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Stonehenge is one the UK's most visited tourist attractions – and one of the world's most enigmatic ancient monuments. People come from all over the world to stare at the iconic stone pillars and wonder how, and why, they were put in place.
The site may be instantly recognisable, but there is far more to it than first meets the eye. As archaeologists study this area, mystery after mystery unfolds. But a coherent story may be beginning to emerge.
That has been particularly true over the last decade. Researchers have been studying not just the monument itself, but the area around it, hoping to find clues in this intriguing landscape of prehistoric monuments.
Underground imaging and excavation have revealed that Stonehenge was once part of a complicated network of structures: ancient burial mounds, unknown settlements, processional routes and even gold-adorned burials. The finds paint a picture of a far more mysterious and elaborate Neolithic and Bronze Age world than previously thought.
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170713-why-stonehenge-was-built
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday July 18 2017, @11:18AM (7 children)
To figure out why they built it would be interesting. There is still that matter of how they built it. It takes a few people to drag and erect those stones. I doubt communal hippies got around to do it for the lols so there must have been a whole power structure around that we seem to be utterly unaware off. Well it's that or that guy with the weird hair on History Channel - Ancient Aliens is correct ... I'm not sure which is most scarey at this point.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:34PM (4 children)
Then there is Wally from Michigan,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQBDhkBfr0 [youtube.com]
Moves and lifts giant stones by himself...by using his head and simple mechanics, no aliens required.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday July 18 2017, @08:03PM (1 child)
Using his head? What he really needs is an Obelix, and an Asterix, for his menhir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @09:58PM
Asterix? Never! No Frogs allowed on English soil.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @07:47AM
It happens. [google.com]
One heartbroken guy builds a castle by himself without power tools:
Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida [theconstantrambler.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 19 2017, @01:22PM
You sure the water hasn't just affected him? (They said he's from Flint, Michigan, unless I heard wrong.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 18 2017, @05:01PM (1 child)
Oh yes, we're aware of it: We have the burial sites all around where presumably important people were entombed. We just don't know very much about it, for two reasons:
1. These people were illiterate, so they didn't leave any kind of descriptions we could read or look at.
2. There was a Celtic invasion well after they built Stonehenge that would have destroyed much of their cultural memory and oral traditions.
I consider it entirely possible that the people who built Stonehenge did so willingly. As far as we can tell, this was the religious center of their culture, and they gathered there a couple times a year. The kinds of work and technology required to built Stonehenge were well within the capabilities of Neolithic peoples, and it's entirely possible that they were convinced that whatever they were worshipping look kindly upon the people doing the work. Heck, one could also imagine prestige going towards people who did particularly good work, and that prestige would be handy for, say, getting laid.
Also, the whole thing requires a lot fewer people than you might imagine. Experiments with moving concrete blocks have suggested you need only about 50 people to move and raise the stones, and the quarrying techniques used maybe involve a couple dozen people to cut out and shape a block. Organizing people on that scale doesn't require all that much formal structure.
So, in short, the right image to have here is a group of guys about the size of an Amish barn raising showing off their strength in order to impress the local hotties and whatever god they worshipped, not a large enslaved population or something like that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @06:40PM
> you need only about 50 people to move and raise the stones,
Beep, sorry, wrong answer. 1 person is enough, see previous post on Wally from Michigan. The video is eye opening, he uses little stones & wood. No metals required.
My money is on a big beer blast, after the harvest is over. "Hey guys, we've got plenty of food, lets play with rocks. Joe here remembers where the sun set on the shortest day, we'll line one side up with that...."