Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Elly Martin on December 19, 2011 at 9:46pm

I personally think they wanted to build something pretty and superstitious people can't just leave it at that.

Permalink Reply by Joseph P on December 19, 2011 at 10:54pm

No, clearly they had greater knowledge than anything we've discovered!

Permalink Reply by Madhukar Kulkarni on December 20, 2011 at 12:34am

I have always wondered how the stone henge was built. Was it built by man or is it nature's miracle? 

Permalink Reply by ROMAN ROMACH on December 20, 2011 at 9:32am

Miracle?  It seems obvious to me that it was built by a giant, precocious toddler.

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on December 20, 2011 at 2:33am

An uncle many years ago, returning from California to Florida, buried West Coast sea shells in the New Mexico desert.

I don't know if anyone found them, perhaps an academic who used them to formulate a theory of that desert's origin.

Permalink Reply by John Donaldson on December 20, 2011 at 5:55am

The fact that the structure was built in such a way that the solstice is clearly indicated to those with the knowledge of of the skies suggests that it was probably built by and for a priestly class as is found in other early civilizations; Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Greek for example. 

Permalink Reply by Andrew Wiggin on December 20, 2011 at 6:44am

The tour materials say that it is off a little, so it's not an especially good observatory.  I just went to see it in October - I had a free day at a jobsite, so slipped away. 

To me Stonehenge is a monument to the human creative impulse.  Thousands of years ago, on the edge of wet frozen hell, with a sparse population, scant resources, no technology, and no architectural tradition, a bunch of people decided to build something really cool.  And they succeeded.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Terence Meaden on December 20, 2011 at 2:34pm

See also http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2076050/Stonehenge-H...

This research helps confirm the long-held common sense proposal that humans quarried the rhyolite bluestones and transported them to Stonehenge by land and sea. The average weight of the bluestones is 3 to 4 tonnes. The single heavier stone (comprising mica-filled Cosheston rock which sparkles when wetted) weighs about 8 tonnes. This stone stood at the focus of the monument in the interior of Stonehenge. The rising sun could shine on it only in midsummer week, and that is when it sparkled---the optimal day being 21 June. 

Commentators who push the glacier theory usually claim it is hard to believe that such heavy stones could be transported any great distance by land and sea in the Neolithic. Yet in central America the Olmecs somehow transferred very much heavier carved-head megaliths 50 miles/80 km down the sea coast of the Caribbean to where they are now. Seventeen are known, weighing between 25 and 50 tonnes each. 

An Olmec film can be seen at    http://www.stonehenge-avebury.net/Media/Olmecheads1.html

An Earth Mother religious-based suggestion (namely, the hieros gamos or Marriage of the Gods) that explains Stonehenge is given at 
http://www.stonehenge-avebury.net/stnhngmog.html   

This is one of my archaeological research areas. 

Permalink Reply by Maruli Marulaki on December 23, 2011 at 4:40am

Thanks for the link to the video about moving the Olmec stones.   I have seen those heads in the museum in Jalapa, they really are impressive.   But I had no idea, that there was so much trouble moving those rocks. 

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on December 31, 2011 at 9:48am

Chris you find really interesting articles - thanks!