[HN Gopher] A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge
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A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge
Author : gnabgib
Score : 57 points
Date : 2024-08-14 17:01 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| defrost wrote:
| Further discussion:
|
| _Stonehenge's 'altar stone' not originally from Wales: Western
| Australian -led research_ New research led by
| Western Australia's Curtin University has revealed Stonehenge's
| monumental six-tonne Altar Stone, long believed to originate from
| Wales, actually hails from Scotland. The findings
| point to unexpectedly advanced transport methods and social
| organisation at the time of the stone's arrival at its current
| location in southern England, about 5000 years ago.
| Curtin researchers studied mineral grains within fragments of the
| sandstone block, which measures five by one metres and is 50
| centimetres thick, at the centre of Stonehenge's stone circle in
| Wiltshire. Lead author, PhD student Anthony Clarke
| from Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said
| analysis matched these with rocks from northeast Scotland, and
| clearly differentiated them from Welsh bedrock.
|
| ~ https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/stoneh...
|
| _Nature_ journal video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HerAs9RRA34
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| We forget sometimes that the builders of ancient structures were
| also anatomically modern humans, every bit as clever and complex
| as us. We should be surprised if there weren't the kind of
| transport methods and trade networks to support this.
| alserio wrote:
| I'm not surprised that they could, I'm more surprised that they
| wanted to.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| What else was there to do? There was no Internet, no
| television, no football (perhaps), no books, no broadcast
| radio.
|
| I'm only half joking.
| alserio wrote:
| Maybe someone was "visiting" Scotland, and decided that it
| would look good in their backyard
| deepsun wrote:
| Yea, ancients had a certain taste for decorations.
|
| For example in Assyria, to get an audience with their
| king Ashurbanipal, I believe, one had to go through a
| corridor full of heads of king's defeated enemies.
|
| We often forget how violent past was. It was extremely
| hard to live to adulthood without killing anyone.
| dboreham wrote:
| See also: Stone of Scone.
| alserio wrote:
| Fascinating but also a lot more portable
| tialaramex wrote:
| Although humans from this period are anatomically the same as
| us, their culture isn't much like ours and the things you're
| talking about are a matter of culture.
| VyseofArcadia wrote:
| The specifics are a matter of culture, but every civilization
| has transportation and trade. That's universal.
| dboreham wrote:
| The rock formation identified is at the surface throughout the
| Orkney Islands. The River Avon seems to be at least close to
| navigable by a barge carrying a 5m long stone, requiring less
| than a mile of transport across land to Stonehenge. So it
| doesn't seem to require extremely implausible means to get it
| there. As to why -- perhaps the Stonehenge civilization came
| from Orkney originally, bringing their sacred stone with them?
| Or perhaps Orkney was a sort of Rivendell back then -- it's
| easier to defend as an isolated island group. You might go get
| a big stone from the monks there to establish the authenticity
| of your satellite colony.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I wonder what the Avon looked like back then?
|
| The waters down the west coast can be a little hairy. I asked
| Claude to analyze the paper and speculate a route and it
| thought the east coast route, then up the Thames and down the
| Avon was more likely?
|
| "Modern oceanographic knowledge tells us that the Irish Sea
| can be challenging due to strong currents, frequent storms,
| and numerous shoals and sandbanks. These conditions were
| likely present in Neolithic times as well." (Claude)
| trhway wrote:
| >every bit as clever and complex as us
|
| 5000 years is a long time for adaptational/behavioral selection
| in the comparatively - compare to other large mammals - dense
| society. During the well observable last couple centuries we
| see significant changes in the average human height,
| aggressiveness and testosterone production, socials skills,
| even IQ level noticeably drifts over just few generations being
| the subject of economical and societal mass-selection process.
| You can't just dismiss the selective effect of mass culling
| events like wars, revolutions, Inquisition and similar societal
| level massive behavioral-based selection processes adjusting
| the society for specific traits (for example Russian revolution
| killed several millions most educated people, and later Stalin
| "adjusted" the society by killing several millions of people
| who tended to be less-conformists), executing over the
| centuries or later putting in prison significant number of
| people with specific social/behavioral traits, etc.
| shsbdncudx wrote:
| In Orkney (north east Scotland) they have the sanding stones of
| Stennes. Not nearly as impressive as Stonehenge but also not
| surprising there's some connection.
| stoneman24 wrote:
| As a bit of a fan of Orkney (a family connection), I will point
| out that there are many attractions for archaeologists in
| Orkney. Some sites are dating before Stonehenge circle or at
| least similar timeframes, I wonder if the central Scottish
| stone at Stonehenge is an attempt to transfer the magic from
| Orkney (a biased view INAA)
|
| We have the Standing Stones of Stenness (as mentioned), the
| Ring of Brodgar, the chambered cairn at Maeshowe, the Barnhouse
| Settlement and the Ring of Bookan. Also we have The Neolithic
| village at Skara Brae (The site was occupied from roughly 3180
| BC to about 2500 BC and is Europe's most complete Neolithic
| village).
|
| The archaeological dig at the Ness of Brodgar is closing soon
| after 20 years of work, to preserve the rest for future
| archaeologists. I think we have enough samples to keep the
| researchers happy for a long time.
|
| If going then pack warm clothes as Orkney is very windy and
| frequently wet. To paraphrase Billy Connolly "Orkney is
| definitely windswept and interesting"
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