What Lies Beneath Stonehenge?

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-lies-beneath-Stonehenge-180952437/?all

by jonbaer • 12 years ago

76 36 12 years ago

smithsonianmag.com

ttty• 12 years ago

any TL;DR?

dsjoerg• 12 years ago

A groundbreaking survey of the site has turned up tantalizing new clues to what really went on there.

nitrogen3• 12 years ago

Since we're actually talking about things buried in the ground, I have to ask: is that literal groundbreaking, as in they literally broke the ground, or is "groundbreaking" a metaphor for new and unexpected?

Edit: it looks like you just copy/pasted the subtitle from Smithsonian. Do you have any additional commentary that might enlighten the rest of us who are trying to decide whether to read the article?

SixSigma2• 12 years ago

the fieldwork took about 120 days, spread over four years.

new finds, including the more than 15 possible new or poorly understood Neolithic monuments. Gaffney emphasized possible, acknowledging that it will require digging—“the testimony of the spade”—to discover precisely what was there.

Two pits, marking the midsummer sunrise and the midsummer solstice, set within a monument that’s meant to be something to do with the passage of the sun.”

The “sunrise” pit was visible from Stonehenge, but the “sunset” pit was not

“Until you dig holes, you just don’t know what you’ve got,”

“It’s going to take years.”

lurkinggrue• 12 years ago

The Pandorica?

thejteam• 12 years ago

I knew somebody would have beat me to it.

codingbinary• 12 years ago

Exactly my thought.

wubbfindel2• 12 years ago

Just a little correction, if I may offer it. The article asks:

How did the bluestones, which weigh between four and eight tons apiece, arrive at the site, nearly 5,000 years ago, from 170 miles away in North Wales?

It's my understanding that the majority of the bluestones have been confirmed to come from the Pembrokeshire area in South West Wales, not North Wales.

Some searching returned these results:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-16245746

http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/pdf-files/uploaded-to-ebu...

Hope that's of some interest to folks...

jbrooksuk• 12 years ago

My Grandparents live in Pembrokeshire, I seem to remember visiting some where which said that Stonehenge was "from" there.

contingencies2• 12 years ago

170 miles = 273.589 km ...

Duckduckgo 'distance from pembrokeshire to stonehenge' = 226.7 km

That's only an overall difference of approximately 17% in 'as the crow flies' distance.

(Without knowing the geography at all, in reality the difference is quite possibly even less, since the route is probably not straight and shares some of the same diversions. On the other hand, it could also be more, since Wales sounds (how scientific!) hillier than most places in the UK. Either way, it's still a bloody long way.)

wubbfindel2• 12 years ago

I can attest, through the experience of living here (and occasionally cycling here) that Wales is in fact "hillier" than England at least! But I think Scotland beats Wales on hills.

So, personal experience; just slightly more scientific. But only slightly.

shiftyrussian• 12 years ago

I'd like to imagine that ancient cultures had an elaborate visionary sense of humor. Sitting around the campfire, they devised the most intriguing practical joke on archaeologists.

JacobAldridge3• 12 years ago

"What if we only build half of it? Then they'll spend decades scouring the country-side looking for the rest!"

"Dave - you're a genius."

cozuya• 12 years ago

If only they labeled them "standing stone I, II and IV"

JacobAldridge3• 12 years ago

Stonehenge is a fascinating site, and if you haven't ever visited I encourage you to do so at a time (eg, Solstices, especially winter) or with a tour that allows you to venture inside and between the stones (standard visitors are restricted to a safe distance, which is not nearly as impressive).

I found (and have found, across a lot of physical sciences) incongruity in this piece between some mild slander of past amateur archaeologists without perspective for how primitive our technology will one day look.

To wit: In 1839 ... Captain Beamish dug out an estimated 400 cubic feet of soil...Beamish’s “big hole was probably the final blow for any prehistoric features...that once lay at Stonehenge’s center.”

Followed shortly by modern day expert Vince Gaffney "acknowledging that it will require digging—“the testimony of the spade”—to discover precisely what was there."

Magnetometers would have been an unimaginable possibility to Beamish. I can only assume that at some future point there will be technology unimaginable to Gaffney (and us all) that may render his "testimony of the spade" as cruel to Stonehenge's secrets as those we mock from the past.

This isn't specific to Stonehenge or Gaffney. I think we as humans tend towards a little modern day hubris - "Look at how they used to do things, terrible science, we're so much more protective of things." And then we shovel Stonehenge, slice up the Shroud of Turin[1], and discuss opening a 2,000 year old bottle of wine because that's the only way to find out what's inside [2].

[1] I'm less concerned about this, because it's a fraud. [2] http://www.thelocal.de/20111209/39405

ekianjo3• 12 years ago

[1] I'm less concerned about this, because it's a fraud.

A fraud of what? It may not be the cloth in which Jesus was wrapped, but it's still very old nonetheless and certainly not a painting from the Middle Ages as some charlatans tried to portray it.

JacobAldridge3• 12 years ago

Good question: Claims that is is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ are fraudulent.

If its only 'claim to fame' was that it was a very old shroud or painting, then I would not make that claim (and, indeed, I doubt very much I would have heard of it).

FiatLuxDave• 12 years ago

I have to agree. Stonehenge is a special place. I proposed to my wife inside Stonehenge (at dawn on a Spring day, years ago) and now it is a very special place to me in particular. I know that no matter how successful any invention or startup I create is, that I will never make any person happier than I made her on that day.

Non-destructive testing/measurement methods have so many plusses that you'd wonder why they aren't mandatory in archeology. In addition to the obvious fact that a damaged site or article can't then be tested with better future technologies, non-destructive methods are more reliable (calibrations and measurements can be repeated). This is so much more of an issue in archeology than it is in say, laboratory biology, where if a sample is destroyed there is often the possibility of resampling. It is more analogous to crime scene investigation, where if you destroy the sample DNA with a bad PCR, you may destroy the entire possibility of using that evidence. Really, the only justification for not mandating non-destructive methods in archeology is that we can always imagine that there is a better future method than whatever we have now, so if we always wait for an uncertain future, no archeology will actually get done.

I think that this conflict means that there is a real opportunity for collaboration between archeological societies and funders and scientists/device manufacturers of non-destructive methods. By default, archeologists tend to use lots of grad students with shovels, because they are cheap and being a grad student with a shovel is a rite of passage in archeology. If non-destructive device manufacturers would help replace the student shovels with e.g. student Raman scattering devices, this might help spur more use of the non-destructive methods to the point where archeologists would look askance at anyone who used shovels without first using less destructive tools.

Just some thoughts; I'm not an archeologist. I have seen a similar change in tool use prompted by device manufacturers working with professional societies, though, in radiation therapy (is anyone in the developed world using Co-60 with conformal blocks anymore?).

noiv• 12 years ago

I've recently spend a few weeks in a region without light pollution and mostly clear night sky. An experience I probably share with every six year old kid which lived some thousands years ago. Even if I put all math I've learned aside it was clear the sky rotates. The band of stars we call Milky Way took same place every night. I can imagine after a few month the moon's behavior appears obvious and after a few years seasons, the sun and constellations start to match too. Perhaps people recognizing this pattern told it every next generation because this is powerful knowledge. It doesn't need much to accidentally find geographic features indicating the longest or shortest day. The moment someone artificially build such a monument he gained the power of prediction - the stars followed his words, provable every night and day.

I wish every kid had the opportunity to spend a night awake and follow with open eyes our home galaxy moving over the night sky. After a week they can name the planets.

quattrofan2• 12 years ago

If there are any archaelogists here one thing I would like to know is why haven't the main stone rings as they stand now been restored? Its a fantastic place to visit as it is, but why not repair it, raise the fallen stones and put it back to how it last was, it would be amazing.

If this was say Westminster Abbey that was half destroyed we would do this, why is it not considered it seems for Stonehenge?

sambeau• 12 years ago

This is the restored version. It was rebuilt at least three times in the 20th century. There's concrete under some of those stones, holding hem up.

quattrofan2• 12 years ago

Ok well I didn't know that, but then why not FULLY restore it? Its still what 60% complete at best?

contingencies2• 12 years ago

If you like this sort of thing, check out http://www.philipcoppens.com/anglesey.html which describes an island off the northwest of Wales and its history (few citations, but interesting). I hit on this reading http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/1037205...

What Lies Beneath Stonehenge?

Related Stories