~ Incredible Discovery Made At Stonehenge ~ Last week a chance event led to the discovery of the fact that Stonehenge was once a complete circle. Thanks to a dry summer and a too short watering hose, patches of dried grass outlined where magaliths once lay. io9/... But that story is not this story... Its connected, yes, by location. Want to know what the really incredible discovery was? Then you need to follow me to the other side of the orange megalith. Stonehenge has been enjoying a lot of attention lately. Several archaeologists from Birmingham and Bradford universities and from Ludwig Bolzman Institute, led by Professor Vincent Gaffney from Birmingham University, have been studying the results of four years of hard work and have made some astounding and interesting discoveries around Stonehenge..or rather under Stonehenge and the area surrounding it. Using very powerful ground penetrating radar and 3D laser along with other techniques, the researchers mapped an area of nearly 12 sq kilometers (1,250 football fields) to a depth of 15ft (3m) and found a veritable treasure trove of ancient burial sites, chapels, shrines, pits and a huge megalithic monument consisting of over 50 giant stones that are buried in a 1,082ft C shaped enclosure. A super-henge. The c-shaped enclosure – more than 330 metres wide and over 400 metres long – faced directly towards the River Avon. The monument was later converted from a c-shaped to a roughly circular enclosure, now known as Durrington Walls – Britains largest pre-historic henge, roughly 12 times the size of Stonehenge itself. As a religious complex, it would almost certainly have had a deeply spiritual and ritual connection with the river. But precisely why is a complete mystery, although it is possible that that particular stretch of water was regarded as a deity. Along with this colossal enclosure, the archaeologists have found both Neolithic and Bronze Age religious shrines, some of them 100ft (30 meters) in diameter. The smaller ones range from 30 to 50 ft (10 to 18m) in diameter. Large ritual pits - 20 of them - each about 16ft(5m) were discovered and over half a dozen Bronze Age burial mounds. Even Iron Age domesticated livestock enclosures have been noticed. The icing on the cake was the discovery of a 108 ft (33m) long timber building thought to be over 6000 years old that was likely used for burial rites [The building] has three rows of roof-bearing posts. It is around 300 square metres and slightly trapezoidal, which is interesting because in the same period on the continent, about 100 to 200 years earlier, we also find this type of trapezoidal building related to megaliths [giant stones], noted Wolfgang Neubauer of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute in a BBC article. io9/... More astonishment came when the researchers discovered a colossal trench they named the Cursus: A first inspection of the Cursus and the Durrington Walls, located north and north-east of Stonehenge, also revealed new insights. The work unveiled two additional pits inside the prehistoric Cursus, an enormous, elongated circular trench originally named because it reminded its discoverers of a Roman racing track. The Cursus is aligned in the East-West direction, and the pits were found one in each end, pointing to Dusk and Dawn. bbc/... Its obvious, given the varying ages of the structures seen on radar, that these sites were not built as a whole, but at various times, so it will be interesting what further analysis will have to say about Stonehenge and its companions; when they were built and how they were used. Everyone has their favourite theories on what Stonehenge was used for. Most involve seasonal worship and/or death rites. some even speculate on Druidic sacrifices. But only time, lots of extremely careful digging, and careful analysis will tell us. One thing that is apparent: the area immediately surrounding Stonehenge had vast significance to the ancient people of Britain. I wonder why. Update: Im adding this link to Wikipedia that explains that Stonehenge and the general site around it was a burial site, owing to the fact that many cremated remains have been found there. I havent taken the time to read through the whole entry yet, just scanned it. https://en.wikipedia.org/...I m.dailykos/story/2014/09/11/1328914/-Incredible-Discovery-Made-At-Stonehenge?detail=email#
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 08:17:52 +0000
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