created evidence to match their theory, rather than found evidence to back up their theory. They created this convoluted bodged computer simulations that were like "If it just hits him like this then you get this sort of damage!" - great, I can also think of a thousand other ways and things that could hit him just like that to create that damage which I could also simulate, why is your chariot one correct? He could just as well have been smacked around the leg with a club "in just the right way" by someone beating him to death, and then smacked even harder across the shoulder "in just the right way" and ended up in the exact same state with a completely different theory about the rapid burial, like it beginning to rain and thunder that day and the burial guy just wanting to get the job done and clock off home early so he can get his washing in that he left outside to dry before it gets too wet.

But I find this typical when watching history programmes, a "Historian" comes up with a theory and then makes up some evidence to show why their theory is right. There's a common lack of conclusiveness to their evidence, and it's possible to come up with a thousand other theories and fudge evidence in the same way, none of which has any more reason to be correct than the other.

It feels like in many cases history has become one of the most horribly unscientific subjects out there, it's become about story telling, you make up a story and then pretend something shows something conclusively (even though there's no conclusiveness at all) and declare yourself the world expert on that aspect of history. It seems to have become a modern day snake oil industry - you make up a fancy story, and just declare it true with supporting evidence that's entirely circumstantial or in itself just wholly made up or theoretical and unproven.

Long gone is the truth of the "History is written by winners" saying, nowadays history is written by anyone with a pet theory that they simply declare to be true true. Evidence and scrutiny not required. Bonus points if you write up your theory into a book and sell it as the self-described "leading work on the subject".

Fact is, with a lot of history, as you imply, we simply have absolutely no fucking idea what went on or why and at best we're just making shit up.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[drinkypoo]

Long gone is the truth of the "History is written by winners" saying,

Today, more than ever before, there is likely to be an actual visual record of an event. The winners are most likely to be in possession of this record...

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[meta-monkey]

Doesn't stop holocaust deniers.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[drinkypoo]

Doesn't stop holocaust deniers.

Oh man, there's nothing like that feeling you get when someone you thought was smart starts denying the holocaust, or worse yet, starts talking some shit about "I haven't looked into it" or "some people believe..." ugh.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[dave420]

You are confusing the subjects "history" and "history as portrayed in a TV show". Don't. When you lash out at "history as portrayed in a TV show" but call it "history" you will look rather foolish. As you just found out.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[cavreader]

There is a fairly recent documentary called Stonehenge Empire where they detail the newest archeological finds showing Stonehenge was a relatively small part of a much larger complex of stone structures, fences, and burial sites. The burial sites include evidence of people traveling from the European continent to be buried at that site which helps support that the idea that the site was religious or spiritual in nature.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it supports the idea that the people of the area had a very necrophilia fetish or they were trying to build a zombie army and failed.

Maybe Stonehenge was just the cool place to be buried. There's really no way to know unless we dig up some writing explaining everything.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

Right, except the example I gave re: Tutankhamun was produced by a Professor of Egyptology, presented in a TV show, accompanied with a book, and written up on Wikipedia.

So given that the history you say is portrayed in a TV show and agree is problematic is the same as that professed by academia, literature, and the web, where exactly do I find this real history of which you speak?

I don't think you can really talk about foolishness when you seem to have made a throw away statement that doesn't really tie in with reality.

So genuine question, where do I find this real history if it's not academia, literature, TV, or the web? Is there a secret society I need to get into or something?

I've no doubt there are still some good historians out there who actually seek non-circumstantial evidence that actually proves their theories, but it's not clear that they're anything other than a distinct minority.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

"The burial sites include evidence of people traveling from the European continent to be buried at that site which helps support that the idea that the site was religious or spiritual in nature."

Does it support that? or could it just as easily support an alternative theory, that, say, there were continent renowned craftspeople selling goods there meaning it was actually just a major trading hub?

This is really the problem I'm referring to, it's all just finger in the air stuff. Without widespread evidence of actual rituals then it seems to be jumping the gun a bit to assume people travelled there for rituals over and above any other reason people might travel (knowledge, trade, maybe even to avoid persecution). One could equally argue in 5,000 years looking back to today that a few hundreds thousands Syrians came to Europe for a ritual. Obviously we know currently that's not the case - there's no ritual involved, they just want a new safer life.

The fact people were buried there makes no difference, Syrian migrants will also be buried here in Europe when they eventually pass away, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean that they're kings, or that we're going to sacrifice them.

You've really highlighted what I was getting at, historians come up with a theory, e.g. rituals, then they find something else out, i.e. people from Europe travel there, and then they manipulate that and claim it as evidence - the Europeans were coming for rituals. Yes, or the whole initial ritual thing could be wrong, the act could be trade, and the Europeans came for trade. You see my point? They think if they just claim discoveries B, C and D support theory A even if it doesn't actually support it any more than it might support any other theory then that's enough for it to become established fact in their minds when in reality they're just making up a story and running with it without due consideration for alternative possibilities.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[cavreader]

Trying to unravel events that happened over 5000 years ago always includes lots of competing interpretations based on a limited amount of hard evidence. I never claimed what they found pointed proved anything. It's just another data point to add to the others.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[RockDoctor]

So given that the history you say is portrayed in a TV show and agree is problematic is the same as that professed by academia, literature, and the web, where exactly do I find this real history of which you speak?

Six months into the first five years of your PhD in Egyptology.

Just read the first thousand papers that come to hand. That'll give you a good start on the subject.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[RockDoctor]

could it just as easily support an alternative theory, that, say, there were continent renowned craftspeople

Most workshops leave an archaeological trace - knapped chips from flint, wood shavings, hearths. To the best of my knowledge, nothing has been found in the the area that is inconsistent with normal (i.e. subsistence farming) inhabitation.

On the other hand, the mounds of pig's right forelimbs (and no other parts of their bodies) do speak of something structured, organized, consistent ... and quite bizarre. In other words, "ritual".

Can you explain the rules of football, as deduced from the archaeological record of that collection of rituals? Including, of course the bizarre aberration of some countries to perform the ritual of "football" with an oval ball instead of a spherical one.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

"Most workshops leave an archaeological trace - knapped chips from flint, wood shavings, hearths. To the best of my knowledge, nothing has been found in the the area that is inconsistent with normal (i.e. subsistence farming) inhabitation."

I don't think they've really dug enough in the area to find much in the first place, but even this doesn't preclude the possibility, the actual craftsmanship may have been done further away, the area could simply have been a place of trade. In fact, it would seem incredibly odd that even if it was a ritual site that there wasn't a massive amount of trade there given how far and wide people were apparently coming - any lack of evidence of trade in itself should bring into question whether we know even remotely enough to have an idea of what the purpose of the area was. At that point you have to start fudging the ritual theory- "as part of the ritual trade was banned"? That would seem to be clutching at straws without the remotest bit of evidence.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

"Trying to unravel events that happened over 5000 years ago always includes lots of competing interpretations based on a limited amount of hard evidence."

I absolutely agree, my point is basically that historians should be giving a lot more "We simply don't know for sure" type responses rather than the common "My pet theory is absolutely what happened!".

There seems to be this desperation amongst modern historians to try and be the one that proved some event in history, but without having to put in the actual effort of proving that event history. They seem to believe that simply declaring their pet theory to be true as sufficient. It's not and it brings the whole subject into disrepute when it's such a widespread problem.

Historians aren't alone of course, a lot of the subjects on the fringes of the sciences suffer the same degradation of quality (in fact you could argue it's true of science in general including the core sciences) - taxonomy is another border science I'm familiar with that has serious quality problems right now (with way too much naming and classification being based on personal opinion, rather than object fact making it useless for scientific purposes).

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[RockDoctor]

I don't think they've really dug enough in the area to find much in the first place, but even this doesn't preclude the possibility, the actual craftsmanship may have been done further away, the area could simply have been a place of trade

If you look at Prof Gaffney's CV you'll see that he's a "landscape archaeologist" ; i.e. he specialises in looking at sites in their context of the whole landscape, which in the Stonehenge Landscape Project is an area around 30 miles across, not even centred on Stonehenge, because it's not by a long margin the biggest monument in the area (that title would probably go to Silbury Hill, which doesn't give way in effort-to-build to anything short of the Pyramids ; though the "processional way" between Avebury and Silbury Hill is probably a close contender). In fact, late-comer monuments like Stonehenge may have been built specifically because they required less effort than the earlier monuments.

There has been a huge amount of work and recording done in this area over the last 350 years - not all of it high-quality modern archaeology. Dozens of Roman villas, many of them built on the relics of older settlements (500 to a thousand years older. Hundreds of round barrows and long barrows and (as the song goes, "bell-shaped barrows". Thousands of crop marks field-walked and subject to varying degrees of investigation. There isn't much that happens in the landscape to provide raw materials (that are archaeologically observable) for unusual trade. Metal mining in the Mendips (50 miles to the west) didn't really get going as far as we know until Roman times. Flint mining is better known from the South Downs (100 miles SE) and East Anglia (Grimes Graves, ~150 miles to the ENE), though undoubtedly there were others which have disappeared into the landscape. Wood carving doesn't leave much of an archaeological footprint, but from pollen analysis on hundreds of samples, there wasn't anything growing in this area which was remarkably different from other areas of Southern England. Indeed, from the archaeology of the huge henge and multiple wooden monuments at Durrington Walls, the question has to be raised of was this area indeed significantly different from any other part of England, except that they built their monuments from archaologically durable stone instead of labile wood. As a different verse of the same song adds, "We used to have a Woodhenge here / But it rotted ..."

You're projecting modern experience onto a landscape and society which is very different. In the word that we live in, trade is important. In a subsistence agriculture society, the amount of trade is far, far lower. If you need something for your farming, you make it yourself. There are trade goods, and networks of traded items. Stone axes from dolerites from Ulster are found all over Britain (Ulster is 350 miles from Stonehenge) ; copper from the huge mines of North Wales makes it's way into mainland Europe. There is a lot of work done on tracing the provenance of such items (actually, one of my university classmates works as a mineralogist in precisely this work), and we do know a lot about the trade networks of the time.

Stonehenge is not a significant producer in such networks. Certainly there was high-status goods coming into the area (the dolerite axe heads, for example) from elsewhere, but nothing remarkably more than surrounding areas.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

"You're projecting modern experience onto a landscape and society which is very different."

On the contrary, I'm arguing that this relatively modern belief that any less advanced society must be obsessed with rituals including blood sacrifice and similar is an incredibly naive viewpoint and a relic of our imperialist history more than anything else. It's a projection of our observation of some of the societies we discovered and crushed in our more recent history onto all less advanced societies rather than an objective look at actual human history which highlights capability for relatively advanced non-ritualistic thinking that allowed the likes of many groups of ancients to perform some profound engineering feats, which, had they simply assumed everything would sort itself out with rituals could never have happened.

We know that Stonehenge aligns well with determining time and importantly time of year, is it so hard to stop there and consider that it might have been a profoundly useful tool for the agrarian society you talk about to maximise crop yield and help avoid starvation? You talk of pigs legs but where is the certainty that they're a result of a ritual rather than mere tradition based on an age old societal joke about an important person who lost his right arm in the construction of the site?

There are still so many plausible alternative explanations that don't require this incredibly lazy attribution of ritual to everything we don't have a full picture of.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

And if those historic papers written by people who still respected the scientific method don't cover anything new, then where do you go?

What goes so badly wrong that people who once read, or perhaps even wrote some of those papers no longer believe that theories need proof, and simply declaring them fact is good enough?

You're right, I can go back and read historic papers from that time where scientific method was adhered to, and that is indeed a good starting point for stuff we've already long figured out. But where do we go from there? or is that it? history is done now and we can just ignore all the modern tosh that gets thrown out there completely unevidenced by anything at least reasonably concrete? has all the low hanging fruit has been picked, and a lack of further evidence makes it near impossible to learn any more so we're stuck with people in the field who want to get paid so are too scared to admit that "yep, based on the evidence we have there's not much more we can say with any reasonable accuracy" and so just make shit up and sell it as fact instead?

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[RockDoctor]

On the contrary, I'm arguing that this relatively modern belief that any less advanced society must be obsessed with rituals

"ritual" is a label for things which are organised, consistent and repeated, but whose purpose we don't understand. That is where it's meaning ends. Full stop, end of logical construct built on top of the label. Perhaps it would be better if archaeologists were to use the label "frumpstiggle", or "qwertgfdsa", but the usage developed some time ago, and terminology is one of the less flexible things in life.

What TV "archaeologists" mean by "ritual" may be another matter. The ones I pay attention to are always careful to make the point that "ritual" only means something we don't understand. But I do ignore or just not watch a lot of the crap that is on TV. It's possible that the careful choice of words of the interviewed archaeologists gets thrown on the cutting room floor to make space for adverts, but that is TV. Certainly there are a lot of archaeologists who refuse to participate in TV programmes because of the distortions put on their words to make exciting TV.

"Ritual" is probably the description that we'd apply to a football game which we knew of only through it's archaeological record : ritual sites (level fields with structures at each end and large amounts of surrounding seating) ; occasional carved depictions suggesting several dozen participants in the ritual, and the puzzlement that sometimes the ritual object is spherical, sometimes prolate, and sometimes oblate. Finding a discus on a site would complicate interpretation (maybe different rituals at different times of the year? Is there a calenderic purpose?) and digging up Jimmy Hoffa's body would be strong evidence that human sacrifice was at least sometimes part of the ritual.

If that sounds facetious, it is, slightly. But compare the game of football above (which even I know only involves a spherical ball in months with an "r" in them) with what we know of the Central American "ball game" and you may see the range of things that could get lumped under "ritual".

We know that Stonehenge aligns well with determining time and importantly time of year,

Do we know that? It is a much-repeated idea on TV, but not given much detailed credence within the profession. I was talking with Clive Ruggles (Professor of Archaeoastronomy at University of Leicester) a couple of years ago when I bumped into him with my father (they've known each other for several decades) on the subject and he's considerably more dubious of the astronomical utility of such constructions. The processes necessary to work out where to put the stones would have required exactly as much astronomy and time-keeping, but these constructions are archaeologically invisible, and by implication were far smaller in scale and cheaper (by whatever metrics you apply to a non-monetary society). The actual keeping of time was done by the Neolithic equivalent of a caesium atomic clock in a basement somewhere, while Stonehenge served the "ritual" purposes associated with the equivalent of the Edinburgh Hogmanay street party.

Another datum which I brought to the conversation (and Clive was well aware of) was the 90-odd "recumbent stone circles" in NE Scotland, which repeatedly have an astronomical/ calender utility ascribed to them. The assertion so often made (I see it has crept back onto the wikipedia page. Again.) is that the orientation of the recumbent stone of the circle reflects some orientation of the moon in it's Saros cycle. Which is great - it gives a calendar marker every 18 and a bit years - just over one calendar mark per generation. And adjacent (a few miles apart - comparable with parish churches) stone circles can be up to 50 degrees separated in the orienta

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

""ritual" is a label for things which are organised, consistent and repeated, but whose purpose we don't understand. That is where it's meaning ends. Full stop, end of logical construct built on top of the label"

I suggest you have a look at the dictionary definition of ritual. It very much has a religious intent to it. So I'd hold off on your need to attack TV interpretations, when they're using the exact interpretation the vast majority of the population use. If you've determined your own definition then that's fine, but you can't complain when people question it. Why not just use a term like "activity" instead of ritual which has a clear religious slant to it?

"Do we know that? It is a much-repeated idea on TV, but not given much detailed credence within the profession. I was talking with Clive Ruggles (Professor of Archaeoastronomy at University of Leicester) a couple of years ago when I bumped into him with my father (they've known each other for several decades) on the subject and he's considerably more dubious of the astronomical utility of such constructions. The processes necessary to work out where to put the stones would have required exactly as much astronomy and time-keeping, but these constructions are archaeologically invisible, and by implication were far smaller in scale and cheaper (by whatever metrics you apply to a non-monetary society). The actual keeping of time was done by the Neolithic equivalent of a caesium atomic clock in a basement somewhere, while Stonehenge served the "ritual" purposes associated with the equivalent of the Edinburgh Hogmanay street party."

Aligning the stones when the site was built over such a long period wouldn't even remotely need any kind of complex knowledge. Simply moving the original much smaller stones each year until the position was known and well established before the bigger stones were eventually moved in is a pretty obvious way of dealing with it. It's not like they just turned up one day with these massive fuck off stones and just plonked them down whilst happening to know where. Talk of need of an atomic clock is laughable - perhaps yes, if you've worked in academia all your life and have no real world pragmatic, practical competence whatsoever.

And yes, we do know they align astronomically, I don't know why you'd question that, we know this because we can observe it on the summer solstice every fucking year. You may disagree on why it does (even if you believe it's just a profound coincidence), but to pretend it doesn't is rather ignorant.

The fact that some other circles fail miserably doesn't really tell us much, other than that other people got this type of system not quite right, which begs the question of whether it even needs to be - simply realising that when the sun hits stone about 3/4 of the way down the left hand stone of arch A is probably sufficient for most communities in an "Oh well, we didn't get it quite right but that tells us what we need to know" kind of way. Stone henge was refined over a few hundred years from what I understand so the fact it does align is merely evidence of the effort expended over that period at that site.

Knowing roughly where you are in the year in a country like the UK where most of our summer has felt like autumn, much of last Winter felt like Spring, and snow can turn up as late as April/May is probably good enough if you just want to know when the fuck to stick your crops out. If in one case they decide to refine it to track the peak of summer and trough of winter perfectly then why do you still feel the need to seek magic? I'm a perfectionist too, it'd probably be the sort of thing I'd do also, because it would bug me if it didn't align perfectly.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[RockDoctor]

I suggest you have a look at the dictionary definition of ritual. It very much has a religious intent to it.

... however, when it is used by ARCHAEOLOGISTS in an ARCHAEOLOGICAL context, that is not what it means. (Incidentally, "context" is another term that has a noticeably different usage in archaeology to common English.).

Why not just use a term like "activity" instead of ritual which has a clear religious slant to it?

Great idea. Where do I come to get into the time machine and go back and change the terminology used a century and a bit ago?

Aligning the stones when the site was built over such a long period wouldn't even remotely need any kind of complex knowledge.

Your surveying protocol. Let's start with a field. You do not have a compass. You do have an abundance of string, and as many sticks as you want to drive into the ground. And as much astronomical ingenuity as you want. What is your first step?

Talk of need of an atomic clock is laughable - perhaps yes, if you've worked in academia all your life and have no real world pragmatic, practical competence whatsoever.

Look up "metaphor". It's a Greek word, so you may not have hear it before.

And yes, we do know they align astronomically

At this moment, they align with some astronomical phenomena, but not with others. (Incidentally, what is the fucking use of marking a solstice? What you really need is the approaching vernal equinox, to allow you to get the seed into the ground. By the time you get to the solstice, you've already either got a good harvest in the making, or killed your family in the coming winter. Marking the solstice has no detectable utility (unless you can come up with a reason, so it's "ritual" sensu archaeologicae.) But since they were build 4 to 6 thousand years ago, and the skies were different then, that doesn't tell us what they were used for when they were built.

simply realising that when the sun hits stone about 3/4 of the way down the left hand stone of arch A is probably sufficient for most communities in an "Oh well, we didn't get it quite right but that tells us what we need to know" kind of way.

And if your neighbours, literally two hours walk away come up with a completely different answer to the same question, that raises one weird circumstance. Or if they were answering a completely different question, that's another different set of questions for interpreting the sites. (how far apart are parishes in your community? Here they're about miles in the country, and a few hundred metres in town. There are 4 parish churches between my house and the supermarket, of which three are abandoned and derelict, or deconsecrated and up for rent.)

Fuck's sake - what a pile of bullshit over a stupid choice of terminology a century ago. I remember a comment in AI to the effect of 'call your programme units "QDR45" instead of "ResolveParadox", to avoid giving yourself and anyone else false expectations of what the code actually does. I don't think "ritual" was a good term to choose - "frumpstiggle" would have been less confusing - but it was the term that was chosen and unless you want to pick a fight with the whole archaeological community (which will take the rest of your life, and probably fail) then you're not going to see it change. Or you could build that time machine.

Re:For Ritual Read ...

[Xest]

".. however, when it is used by ARCHAEOLOGISTS in an ARCHAEOLOGICAL context, that is not what it means. (Incidentally, "context" is another term that has a noticeably different usage in archaeology to common English.)."

So maybe that's the problem? that archaeologists have invented their own language that isn't English because it has completely different definitions for words? Again though, that's clearly a problem with archaeology than everyone else if it insists on making up it's own definitions. You can't blame everyone else for wondering why you use terms like ritual all the fucking time even when it's unfounded and meaningless to everyone else. You can't blame TV that has to broadcast to a general audience for talking in the language of the general audience rather than yours.

"Your surveying protocol. Let's start with a field. You do not have a compass. You do have an abundance of string, and as many sticks as you want to drive into the ground. And as much astronomical ingenuity as you want. What is your first step?"

You don't even need that, just stick a bunch of reasonable sized stones in a field - large enough that the wind can't blow them over, small enough to carry or at least with a couple of people. Place them in a field in a rough circle, put enough in for whatever base you want and that is natural to you, maybe 10 like your fingers and thumbs, or 12 like a 12 hour clock, 24 like a 24 hour or whatever seems to make sense to you. Whatever feels natural. Watch how and where the sun hits throughout the day and even through the year, and adjust them round depending on where you want the sun to hit. With enough adjustment you'll be able to get it appearing at certain points against your monolith as and how you want it. You can even etch marks vertically to measure height of the sun through your rocks to help determine time of year. Eventually, you can replace with much larger stones if you really want to.

Why do you think you need any complex geometry for a problem that can be solved trivially with a bit of trial and error over time?

"Look up "metaphor". It's a Greek word, so you may not have hear it before."

No it's called hyperbole, and it was unnecessary hyperbole in an attempt to distract from the point. It's also a word of Greek origin, but it's also firmly entrenched English now, but perhaps you also have your own pointless definition that makes no sense to anyone else, hence why you didn't call it what it is. If it was a metaphor then I'm intrigued to know for what, maybe your academic mate believes they had an alien clock instead or something?

"At this moment, they align with some astronomical phenomena"

Yes, and back then too. Neither the sun nor the earth have adjusted suitably for that to not be the case.

"Incidentally, what is the fucking use of marking a solstice?"

But it doesn't just mark the solstice does it? Knowing when you've reached the high point of the year, and the low point of the year in terms of daylight is incredibly useful, because you know you have half the time remaining until the worst of it, or have finished the worst of it and that it'll soon be improving. Other markers allow you to determine points through the rest of the year.

"And if your neighbours, literally two hours walk away come up with a completely different answer to the same question, that raises one weird circumstance. Or if they were answering a completely different question, that's another different set of questions for interpreting the sites. (how far apart are parishes in your community? Here they're about miles in the country, and a few hundred metres in town. There are 4 parish churches between my house and the supermarket, of which three are abandoned and derelict, or deconsecrated and up for rent.) "

I literally have no idea what tangent you're rambling off on, you seem to be creating a pet theory and trying desperately to fudge reality to fit your theory whilst missing the blindingly obvious, which is exactly the sort of poor quality hi

Re:Islam is a cancer`

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. Of course if they Muslims succeed in their aims they will be digging this up and destroying it before using the indigenous Britains as sex slaves.

How does it compare to Gobekli Tepe?

[Pegasus]

It looks smaller to me ...

Re:How does it compare to Gobekli Tepe?

[JMJimmy]

Göbekli Tepe is 300m diameter, this one is ~475m diameter

Re:How does it compare to Gobekli Tepe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stonehenge (including this new site) is approx 3,000 years old
Göbekli Tepe is approximately 11,500 years old

Just hotels for bugs

[HxBro]

My daughter plays with stones all the time in the garden, building hotels for bugs apparently, all these stones are just some bored kids trying to out do each other a few thousand years ago, it started off as a hotel for bugs (probably big alien ones - I've seen starship troopers), and now the "experts of the day" decide it's a place of ritual or worship...

Re:Just hotels for bugs

[OhSoLaMeow]

Why do I have this image of giant dominoes?

archeology on steroids

[Anonymous Coward]

Que the exploding Carruca.

Re:archeology on steroids

[twdorris]

I'm over 40 and I stopped using that "on steriods" cliché years and years ago. Just how out of touch does one have to be?? Oh, nevermind, I see now.

Re:archeology on steroids

[Anonymous Coward]

He's old, give him a break. Before long he won't be able to spell his own name

Re:archeology on steroids

[Rakarra]

I thought "Indiana Jones" was archaeology on steroids.

Totally aliens

[PopeRatzo]

It was aliens what built it.

Buried?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds more like burial sites

iPhone -6s

[CaptainOfSpray]

..in those days, your iPhone was not a handheld, and the only entry in your Contacts list went to the Gods.

[What if iPhone model numbers could go negative?]

Re:Islam is a cancer`

[Rei]

Indeed, they need to become civilized like Britons. If they want to sleep with a sex slave or deface cultural monuments, they should have to book a trip to Thailand just like everyone else.

Stonehenge was for music

[Iamthecheese]

Stonehenge was for music. BOOONG said stonehenge. Stonehenge goes BOOONG. BOOOOONG. BOOOONG. You are Stonehenges. Say BOOONG. Say BOOOOONG you stonehenges!

typical British builders

[Anonymous Coward]

They said they would be back on Tuesday to finish it!

Re:typical British builders

[tehcyder]

Which is why God invented the terms "retention" and "snagging list".

It's Carousel!

[RogueWarrior65]

RENEW!!!

Re:Or, on the lighter sideGetting Stoned

[BoRegardless]

Early man went to Stonehenge to get stoned sort of like Burning Man?

Fatal hippo bite hypothesis

[peter303]

Currently hippos are the most deadly animal in tropical Africa. And they lived in the Nile until recently. I heard this at a talk at the Denver Egyptian Study Society from a medical pathologist.

Universal builds near Disneyland

[peter303]

Perhaps not so different with megalithic temples too.

Ritual Arena?

[Elixon]

:-) What if this is just a stone pillars inside soil/wood filled defense walls? :-D I guess that would be less exotic then ritual arena with human sacrifices... so lets go with Ritual Arena.

Re:Ritual Arena?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was my thought. Tamped earth would be prone to subsidence and erosion, but having large stones inside of the berm would give it more resistance to the forces of nature and man.

It it is the size of a football field,

[dsmatthews9379]

it probably is a football field.

Re:How does it compare to Carnac?

[Richard Kirk]

The obvious bit of Carnac is mostly sets of parallel lines, though it did include a couple of circles too, and there was a lot of re-use of stones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How does it compare to Carnac?

[RockDoctor]

Carnac - at least the menhirs and alignments are mostly centuries to a millennium or so later than this. But that whole "Atlantic Coast Culture" concept still has some good legs.

It's obvious

[ChrisMaple]

This is a NASCAR track.