With drought prominently featured in the newspapers currently, it is wise to remember how important a reliable source of water is to a civilization. The final failure of water replenishment caused the downfall and/or dispersal of the Hohokam and Anasazi cultures in the American West. Many other places on earth since the dawn of man have had these very problems as in Mohenjo-Daro in the Middle East. We would be wise to study and learn.

Baffling Viking Artifacts Found in Cave DUBLIN (Reuters) - A hoard of Viking artifacts found in a cave in southern Ireland is baffling archaeologists. The hoard discovered by a heritage worker cleaning the cave comprises coins, bronze and silver ingots and conical objects made of silver wire. ``Nothing like these have been seen anywhere, let alone in the Viking world. There is no parallel,'' Andrew Halpin, keeper of Irish antiquities at the National Museum in Dublin, told Reuters Friday. ``We think they could be ornaments for garments, or some kind of cloak fastener, but we're not sure. It's a very important find for academics studying this era,'' he said. The hoard, found in county Kilkenny, south of Dublin, also includes Anglo-Saxon coins dating from 940, confirming historical evidence that the Vikings maintained settlements in both Ireland and northern England at the time. Halpin said the cave may have been used as a refuge and the artifacts probably formed part of someone's personal wealth stashed for safe keeping during some kind of emergency. A Viking presence at the site had been well established, he said, and there were records of a massacre of 1,000 people in the cave about 40 years before the earliest date on the coins. Vikings first carried out hit-and-run raids on Ireland in 795 and later founded settlements, including most of Ireland's existing major towns, around 840.

Oops!

Is not there a theory about the Vikings reaching the Americas long before Columbus? It seems quite possible; they seem to have been everywhere. Great article! I will take the liberty of searching for pictures of my own country's Copan Ruins. I will post them as soon as I can find them.

And here is the first...if it wishes to appear. Spring is not behaving normally, imo.

Brava, Amiga Mia. Lovely Copan stela you posted. The first archaological photograph. Who better than you to post it?! Muchas Gracias, Es muy interesante. (now correct my Spanish as I check your English...)

Not only is my Spanish bad, I also mixed in Italian. I had better stay with the jumble English of my Mother tongue. Perhaps you could add some Gaelic?!

I see no errors in your lovely Spanish salutation! How wonderful to read! I see no Italian anywhere, though... "Cop�n, located in western Honduras, was once a Classic Maya royal center, the largest site in the southeastern part of the Maya area. Covering about 29 acres, it was built on the banks of the Cop�n River on an artificial terrace made of close to a million cubic feet of dirt. Over time, people spread out from the central core and built homes in outlying areas that had formerly been used for crops. Cop�n's nobles built smaller, rival complexes on sites that were increasingly further from the core. In spite of its wealth, power, and size, Cop�n collapsed. No monuments seem to have been produced after A.D. 822." This from the learner.org site.

Missing posts from changing servers: Response 12 of 13: Ginny (vibrown) * Mon, Jan 31, 2000 (12:11) * 6 lines Archaeology has always interested me, but I haven't had a chance to do much research on it. When I went to Bolivia for the 1994 solar eclipse, I remember reading that the Inca civilization covered most of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and northern Chile. Apparently Bolivia had a pre-Inca civilization near Lake Titikaka; I think they were called the Aymara. Where were the Maya and Aztec civilizations located? Response 13 of 13: Marcia (MarciaH) * Mon, Jan 31, 2000 (12:55) * 7 lines The Maya peopled the southern area of Mexico, The Yucatan Peninsula, and most of Central America. They were in power from pre-1000 BC until the Spanish Conquest in the 1500's AD. The Aztec were succesors of the Toltecs from about 1300 AD until the Spanish conquest. In the 1200-1521AD period the Aztecs established an empire and constructed their capital on a marshy island beneath what is now Mexico city. Their empire extended south to Guatemala. Their terms for the ancient cultures in the area are the ones we use today. The Mayan civilization encompasses Pre-classic 1000BC - 250AD when they were mostly an egalitarian civilization. The rise of shaman priest-kings led to Classic Mayan time of 250AD - 900AD which saw the creation of city and village systems, math using a zero,(They had no Millennium problems!) and a vast network for overland trade. Post Classic Mayan 900AD-1521AD population became too vast for natural resources to sustain which brought about the decline of the cities and central power. Source: The National Geograpohic Mesoamerican timeline. back to regular programming

A really good book on the impact of geology on archaeology is "Unearthing Atlantis" by Charles Pellegrino, highly readable and informative, even if you know next to nothing about either discipline. The Atlantis of the title refers to the Minoan culture of the eastern Mediterranean. One of the sites of Minoan habitation was the island of Kalliste, the most beautiful. Well it was until one of the most violent and loudest vulcanic eruptions blew 2/3's of the island away, and may possibly have been the cause of the Biblical 10 Plagues on Egypt.(That's Pellegrino's assertion). The island then got the name it would be known by until past classical times, Thera, the place of fear. The excavation on the island, now called Santorini (St. Irene), has been riddled with infighting and backbiting on the of the academic establishment and the Greek government.

Yes! I am familiar with this book. He is an adherent of the Thera origin of Atlantis. One of the saner books in this wide open to wild theories discussions. Whatever happened there, it did in more than just the enormous Volcano which blew itself into oblivion along with an entire culture.

Just watched a really good archeology TV programme. Must be the season fro them cos there are several on different channels at the moment. This one is called Time Team (they have a web site if i find the address I'll post it). They do a three day dig together with local archeologists who have called the team in. todays programme was in Coventry, England and they were escavating part of the original cathedral there trying to find the cloisters. They use geophysics to take ground soundings as well as conventional archeological 'digging'. They found the cloisters, lots of medieval floor tiles, a skeleton, that at first was thought to be modern and murdered, but turned out to be medieva, and an artist gave his impression of the scene. They also did a virtual reality tour of the cathedral.

How neat! Thanks for sharing that. Would love to work with that team. Gotta come back as a British Archaeologist in the next life (just before the one in which I come back as a geologist... and the one as an anthropologist...) Whilst I was visiting Canterbury Cathedral, they were replacing the most eroded scuptures on the outside. There was a flatbed truck full of small pieces of the old Caen stone. I asked the loader what was going to happen to these pieces. He said they were going to the local landfill. I asked for a piece and he let me select the one I wanted. In my rock collection not boasts a little part of the original Canterbury Cathedral (but not the one St Augustine built...)

Did you see the Roman exhibition there? we went once when I lived in kent and I thoght it was very impresive. Just recently we were in Winchester for a weekend, and in the shopping Centre (Mall) as you came out of the car park into the Mall there was a walk through exhibition of the excavation that had been done before the shopping centre could be built. It even had light up scenarios and a sound track! All freee!

Gads! They'd have to drag me away with a block-and-tackle! Yes, visited the Kent site some years ago. That must have been SOME villa! The mosaics are reknowned world-wide, I believe!

there's another one near Cirencester that we've been to. It seemed massive and there was a surprising amount above ground (just), and they marked out the bits that weren't. I love visiting those sort of places.

If I lived over there, I'd have climbed every hillfort, crawled through every fogou, peeked into every dolmen and chambered long "burial" mound, pondered the significance of every stone circle and ditch-and-mound monument...*sigh* Oh, and I'd have been through every little and giant church and cathedral. There is nothing quite like walking through Salisbury Cathedral at dusk and looking at a small casket containing the bones of someone buried in 616. Incredible! Cirencester ("Sisister" yes? Or is it "Sinsister"?) is on my "next time" list.

Make that ditch-and-bank. Got it confused with Motte and Bailey which should also be on that list...

Trouble is it's like living in London - you get so used to it you don't notice what's on your doorstep.

Yes, I know...I grew up in suburban New York City, and the only time I was ever to the top of the Empire State Building was with a tourist. Never been to the Statue of Liberty...!

I once went to the Statue of Liberty on a ferry full of teenage French girls, Japanese heavy-metal kids, and Greek-Americans from Astoria, Queens. I forgot the Dutch tourists in sensible shoes. My favorite part was when Lady Liberty could be clearly seen from the right side of the boat, they announced that it would be best if people didn't head to the right side of the boat. So of course everyone ran to the right side of the boat, I didn't, but English is my native tongue. Sorry, that had nothing to do with archaeology. But there are interesting archaeological finds made in New York City, particularly if there is excavation in Lower Manhattan. The city grew from south to north. Aaron Burr once lived in what now is Harlem; it was the country then. Some of the things which were found include colonial era ships and a slave cemetery. I honestly wasn't trying to sully your discussion with mention of "Unearthing Atlantis". I bought my copy of the book from A Common Reader, and they don't really sell crackpot books. I mentioned it because I've always been fascinated by Minoan civilization, Arthur Evans' excavation at Knossos and other sites. It was one of the world's great eary civilizations, dazzling and sophistocated. The Egyptians traded with the Minoans and treated them with honor, by not referring to them as "barbarians in the presence of Ra". That was the usual Egyptian term for foreigners. All of this was ended for most intents by the Thera eruption/explosion, a geological event both extrodinary and catastophic. An event of that magnatude would not only be disasterous to the local area, but on a worldwide scale. And I liked Pellegrino's collection of data worldwide to posit his argument.

Yup! There were farms all over Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the Bronx was wilderness. Please tell us what you discovered in the book you are reading, although Wolf would probably welcome it in her Paraspring Conference http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/paraspring/13/new See you there! Hey, did anyone notice I finally figured out how to put that cute graphic back on my title page??? Yay!!!

Cheryl, there is nothing crackpot from that bookshop. I know! I buy stuff from their catalog and read it like it was as good a book as the things they sell! I really think this is a great place to post a discussion of that book. It certainly was a geophysical event of gigantic magnitude which caused the upheaval in the first place Have you, by chance, ever read "Gods, Graves and Scholars" by C. W. Ceram? If not, please get yourself a copy. It was my first archaeology book and I was hooked. (Actually, "living" in the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art is what really convinced me that I needed to be an archaeologist. I visited there so often as a child I knew my way around as though it were home.)

Yes, I do own a copy of "Gods, Graves and Scholars". I got and interest in archaeology from 2 sources, my father and my maternal grandfather. I remember going to the museum with my Dad to see the mummies. He was fascinated by ancient Egypt, and the Meso-Americans, and the African kingdoms, and the classical cultures of Greece and Rome. On a note closer to home, we used to walk in the woods and look for Indian (Native American) arrowheads. My maternal grandfather was Greek Cypriot, and very aware of his native island's very ancient history. On the subject of another island, Manhattan, I'll check at the library for that particular information. It wasn't one of my own books.

Fascinating! Have you antiquities around your home in your collection? We have the making of a new topic for collecting conference! Where we lived in New Rochelle, N.Y. it was farmed so long that nothing was still around from ancient times, but I did find a chunk (2"x3"x1") of massive garnet tranported there from upstate NY by the last glaciers!

Wow! Apparently the area around my part of the village was a pig farm from the Danish invasion of southern England (last millennium). we also think there are some plague mass graves somewhere. However, I've never turned anything up yet.

Those Mass Graves must be just about everywhere considering half of the population of Europe died in the plague. That garnet mass I found measures 8cm x 5cm x 2.5cm.

I think it's quite surprising we don't dig up more. There's also a mass of ley lines in this area. I think one goes through the house two doors up from me.

Ah, Ley lines. Yes! Alfred Wadkins and "The Old Straight Track" Shall we discuss these here or in Paraspeing where Wolf has just created crop circles and other such things. I think these'd fit right into that topic, no? I'd love to hear of your experiences concerneing Ley lines...

I can crreate it here...Never mind - going to create Geomaganetism!!!

Egyptians Find Tomb of Ancient God Osiris GIZA, Egypt (Reuters) - Sinking water levels have revealed a granite sarcophagus of the ancient Egyptian god Osiris in a 30-meter (98 feet) deep tomb at the Giza pyramids, Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass said Wednesday. Osiris was one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt who according to mythology was murdered by his wicked brother Seth. He was buried by Isis, his sister-wife, and brought back to life as judge of the dead and ruler of the underworld. Hawass said the sarcophagus, which he dated to 500 BC in the New Kingdom, was surrounded by the remains of four pillars built in the shape of a hieroglyphic 'Bir' or 'House of Osiris'. The excavation unearthed 3,000-year-old bones and pottery found in the underground water, he said. ``I never excavated this shaft because it was always full of water. But when the water went down about a year ago, we started the adventure,'' he told Reuters. After dirt and most of the remaining water were cleared from the shaft, located between the Sphinx and the Pyramid of Chefren (Khafre), archaeologists found three underground levels, with the submerged Osiris sarcophagus at the lowest. ``Many people believed there were tunnels going to the Sphinx and another leading to the Great Pyramid but only when we sent a young boy into a tunnel in the west wall (of the tomb shaft) did we find this exciting discovery,'' said Hawass.

From a friend who would like opinions of the readers herein (Now, if I can ever get this guy to post for himself I'll be esctatic!) according to a friend of mine, ancient Maya carvings predict the inundation of the NY/NJ area by quake and tsunami in/around 2012. How? fun speculations may abound. Post it yourself and see what others say.

The excavation at Santorini is called Akrotiri. I visited the site when I went to Greece in 1991. According to the guidebook, the excavations began in 1967 by Prof. Spyridon Marinatos. (He's actually buried at the site.) It's supposed to be a Bronze Age settlement from about 1500 BC. They found a lot of Minoan pottery and frescoes, similar to those found in Knossos, Crete. The theory is that there was a big earthquake before the eruption, and that the eruption caused tsunamis that hit Crete. They never found any bodies in Akrotiri, so the population managed to leave before the eruption, probably after the earthquake. I don't know if anyone has finally figured out where the people went; they had no idea back in 1991. The theory of Akrotiri as Atlantis is obviously controversial. I took a course in Greek Civilization back in college, and the professer mentioned the Atlantis theory as a load of rubbish. Who knows? Schliemann was convinced he found Troy, but all we really know is that he found 9 levels of a very big city (and he wound up destroying most of it). There's usually some small grain of truth to most legends, though.

By the way, I love the new graphic for the conference, Maria! Looks great!

Thanks, Ginny - it was the original grahpics, which were placed there for me as a surprise by my programmer who taught me everything I know, which I just got back up - they had to set me up with new space on Terry's hard drive, I then ftp'd all of the stuff out of my old files onto my hard drive here at home then back to the new place then locate the url for the graphic and repost it. Not all that difficult, but it took time and some thinking and care. I am happy to see it up again, also. I am delighted you are posting this here. Akrotiri is as good a place for Altantis as is currently available. Actually, it is the only place that makes sense to me.

Back to Atlantis, is it? I'm in agreement with those who think that the Minoan civilization was the basis for the Atlantis legend. Something had to have happened. The Minoans were an actual civilization, and the Thera eruption was an actual event. Marcia, you asked if I had any items of archealogical interest in my home. Unfortunately no. I've moved a lot since completing school. All my Dad and really ever found were arrowheads. I grew up in central Pennsylvania, there is farming there, but there are also the wooded slopes of the Alleghenies. (We lived on the western edge of central PA.) Anyway if you know what to look for, you can still find some arrowheads or maybe a spearpoint. The closest archealogical site to Pittsburgh is Meadowcroft Rock Shelter, which is to the north. The site was discovered in the 1970's and was very controvesial. Why? Because the dating of the artifacts placed them at atleast 14,000 years old. American Indians weren't supposed to be east of the Mississippi River, much less in Pennsylvania 14,000 years ago. That was the conventional wisdom at any rate. Then in the 1980's a site was excavated in Brazil that was dated at 30,000 to 35,000 years. They're still trying to sort all this out. Concerning Pittsburgh, 2 new stadia are being built. When the foundations were being prepared, they found farming artifacts from the early 19th century and everyday artifacts from after industrialization. Yes, they even found a few American Indian items. The current 3 Rivers Stadium is built on land that was once an island in the Ohio River. There was a narrow channel seperating it from the shore. When the first Europeans got there, they reported that human sacrifices took place there. Could be propaganda or not.

I graduated from Penn State, the daughter of Philadelphians. Married a guy from Williamsport, dated a guy from New Kensington, and am now with a guy from south of Pittsburgh. I do know about Pennsylvania. Current house male says they picked loads of American Indian arrowheads of out the plowed fields (of course they are long gone.) By the time I got to Pennsylvania I was on fossil hunts and I still have the lovely examples of dolomite and limestone goodies I found. Three-rivers confluence was a very powerful place (see water lines and ley lines). In Hawaii, such sources commanded human sacrifice. In Britain and Western Europe the same thing happened!

Hmm, I wonder if there are any interesting archealogical sites around here? (Besides the ongoing "big dig" fiasco, I mean. ;-) Marcia, I know it takes time to move files around, but it's worth the effort. Looks great!

Thanks, Ginny. I am almost done getting graphics back onto the place - at least the ones I can do easily. It looks so different from the other conferences that I like to rest in here and admire when I am not off finding other goodies to share with everyone. Boston area should have all sorts of good stuff going on because the place was inhabited for so long. You mean that under-the-highway subway they are digging is not a Good thing? In Hawaii, the theory is "build a highway and dig it up again to put the sewers and power lines. Then patch it unevenly." Not sure why they do it that way, but it is bone-jarring! About the only good things we find in this exercise is charred tree remnants which yield Carbon-14 to tell the age of the lava flow through which they just blasted.

The Bid Dig is supposed to relieve all the traffic problems in Boston when it's finished...*if* it's ever finished. As usual for government projects, this one is way over budget (to the tune of $1.4 billion), and in danger of having its federal funding cut off. Apparently the feds are starting an investigation into the shortfall. They have dug up most (if not all) of the existing highways in Boston for this project, so they certainly can't leave the project unfinished; the governor and the head of the Mass Turnpike Authority would both be lynched! Fortunately, I live and work outside of Boston; the only impact on me is my wasted tax dollars, which is bad enough! There's a Big Dig website that describes the project at http://www.bigdig.com. It includes a link to the "Archaeology of the Central Artery Project: Highway to the Past" exhibit at the Commonwealth Museum. Apparently archeologists did find a lot of artifacts before construction started.

OK, went into BigDig and noted the Bechtel is doing the job. You DO know how prominently they figure in the trilateral commission and other pseudo or really nefarious-minded world movers and shakers! Somehow I am not surprised. I'll go back and hunt through that teeny-print pulldown for the archaeology stuff. Thanks! Is it gonna be a road rather than mass transport system like the BART?

From what I understand, it's a new set of highways and tunnels, replacing most of the major roads in Boston. The Ted Williams tunnel is already finished and in use. I haven't heard anything about replacing/expanding the MBTA lines, but they probably are digging near some of the lines, anyway. Hmm, I've never heard of Bechtel. Should I be happy, or more worried than ever? :-) That little window they give you is pretty annoying, isn't it? Haven't found a way to enlarge it, yet.

From the Big Dig FAQ (also at http://www.bigdig.com): What are you building? The project includes two main elements -- the extension of Interstate 90 (the Massachusetts Turnpike) from its current terminus south of downtown Boston under Boston Harbor to Logan Airport, and the replacement of Interstate 93 through downtown Boston, including a tunnel through the heart of the city. The I-90 extension includes the first major project milestone, the Ted Williams Tunnel under the harbor, which opened in December 1995. Other major elements include four major highway interchanges; a two-bridge, 14-lane crossing of the Charles River on the northern edge of downtown Boston; the world's largest highway tunnel ventilation system; the world's most advanced electronic traffic management and incident response system; demolition of the existing elevated Central Artery (I-93) downtown; and 150 acres of new parks and open space, including 27 acres downtown where the elevated Central Artery now stands. An important feature of the project is keeping the City of Boston open for business throughout more han a decade of construction, which involves (among many other things) holding up the six-lane elevated highway while tunneling for an eight-to-ten-lane underground expressway directly underneath. See the project summary, "Gee Whiz" (about engineering marvels), Mitigation, and Facts and Figures for more information. Are you nuts ?? The project may look like an unbelievable challenge but with design virtually complete and construction past the half-way mark, the amazing vision is becoming a reality. The fact is that there is really no other way to solve Boston's legendary traffic problems. The city's downtown highway, the Central Artery, can't be expanded in place. There is no other place to put a new highway (we can't plow down another neighborhood, and we can't put a new road on top of the waterfront, for example), so the only alternative is to build the new highway underneath the old one. Because the work takes so long, there is no choice but to invest in the techniques that will keep the city open for business during construction. Because the project's two highways (I-93 downtown and I-90 to Logan Airport) thread their way through an old and often fragile city, there is no choice but to adopt the engineering marvels that take the tunnels down 120 feet to pass under a subway line, solidify pudding-like soils so that the road can be built under a channel off Boston Harbor, or protect historic brick buildings and towering modern skyscrapers from construction taking place just a few feet from their foundations. Traffic is so bad on and around the elevated Central Artery that it would be nuts not to build a new highway system for the people of Boston and New England.

Here's the link to the "Highway to the Past: The Archaeology of the Central Artery". It was under "Dirt on the Dig"...cute, eh? http://www.bigdig.com/thtml/dod_arch.htm

Can't do anything with pop-up boxes except to close them. Can't even bookmark most of them. Bechtel? You can die happy not knowing anything about them, but if you think there is an evil plot afoot to take over the world by the Gnomes of Zurich, you need to read up on them. They have their clickable logo there - or if you are Really interested in dirt, do a web search...heh...heh...! (Shall read the rest of what you wrote as soon as I feed the house male his lunch)

Now I'm curious! I will have to check out Bechtel later. Signing off for now...catch you later!

Yeow! I could not wait to drive through a tunnel surrounded by pudding-consistency soil overlaid by a subway traintracks surmounted by a roadway. Never mind, I think! That archaeology site was really interesting. Love the old bottles they found. And, North America's oldest Bowling Ball. It is a really nicely setup interactive website and, having done some of that, I appreciate the good ones a whole lot. Archaeology fans, take the virtual tour! Thanks, Ginny. Oh, Bechtel built Hoover Dam and the Oakland Bay Bridge amongst other things...

Response 65 of 67: World Builder (MarciaH) * Mon, Feb 21, 2000 (20:09) * 9 lines NEW STONES AT AVEBURY new series of slabs at Avebury stone circle in western England, discovered under a farmer's field, probably formed a causeway linking the circle, or henge, to a contemporary burial site at Beckhampton, a mile to the southwest. University of Leicester and Southampton archaeologists now believe that the complex, whose main circle was last excavated in 1930, covered a much larger area than originally thought and was probably built in several stages. The existence of buried avenues was first suggested in the 1720s by the English antiquarian William Stukeley, although many dismissed his theories as guesswork. Some years ago, however, an avenue was uncovered leading from Avebury to nearby West Kennet, and the latest find appears to confirm Stukeley's beliefs and the notion that Avebury was connected to other ceremonial sites. Avebury, constructed between 2800 and 2700 B.C., includes the world's largest stone circle (1,401 feet in diameter), numerous barrows, and the 130-foot-tall Silbury Hill, the largest man-made mound in Europe. Evidence of a "woodhenge" has also been unearthed at the site. Large holes, six feet deep and arranged in circles, are thought to have supported giant wooden pillars up to 17 feet tall. While the pillars might have formed part of a ritual building, they are much larger and closer together than necessary to support a roof and are more likely to have been a free-standing wooden henge, possibly one of 40 similar structures in Wessex, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom that in the late ninth and tenth centuries included much of southern England. The latest discoveries have major implications for Stonehenge. If there were other wooden structures in the region, then Stonehenge may not be as unique as was once thought. Henges, in stone or (more usually) wood, were simply part of the religious landscape of the period. The idea of henges dotting ancient Britain is reinforced by the discovery of the so-called "Seahenge," a remarkably well-preserved timber circle, on a remote Norfolk beach in November 1998. Comprising 55 timber posts, with an upturned oak stump in the middle, it was exposed by winter gales that swept away a peat dune covering it. Seahenge is the first circle to be found with an intact oak stump at its center. Other sites have revealed hollows in their centers but until now no one knew what had caused them. Seahenge is extremely fragile and was only preserved thanks to its peat covering. This past summer archaeologists from the Norfolk County Council's Archaeological Unit excavated and dismantled the circle. Once cleaned, studied, and treated, it may be reconstructed near its original site.--CHRIS HELLIER http://www.he.net/~archaeol/

These are the pictures which apply to the article just above about Avebury Stone Circle. They are visible in the aerial photograph - and for scale, there is a pub in that henge. In fact, they built the village - church and all - and never noticed the henge and stones! Anyway, each of those stones is the size and weight of a car. Stuckey's drawing shows the "avenues" which were considered pure conjecture for decades. Now they are reassessing his drawings.

If you flip the drawing above top to bottom, it is aligned with the photograph at the bottom. Silbury Hill is the whitish mound in the left center background, and the left to right street in the photograph are aligned on the stone "avenues" This is one of my most favorite places in Britain. We have had lunch of apples and cheese in the town museum's carpark, and I have walked every inch of the place. I long to go back...

Awesome pictures!! How the heck could they build in the middle of that big circle and not notice it? Now I gotta look at my pictures from Stonehenge again. How close is Avebury to Salisbury plain?

I think it is just about 20 miles (hunting through my several books on the topic I can't find it at the moment,) on Marlborough Downs just north of Salisbury Plain. It is near the place where the Sarsen stones were left by glaciation 10,000 years ago and was the source of both Avebury and Stonehenge Sarcens. The most remarkable thing is the momuments all around Avebury. The oldest known trackway, the Great Berkshire Ridgeway runs right by it. Silbury Hill, the largest man-made earthen hill in the world, is adjacent. Then, on the skyline from Avebury, two of the longest and largest long barrows are silhouetted against the sky. Calling them "burial chambers" is like having someone excavating a cathedral at some remote future point and calling it a burial house just because the edifice contains the remains of famous (to us) people. Actually, from south of Stonehenge to north of Avebury, where you will find the Uffington White Horse, it is pretty much full of ancient monuments and burial chambers of var ous sorts. I'll hunt up a map which detail what all can be found there. Wiltshire is a very special place, indeed!

When I went to Stonehenge, I picked up a small tourist book that gives a brief description of a lot of ancient monuments, burial mounds, chalk drawings, and the like. It does seem like Wiltshire has the largest section in that book. Fascinating! I never got to Avebury, but hopefully one day I'll go back...there's a lot more I would love to see in Britain!

There are so many goodies on that Blessed Isle... The first time we drove north on the 345 roadway I was consulting my map (I am navigator) and Frank asked if the stones out my window indicated anything. I looked up, and it was a jaw-dropping experience. The stones were HUGE and we were about to enter the henge, itself. I had no idea it was going to be anything like that monumental. Btw, the ditch is now about 9' (2.7M) deep but originally was about twice that. Rain and erosion have silted it up a bit. It was dug by our ancestors with pick and shovel made from deer antlers and shoulder-blades! Of course, chalk is softer than most other stones, but this is not your blackboard slate variety of chalk...

Make that ditch originally over 30' deep (over 10 M) The resulting bank was as high making the entire ditch-and-bank from the outside a daunting 60+ feet (20M).

I am consulting the definitive book on Avebury (which I purchased there): Avebury by Aubrey Burl. It is a book which I would own whether or not I had been there. I recommend it highly.

Prehistoric Avebury is the book by Aubury Burl (I have every book and guide he has written, I think!). Here is an excellent webpage with links and pictures of and about Avebury http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~aburnham/eng/aveb.htm I am still hunting for a good map of the area and my old bookmarks are no longer valid and working. I begin the hunt anew.

I saw the Seahenge dig (on TV)- the Time team (I wrote about earlier) were involved as well as English Heritage and the Norfolk Archeology team. The oak trunk in the centre was actually installed upside down (roots in the air). There was a lot of opposition to the dig by druids and others, despite the fact that the site was being badly eroded. They erected a facsimile site nearby as they thought it might have looked. It was amazing with wooden pillars higher than a man and a low arch entrance with the big oak stump in the middle. The name seahenge is really a misnomer because it was not underwater. The sea levels have risen and the early sealine was quite a distance away.

For a good look-see at the goodies in the "Stonehenge Area" http://www.amherst.edu/~ermace/sth/nearby.html Good links and photographs for you to ponder while I hunt up the map I have IRL in my hot little hands. Aaarrrrrgh!

I had never heard of the Seahenge until I read and posted that article. Must do a search for that, as well. These henge monuments, let me state emphatically, had and have NOTHING whatsoever to do with Druids, ancient or modern. They worshipped in groves of trees. These henge momuments were long abandoned by the time of the Keltic inmigration to Britain in 500 BC. These Henges are thousands of years old!

Thanks for the Avebury article and all the attendant information on henges. I was familiar with the concept of "woodhenges", but Seahenge is new. You do know that visitors can no longer walk up to or touch the stones at Stonehenge. It would seem that there was a problem with tourists carving into and writing grafitti on them. Did you know that in the 19th century there was a suggestion that Stonehenge be incoporated into a railway station. It's true! On the subject of Celtic stone monuments, does anybody know much about Carnac or Kerrec in Brittany? All I know is there are lot of megaliths there, row upon row of them.

From http://www.channel4.com/nextstep/timeteam/2000seahenge.html The wooden 'henge' rescued from the sea off the Norfolk coast. UPDATE In the spring of 2050BCE, a huge oak tree was felled and its stump upturned and half-buried on a site near to what is now Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. The following year, a number of smaller oaks were felled and cut into 56 posts, which were arranged in a circle around the central stump. The Bronze Age monument, hailed by some modern archaeologists as among the most exciting ever discovered, could have formed some kind of ceremonial site, perhaps with special astronomical or other significance. Alternatively, it has been proposed that it could have been a place of �excarnation�, where bodies were laid out after death to hasten the process of decomposition and speed the spirit on its way to the afterlife. Both the circle and the people who built it were long forgotten before the land on which it stood became submerged by the sea. Its existence had vanished even from folk memory until, almost 4,000 years after its construction, the shifting sands off the East Anglian coast moved again to reveal its presence. �Seahenge�, as the monument was to become known, turned into a minor archaeological cause celebr� as Druids and modern-day pagans organised sit-in protests against English Heritage�s decision to remove and preserve it. Agreement was eventually reached over the future of the �henge� and, in the summer of 1999, it was finally recorded and removed to the Flag Fen Bronze Age Centre, near Peterborough. There, as well as being preserved, the ancient timbers were subjected to detailed dendochronology (tree-ring dating) and carbon dating techniques. It was from these that such a precise date could be arrived at for the felling of the trees that make up the Seahenge circle. The tree rings gave three possible dates, which were narrowed down to just one -- 2050BCE -- after statistical comparisons with a series of carbon dating tests. The time of year -- beween April and June -- was obtained by an examination of the final growth ring of the main stump, which showed that the tree had been felled in the spring. Time Team�s visit to Seahenge helped cast some fresh light on the circle, the people who built it and the techniques they used. It included the construction of modern replica, which it is hoped will be found a home in the area permanently. As the first Bronze Age monument that has ever been precisely dated, Seahenge provided an exciting special venture for the Team. Web resources http://www.flagfen.freeserve.co.uk/index.html The Flag Fen Laboratories, Bronze Age site and visitor centre, near Peterborough, is where the main oak stump and posts from Seahenge are being preserved and studied (not yet on public display). This website provides further details of the centre, its excavation work and visitors� facilities. For example, Flag Fen�s Visitor Centre houses the Museum of the Bronze Age containing artefacts found on site, including the oldest wheel in England on permanent display. Guided tours of the ongoing excavations at the site are available in the spring and summer. http://www.norfolk-now.co.uk/Content/Features/New_Seahenge/default.htm Useful site produced by Eastern Counties Newspapers with help from the Norfolk Archaeological Unit, providing a great deal of background information, including about the kind of people who might have constructed the circle, and a useful Q&A section. Not updated with latest details following the removal and study of the timbers, though. http://druidry.org/obod/text/news/woodhenge.html The Order of Druids� �Woodhenge News� site has an extensive selection of press articles and public statements relating to Seahenge, as well as a few high-quality photographs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_544000/544947.stm The BBC has a number of news reports relating to Seahenge, including how it was dated to spring 2050. Its site includes a Realplayer video report on the lifting of the timbers, audio interviews with Alex Bayliss of English Heritage on dating the timbers; and archaeologist Maisie Taylor describing preservation work at Flag Fen. Further reading Bronze Age Britain by Michael Parker Pearson (Batsford/English Heritage, 1996) Based on the prehistoric evidence, as well as current research and debate, this book examines how life in Britain changed during the period 4000-900 BC. Illustrated with lots of maps, plans, reconstructions and photographs. Flag Fen by Francis Pryor (Batsford/English Heritage, 1991) Fascinating account of the discovery of this Bronze Age site. The Flag Fen Laboratories are where the Seahenge timbers are being studied and preserved. An exciting archaeological adventure story. The Significance of Monuments by Richard Bradley (Routledge, 1998) The author traces the history of Neolithic and Bronze Age burial mounds, henges, stone circles and barrows since their first appearance 6,000 years or more ago. He provides insights into what they might have meant to and their role in the lives of prehistoric people in Europe.

Oh Maggie!! You dear, dear lady! Now, to find an image to post. If they have one, I shall post them! As to the Megaliths in any part of Europe, they seem to hgave been raised by the same cultures - the Beaker People (because they buried their dead with beaker-shaped pottery). Britain's culture came from the Iberian peninsula, most likely. At least, that was the theory last I looked. I'd be delighted to learn of new ones. I knew that Stonehenge was no longer accessable. in '77, '79' and '81 when we were there we could walk right up to the stones. Alas, during WW2 a general wanted it removed for an airport runway (tanks are all over the place and are trashing Salisbury Plain at an alarming rate. In the 1800's they rented sledge hammers so one could break of parts of the stones for souvenirs! Amazing!

It's amazing there's anything left of Stonehenge at all. I remember reading about 2 years ago that some Pagan religious groups were protesting because the only people allowed to go into Stonehenge on their holidays were the Druids. The other Pagans found this grossly unfair.

SEAHENGE from the website Maggie posted in her article:

SEAHENGE

That is the tiniest woodhenge I have ever seen. Woodhenge near Stonehenge is much larger and was probably the ritual place used while building the more durable Stonehenge. Durrington Walls is a H U G E monument with a housing estate obliterating a lot of it, but that is probably where they lived.

re: post #34, i saw that show! they said they couldn't go into the other halls because of the water. amazing!! i was waiting with bated breath to see where all the tunnels led! because i was trying to catch up, didn't catch up on everything, scanned through. so what is the seahenge? i can't see anything in that picture but sand bags and butts!

Seahenge is like a stone circle but the uprights are oak. Most of it has either rotted away or has been silted in. You can see them poking up about a foot or so. Henge means a circular monument around which is a bank and ditch. Lots of henges never had stones or uprights, but Stonehenge is the prototype and there is no other like it. It has shaped, mortise and tenon lintels and shaped sarsens. Most of the others are just stones chosen for their natural shape and set in alignments. Anything you can add about the Egyptian tomb? Sounds wonderful and amazing and breathtaking to watch. I'll watch the journals to see if they leak anymore information to the public. Fascinating!!!

There was another dig quite recently on Salisbury plain when the army wanted to build a new tank track. They found two sites, one was bronze age. I'll see if I can 'dig' up some details. There was an 'epic' book on Salisbury I read ages ago - same guy who wrote 'Hawaii', Marcia you must know it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/ancestors/ser3pro6.shtml Hunter of the Plain To the north of Stonehenge, lies the vast expanse of the Army's Salisbury Plain Training Area, over 25,000 hectares (60,000 acres) of largely untouched downland. Last year, during the upgrading of one of the many tank tracks that cross the Plain, a prehistoric burial was discovered, lying in apparent isolation within a deep chalk cut pit. What made this burial so unusual was that, resting in the skeleton's hand was a clue to it's age, a finely worked flint arrowhead dating to the time of the first building of Stonehenge. This meant that the burial had to be late Neolithic, some time around 2500BC. There was an additional puzzle though. Next to the burial was a short length of curved ditch, but with our burial outside it. A magnetometer survey showed that it was part of a circular ditch, about 35m in diameter, but excavation provided no clues about its date or its function. To me there were two options, it could either be a small henge, a roughly circular temple of Neolithic date, which would fit in well with the date of the arrowhead or, what seemed more likely to me, a levelled round barrow. These are burial mounds of Bronze Age date, many from about 2000 BC to 1500BC and they cluster in their hundreds around the Stonehenge area. Their shape and size varies enormously but I felt that our circular ditch was probably a ploughed down 'disc' barrow, a beautiful shape that looks like a target or shield from above. So, I thought that we had a Neolithic burial (about 2500BC) and a barrow from the Bronze Age, a few centuries later, say around 1800BC. However - when a radiocarbon date came back from a sample of bone from the burial it was around 1600BC and snails from the circular ditch, analysed by Mike Allen, suggested that it was of Neolithic date. Why can't archaeology sometimes be a bit more simple! But did the arrowhead mean that we had found a prehistoric archer? When the skeleton was examined by bone expert Jackie McKinley she found that it was of a very well built man aged about 35 when he died, certainly powerful enough to have used a prehistoric bow. There were no clues about how he had died, but the arrowhead did not seem to have been the cause, unlike the famous 'murder victim' from Stonehenge whose bones still had the tips of flint arrows embedded in them 4000 years after his death. To find out more about prehistoric archers we enlisted the help of Alan Course and Hilary Greenland. Under Alan's expert tuition I made a flint arrowhead similar to our man's (although far less finely worked, I must add) while Hilary made us a replica of a Neolithic bow from yew, the perfect bow wood. Her pattern was the oldest surviving bow from this country, from Meare Heath in Somerset. Initial tests showed that Hilary's bow was very powerful and so, to test its strength, and the effectiveness of my arrowhead (now fitted to a shaft by Alan) we took them both to the Defence Evaluation Research Agency (DERA) where the Army's modern weapons are put through their paces. The speed and drag of the arrow, its penetrative power and the power of the bow suggested, when fed into the computer programme that calculates the performance of a bullet, that the arrow would fly no more than 65 metres when shot from Hilary's bow. But this calculation does not take into account the human factor involved in archery and, in the field, the arrow flew for nearly 100 metres, rising to around 160 metres when the feather fletchings were trimmed to reduce drag. So who was our man? Was he an archer, a hunter who roamed Salisbury Plain in the Bronze Age and why was he buried outside the henge or barrow that must have been the reason for choosing his burial place? What is certain is that he lived and died at a time when Salisbury Plain, with its temples and burial mounds, clustering around the magnificent and by now ancient Stonehenge, was the spiritual heart of prehistoric Britain. Our man would have known Stonehenge, he may have made the pilgrimage there at Midsummer and, perhaps more importantly, at the Winter Solstice, the turning of the year when life is renewed. He may even have helped to build Stonehenge...

Marcia, didn't you say I would find Portuguese petroglyphs here?

I am still awakening. I shall post them for you as soon as I get through the posts in Geo (I think we are giving Drool a run for the most popular right now!)

http://www.he.net/~archaeol/ PORTUGUESE PETROGLYPHS When construction workers laboring on a bridge in northeastern Portugal's C�a Valley lowered the Pocinho Dam lake by nine feet in early December, archaeologists and rock art experts jumped at the chance to nose around. Their investigations were rewarded with the discovery of a new petroglyph panel to add to the array of local rock art dating from Palaeolithic times to the 1950s (see "Rock Art Saved," March/April 1996). The latest discovery, at Fariseu, is a vertical outcropping incised with bovine and horse images, some sporting two or more heads on single bodies to suggest animation. The Fariseu panel, covered at the base by undisturbed Palaeolithic strata, has been dated to 21,000 years before present. "Until now," Joao Zilhao of the Instituto Portugu�s de Arqueologia told ARCHAEOLOGY, "the dating of the stylistically Palaeolithic C�a Valley rock art to the Palaeolithic was supported only by indirect evidence. This was very strong evidence, but, in the language of the courts, only circumstantial. Now we have the strongest possible evidence: stratigraphy. After the Fariseu finds, no one in good faith can question the Palaeolithic chronology of the C�a Valley rock art." At the end of December the art was reburied and water levels restored. Archaeologists hope to lower the lake again this summer.--ELIZABETH J. HIMELFARB

This is right near me but I haven't seen it in the 'flesh' yet. The WWW site http://www.etoncollege.com/lake.html has photos. Eton College is constructing an Olympic sized rowing lake on the north bank of the river Thames at Dorney, Buckinghamshire. In advance of the construction a major archaeological investigation is taking place, organised by the Oxford Archaeological Unit. Aerial Photography Aerial photography shows that alongside the present river there is a series of gravel islands divided by ancient, relict river channels. Cropmarks reveal some of the evidence of past human activity on the dry islands: an early Bronze Age barrow cemetery (about 1800 BC), later Bronze Age field systems (about 1000 BC) and a Romano-British farmstead. Evaluation To supplement the evidence of aerial photography a large number of evaluation trenches were cut by machine across the 150 hectare site. These showed that the historic landscape was even more complex than first thought. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aerial view of the Roman farmstead showing the rectangular enclosure ditch upstanding in the growing crop. Inside the enclosure the circular ditch surrounding a house and various blobs indicating storage pits are also visible. Plan of the site on the north bank of the modern River Thames, with former channels of the river and its tributaries shown in blue. The cropmark sites, which show on the dry gravel terraces alongside the river, are also marked (dark green on yellow). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The most significant discovery was a major channel of the Thames which was active in the late prehistoric and Roman period. On the banks of this channel were Mesolithic (about 8000 BC) and Neolithic (c. 4000 BC) settlements. Alterations were made to the design of the rowing Lake construction in order to preserve some of the most important of the archaeological deposits, particularly the rare, waterlogged Mesolithic sites. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Flint arrowheads found on the alluvial floodplain next to the former course of the river Thames. These arrowheads date from the Neolithic (4000-2200 BC) and Early Bronze Age (2200-1600 BC). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Thames Channel The River Thames has been called `liquid history'. On its banks are countless royal palaces and of the most important historic towns in Britain from London to Abingdon and Oxford. Since the last century the Thames itself has been continuously dredged. Large numbers of prehistoric weapons and prestige objects such as the Battersea shield (now in the British Museum) have been found, indicating the wealth of material deposited in the river. Unfortunately little now remains in the river itself owing to the dredging. The channel has been scoured clean. So the discovery of a 2km long section of prehistoric Thames is of major importance. Surviving within the Channel are prehistoric trees, the remains of a beaver dam and the layers of silt which act as a guide to past climate, river flow and human activity in the catchment area. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wattle trackway laid upon horizontal timbers between the uprights of another timber bridge crossing the former Thames. Only the tops of the uprights are visible; these were over 2 m long. Late Bronze Age pot found in the former channel of the river Thames next to upright wooden posts around a sandbank. This was probably a deliberate offering made when the posts were driven in. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alluvium The silt or alluvium deposits are a particularly important indicator of human activity. As the natural climax woodland was cleared from about 4000 BC there was increased run-off into the river valley. Alluviation is particularly evident from about 2000 years ago as arable farming intensified and the population increased. The Eton Rowing Lake alluvial sequence is one of the most complex so far observed in the Thames Valley. Dating by Optical Stimulated Luminescence and C14 is helping to define the sequence. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Uprights of a timber bridge crossing the former channel of the river Thames. The timbers have not been fully excavated, and the figures are standing on the river silts. This particular bridge dates to c. 600 BC; part of an earlier bridge dating to c.1300 BC is visible to the left of the person farthest from the camera. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Earliest Bridges over the Thames The most interesting human artefact found in the Channel are the remains of six prehistoric timber bridges, dated from about 1300 BC to 300 BC. They probably indicate a favoured crossing point of the river between two spits of dry gravel. These are the earliest bridges known over the Thames and the largest complex of its kind in Britain. One of the bridges had carefully laid wattle hurdles running between two lines of uprights. These were clearly later than the bridge and suggest that a trackway had been laid as a ford over the silted channel. Parts of two human skeletons and large numbers of animal bones were found alongside the bridge. These support the theory that human remains and offerings were deliberately placed in the river in late prehistoric times. The strongest evidence for this came from a sandbank where human and animal bones had been placed between upright posts along with a late Bronze Age pot (about 800 BC). Other finds from the prehistoric channel include a 2m long oak mallet or pile driver, perhaps used in the bridge construction, and the head of a wooden ard or simple plough. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oak pile-driver or mallet found in the former Thames, perhaps used to drive in the upright supports for the bridges. Bronze Age ring-ditch under excavation in 1996. The edge of a second ring-ditch is visible in the foreground. These ditches originally surrounded burial mounds, now ploughed away. Crouched inhumation burial found around one of the Bronze Age ring-ditches, dating to c. 1800 BC. This is the burial of a woman aged between 25 and 30, who stood around 1.57 m tall. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bronze Age Cemetery In 1996 the ring ditches of four Bronze Age barrows were excavated, along with a cluster of crouched inhumation burials and cremations. Some of the original barrow burials had been damaged by the modern agriculture and drainage ditches. However one burial included a highly decorated middle Bronze Age globular vessel (about 1500-1200BC). Several of these rare pots have been found on the site. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Neolithic Midden A remarkable find was made in 1996. One of the glacial river channels was used as a rubbish dump, or midden in the early Neolithic period (about 3500 BC). A small sample has so far produced 16,000 finds- flint tools, broken pots and animal bones. This is the period of the first farming communities in Britain. Artifacts and biological evidence from the earliest agricultural communities are extremely rare. This is one of the largest such deposits ever found in Britain. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maggie, what great things you have posted this morning. Incredible for one little lady to post on my most favorite of topics. I had not heard of the man buried so differently near Stonehenge. That is fascinating and I will pass it on to family who were there with me. I have not had time to digest it yet, but I will and have more to say then. The Thames channel is amazing bit of history going back to the Mesolithic! There are not a whole lot of mesolithic remains around. They were built over, grown over, the sea took them or whatever, but this find is so exciting. Now, I don't have to wait for Antiquity to publish the report. We have Maggie on the scene. Get thee over there and let us know what you can see (a soggy trench, no doubt!)

Unfortunately it's on very private land (after all Prince William goes to Eton!) I've craned my neck as we go past on the motorway, but haven't seen anything yet.

How disappointing. It looks as though it is on the seacoast, but Eton is not. Hmmm...is it a very wide river (gotta get my Ordnance Survey Atlas out!)

Wow, you folks have been busy! What great links and pictures!! I never realized how many different "henges" existed. How did the Druids end up getting associated with these circles, anyway? Maggie, do you live near any of these places?

They did not at all. Unfortunately, a prominent Antiquarian a few hundred years ago (having more money than brains, unfortunately) stated that it was a temple erected by the Druids...I shall cite it better in the morning, but it was a fanciful notion which gathered cult status after his death. I have Aubrey Burl's first book, which enumerated and describes all stone circles in the British Isles as his published PhD thesis. It is a wonderfully readable book, and I wish I could have tagged along on his research treks. He is the one who wrote the book on Avebury which I cited earlier. There are several hundred stone circles; I will get the exact number in the morning when I can see better.

I live about 25 mins away from the site at Eton, an hours drive from stonehenge. But it's little use going there now you can't get to it.

That is so sad - on both accounts - that you cannot get into it. Do you like Avebury? Actually, the town is Amesbury. I always thought that weird since it is halfway inside of that gigantic henge. Y'know, if it weren't for those latter-day bogus "druids" (objectivity has nothing to do with it), we'd all be able to get much closer to Stonehenge. I can recall sitting on the grass in the shade of one of the largest Sarsens for the longest time and just absorbing the feeling of the place. I was there long enough to see the teeny daisies blooming in the cropped grass and to remember the ambience of the place. It was lovely and we were the only ones there most of the time aside from the guards. Fortunately, the Sarcen is an extremely hard form of sandstone and almost impervious to human battering on the usual scale of activity. Those stones are still there almost 4000 years on...

A little aside: I wondered how Maiden Castle (a colossal iron-age Hillfort and not a castle at all) and the rest of the "monuments" were kept so neatly groomed. After we'd climbed to the summit, we discovered why. The momuments are kept well trimmed by the biggest and healthiest sheep I have ever seen. They are moved from place to place as needed, and the only residuals are the "meadow muffins" you have to be careful not to tread on.

I visited Stonehenge in 1995. We weren't able to get right up to the stones, but we were able to walk by and get some pictures. If you were careful, you could keep the fences out of the frame. I don't know if it's been closed off even more than that. Still have to take another look at my slides from that trip... Never got to Maiden Castle; where is that?

Maiden Castle is in Dorset. I believe it is the largest hillfort and the one the Romans had to conquer to conquer Britain and bring baths, indoor plumbing and straight roadways to the Barbarians...!

I feel very lucky to have visited sites that are now closed, or have been in a long while. Stonehenge is one of them. Wonderful place.

Funny thing about Stonehenge...I had read so much hype and "New Age" stuff about the place that I did not even want to stop there the first time. The pleading of son David made me get out of the car. We walked up to that back stone, the biggest and tallest of them all. (We had just seen "2001, A Space Odyssey" prior to leaving for Britain.) We stood within inches of it looking up at it silhouetted against the sky. Suddenly, both of us had a hair-raising experience and we backed away together. That Black monolith in the movie HAD to have been in Clarke's mind when he wrote the book on which the movie was based. Stonehenge has held my interest ever since and I have a rather large collection of books on the subject.

I never really got into the "New Age" things concerning Stonehenge or the Pyramids for that matter, but I digress. I remember reading that one of the very remarkable things about Stonehenge is that is a lunar calculator. It was constructed to be in alighments with and to predict lunar eclipses. This wasn't known until the 1970's and was discovered with the help of (then) recent developments in computer science. The striking thing about this is that it takes a higher degree of mathematical sophistocation to construct a lunar calculator/observatory than a solar one. Not bad for people who apparently didn't have writing.

Indeed! Thanks for bringing that up about Stonehenge's alignments. I have that book, too. Stonehenge Decoded by Gerald S. Hawkins. He ran all of the coordinates of alignments of the stones. (There is more than a circle of stones at Stonehenge.) If Stonehenge had been erected anywhere else on earth the alignments would not have worked! A great overview with images is available: http://witcombe.sbc.edu/earthmysteries/EMStonehengeD.html "Floor plan" of Stonehenge:

Note that in the aerial view at the top right a wide white band appears. That is the 345 Highway. When Stonehenge was first offered to the nation for �7000. It was considered too much money for an old pile of stones, even though it included many acres of land around it. When it became available again and purchased by the National Trust, it included only the immediate land around it. You can see the result - a highway ! If you walk away from the monument and look back, you will see that it is built on a slight hillside...but the top of the lintels is dead straight level. It is the most incredible place and unique in all the world.

Sorry to be pedantic, but Stonehenge is at the junction of the A303 and the A360. In most ways it is outrageous to build a road so close, but on the other hand, it's great that you can get your fill of wonder every time you drive down to Devon & Cornwall.

Thanks, Mark I have a very bad map in front of me. Getting out the OS maps again. (Every so often I slip in an error to see if anyone catches it - but that was not one of them.) The 345 goes through Amesbury, no? The nearest town to Stonehenge? Btw, That is a great drive to Cornwall - full of "leylines" and ancient goodies for those with a discerning eye and an interest in the subject. Please, continue to be pedantic. I need to have the right information out there.

It would seem that in some respects, Stonehenge is a bit like the Rodney Dangerfield of ancient monuments -- it don't get no respect. Well it's getting more than it used to anyway.

It has gotten respect. During WW2 it was considered so important that it was ringed with tangles of barbed wire and search lights so the Nazi bombers would see it and not destroy it (Hitler wanted British Heritage intact when he conquered the place...) The obscenities did not happen (except for the loss adjacent land) until the latterday "druids" started buring their dead in the henge and slaughering chickens on the "altar" stone (an upright which has fallen flat)... Nowadays it is getting all the respect it can handle and still be approachable. I purchased a Tower Minted commemorative coin of Stonehenge last time I was there and the obverse has the "floor plan" engraved upon it. It is one of my very most prized possessions!

But, Cheryl, upon thinking of them renting out sledge hammers to bash off your own souvenirs, you are right. I get furious every time I think about it!

(Marcia)renting out sledge hammers to bash off your own souvenirs What was this??

Here's some more for you from http://www.eng-h.gov.uk/archaeometry/StantonDrew/ There are some great pics on the site. STANTON DREW STONE CIRCLES (Somerset, England) [ Please note : the sites of these stone circles, although in the care of English Heritage, lie on private land. You are welcome to visit them during daylight hours on payment of an entrance fee of �1.00 (please leave the money in the honesty box at gate from the car park). However, please do not take dogs with you, do not leave litter, and respect the country code.] Stanton Drew lies off the beaten track and it is perhaps for this reason that its remarkable prehistoric stone circles have not received the same level of interest and exploration as their more famous relatives at Avebury and Stonehenge. This obscurity, and the lack of modern intrusions into their surroundings, has protected the solitude and character of these sites. Very little is known about them. The great stones (or megaliths), and the patterns they make in the landscape, remain mysterious; no excavations are recorded, nor have any modern surveys been made - that is, until very recently. This note provides you with a very brief background to the site and of the results of this new research. The megalithic sites There are three stone circles at Stanton Drew: the Great Circle being one of the largest in the country. The other two, to the south-west and north-east respectively are smaller. Both the great Circle and the north-east circle were approached from the north-east by short `avenues' of standing stones. Most of the stones have fallen, although a few still remain upright. In the garden of the village pub is a group of three large stones called The Cove, and to the north, across the river Chew, is the site of a standing stone called Hautville's Quoit. Their proximity to each other, and alignments between some of them, indicate that these sites are related as a single complex, and it is a fair assumption that Stanton Drew was once a place of primary significance during the later Stone Age. History and folklore The circles are thought to have been originally noted by the famous antiquarian John Aubrey in 1664, and the first plan of them was published by William Stukeley in 1776. Although several other observers have written about them, they remain very much as first recorded over three hundred years ago. In the absence of many facts about the sites, the stones have attracted a considerable tradition of folklore. The most persistent tale is that the stones represent the members of a wedding party and its musicians, lured by the Devil to celebrate on the Sabbath and thus becoming petrified in their revels. Archaeology and recent survey Stone circles such as those here are known to date broadly to the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age (approx 3000-2000 BC), and many examples are known, mostly from western and northern Britain. In southern England the stone circles and avenues at Avebury and Stonehenge testify to a long and complex history within a landscape dense in other evidence of prehistoric activity. The circles are believed to have played an important part in contemporary social and religious life, and there is evidence that some were aligned with major events of the solar and lunar calendar. They are difficult subjects to tackle archaeologically, though, and their interpretation is the subject of much discussion, a debate much enlivened by the interests and theories of the `New Age'. Apart from the certainty that the stone settings at Stanton Drew share an affinity with ritual complexes such as Avebury, there is little material evidence to take this interpretation further. Contemporary prehistoric sites seem to be rare in the vicinity although they probably await discovery. In order to try and lift this veil of ignorance a little, and also to help improve the day-to-day management and presentation of the circles, English Heritage have recently initiated geophysical research at the site. Geophysical survey Geophysical survey is a method of examining an archaeological site without having to dig it up. Several techniques can be used, but the one that has so far proved most effective at Stanton Drew is magnetometry. This relies on the fact that all soil is slightly magnetic and that this magnetism is concentrated and enhanced in many types of archaeological feature. Measurements made with a portable magnetometer, carried across the site at regularly spaced intervals, allows a picture of the local magnetic field to be built up. Magnetic `anomalies' are revealed in the subsequent computer plots as patterns which indicate the presence of buried features such as pits, ditches and hearths. Fluxgate gradiometer survey of Stanton Drew [67.5Kb GIF] This year the Ancient Monuments Laboratory of English Heritage has carried out a magnetometer survey [67.5Kb GIF] of the large field which contains the Great Circle and the north-east circle. The results have been astonishing and have, at a stroke, demonstrated that the megalithic remains at Stanton Drew are but the ruin of a much more elaborate and important site than had previously been dreamed of. Lying under the pasture within the Great Circle are the remains of a highly elaborate pattern of buried pits. They are arranged in nine rings concentric with the stone circle at the centre of which are further pits. The rings of pits vary in diameter, from about 23m to 95m. Although the magnetic signal is extremely weak, and it is difficult to make out individual features, it appears that the pits are about a metre or more in diameter and are spaced about a metre apart on the outer circle. Left: Caesium gradiometer survey in progress [90.5 Kb JPEG]. Right: Caesium gradiometer survey of part of the area within the great circle [65Kb GIF]. This more sensitive instrument resolves the individual pits more clearly. Just as remarkable is the discovery that the Great Circle is itself contained within a very large buried enclosure ditch (approximately 135m outer diameter). This is about 7m wide and has a broad gap or entrance facing to the north-east. Such enclosures, or henges, are a well known feature of later Neolithic Britain and are assumed to be the foci of ritual activity. Several henges enclose stone circles, and rings of pits are also a feature of some of them. Sites which bear the closest similarity to the patterns emerging at Stanton Drew include Woodhenge, near Stonehenge, and the Sanctuary, near Avebury. At these and other sites, the pits are known to have held timber uprights although it is not clear whether these were part of roofed or open structures. It seems probable that at least some of the pit circles at Stanton Drew once held massive posts. The circles are the largest and most numerous yet recorded at any site and surely indicate the investment of immense effort and enterprise in the service of preh storic beliefs as yet only dimly perceived. Interpretation plan of magnetometer surveys [10.5Kb GIF] The magnetic survey also covered the area of the north-east stone circle and found at its centre a quadrilateral of four pits aligned with the opposing pairs of the 8 stones that comprise the circle. Here again is evidence of hidden elaboration: perhaps these are ritual pits, or they might be the holes of stones that have since been removed. Comparison of Stanton Drew with other henges with timber circles [19.5Kb GIF] These results are thus very remarkable and will thrust Stanton Drew well into the limelight of research as scholars come to terms with the details and their implications. Although no excavation at the site is foreseen at present, further survey work is planned which will aim to explore other parts of the site (the south-western circle, for instance) and will try and refine details of the main henge complex. Paul Linford (P.Linford@eng-h.gov.uk), Copyright � Historic Buildings & Monuments Commission for England.