Archive for the 'Bluehenge' category
I think of myself as having an extremely privileged position in being able to run Eternal Idol, and one of many reasons for this is the nature of some of the contributions and contributors. One of these contributors is Alex Down, who has worked for the Stonehenge Riverside Project and who has also very generously taken notes and reported back on meetings concerning Stonehenge before now. Once again, Alex has provided a huge surface for all of us who are interested in the latest developments on Stonehenge, because he recently attended the event named in the title of this post, a seminar of Stonehenge and Avebury held at Devizes last Saturday. As well as attending and reporting back, Alex took copious notes which are freely reproduced here for the benefit of all, so without further ado, I’ll present Alex’s fascinating account of this meeting.
Stonehenge and Avebury seminar at Devizes – a report
A constellation of the archaeological stars of Wessex appeared at the first Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site research seminar. Arranged by Amanda Chadburn of English Heritage, the Prehistoric Society and David Dawson and the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society (WANHS), fourteen different speakers spent the day telling the audience packed into Devizes Town Hall about the latest ideas and research relating to the World Heritage Site (WHS).
There was, in fact, so much material that I can’t do justice to it all here, so I’ve been selective, including what I think will most interest the EI audience. The tight schedule unfortunately meant that opportunities for questions were very limited.
Amanda Chadburn welcomed us, and introduced the seminar, and explained that the two different sites are actually just one WHS – that was news to me – with the large gap of Salisbury Plain and Pewsey Vale in between. She explained that it’s proposed that an Archaeological Research Group be set up for the whole WHS, and asked for ideas to help frame its terms of reference. I’ve sent mine, and I bet that the readership here has a whole lot more.
Michael Allen’s presentation on “Defining the inherited natural landscape” was interesting because he’s using the natural archaeo-ecology of the site (like land snails, for instance) to map the ancient woodland landscape. John Evans did important work using snails to show that shrubs and trees had encroached on the Stonehenge site after the ditch/bank was built, so there had to be clearance for the construction of the sarsen stone circles. Allen’s work from the car park postholes shows that the Mesolithic landscape was open savannah, or rough grassland, while the preserved soil under the Cursus long barrow would never have supported ancient woodland. But similar long barrows show different condition: Woodhenge was originally scrubland, while Durrington Walls was open woodland.
Allen proposes that the early landscape showed a number of “special” places, with open grassland, but with a mosaic of different vegetation nearby. This ecological diversity would have provided good opportunities for early settlers to have found the resources they needed for survival. The lesson to be learned is that the early landscape was not of uniform tree/vegetation cover, and the diversity would have determined patterns of settlement.
Rob Ixer’s presentation on the geological origins of the bluestones was difficult for a non-specialist to follow, and I was surprised that his current thinking seems to have located all the bluestones in the Preseli/Fishguard area after his recent British Archaeology article, where he points out that the original source [of the rhyolite stones] came not from Pembrokeshire, but from “a far wider and, as yet, unrecognised area or more likely areas – perhaps north Wales (Snowdonia, the Llyn Peninsula and Anglesey), or even beyond.” (Discussion in Eternal Idol article here.)
Martin Barber’s presentation on historical aerial photography in the WHS was visual, so not easy to summarize, but what seemed obvious was that the mass of older aerial photographs contain huge amounts of valuable information that hasn’t yet been fully analyzed and followed up. Many of these photos are in the public domain, so the opportunity for original research is open to all.
David Field’s presentation on “Deciphering the palimpsest” applied the general principle of interpreting archaeological sequences to Stonehenge, which gave him an opportunity to talk about his discovery of the mound in the south of Stonehenge, and the antiquity of the “North barrow” (not actually a barrow) which seems to be the oldest surviving component of the monument, predating the ditch and bank. His discoveries, from a detailed non-invasive landscape survey of the monument by English Heritage, are summarized in “Sun mound, Moon ring” here in EI, and David told me that there will be a more detailed report published by English Heritage shortly.
Stuart Needham talked on “A complex of cemeteries”, relating BA barrow distribution to the earlier monuments. He believes that there is a compelling case for continuing reverence of a “super-sacred” zone around Stonehenge, and of Stonehenge itself; he cites the evidence of the axe carvings and the digging of the Y/Z holes, while the adjacent cemeteries, like Normanton Down, show “barrow intensification”, with selected individuals being chosen for burial in these special zones. He made some interesting points about the Y/Z holes, suggesting that at least one of the holes seems to have held a stone orthostat, while the pattern of the rings seems to have encouraged a spiralling perambulation, with the point of entry being near the henge’s southern entrance.
Needham went on to suggest that, while the sacred use of Stonehenge continued into the BA, the map of sacredness was more distributed into the surrounding landscape. The Normanton Down cemeteries complex straddles the NE/SW solstitial line. Could it be, he wonders, that there are the remains of less substantial structures still to be found on the line? And it’s defined by the two dry valleys extending from Lake, to the south, while there’s similar dry valley access from the river Till to the Coniger and Winterbourne Stoke cemeteries. He believes that archaeologists “need to take river valleys more seriously.”
After lunch, Josh Pollard’s discussion of “Neolithic Avebury” focussed more on what we don’t know, rather than what we do and, as such seemed to be setting a research agenda. Earlier we had seen aerial photographs that showed evidence of structures in Avebury’s western palisades. Josh Pollard wondered whether this was Avebury’s Durrington Walls, and suggested that there is significance in the association with the river, as in the Stonehenge landscape. He used an interesting term in connection with the (almost completely missing) Beckhampton Avenue: “memoryscape.” He suggested that the Avenue was constructed to commemorate the construction and subsequent eradication of the Longstone Enclosure. If so, to me this sounds very much like MPP’s suggestion that the extended Stonehenge Avenue was built to commemorate the construction and removal of Bluestonehenge by the river Avon.
Jim Leary of English Heritage gave an abbreviated version of his WANHS lecture earlier this year, superbly summarized, heh heh, in this EI article. You can read that for the full story, but Jim did add that the mysterious “dancing ground” – an apparent trampling of the original stripped ground surface – can’t be replicated under modern conditions, so he’s inclined to believe that instead it’s a worm-sorted soil horizon. Hmmm … to me, that seems much less likely.
Tim Darvill’s talk on “Beyond Stonehenge” considered the bluestones, unsurprisingly given his recent excavations on the site. But there was little or no mention of healing powers – instead, he gave a very different view of the site to the conventional one that we’re familiar with. He started with the Preseli source sites, where the natural outcroppings are very similar to built monuments, and where there is already a Neolithic culture associated with the source stones. He believes that the bluestones are the first stone structures within the henge, but that they’ve been subject to constant rearrangement through prehistory to Roman times. Some of the remains are no longer found today as orthostats, suggesting that the stones have been constantly recycled into different configurations, and broken up.
Importantly, Darvill claims that we should regard Stonehenge “as a Roman temple”. Certainly the bluestone sequence seems to be much longer than conventional chronologies, with the major pit in Darvill’s excavation dating to the 4th century AD. This long sequence of changes, he suggests, is because the “doing” was more important than the result; perhaps in a similar way to Silbury, where the scope of the monument seems to have been extended many times. (Puzzlingly, Darvill suggests this chain of bluestone activities appears to have included breaking them up for stone implements.) He concluded that there are “many reasons why Stonehenge is Stonehenge …” with all sorts of connections and associations. Was Stonehenge at the centre of the different communities through history, or at the edge? Probably both, at different times.
For me, Colin Richards’ talk on “Wrapping up Stonehenge: a dermatological approach” was the most interesting, because it took a more conceptual, symbolic approach. He tries to understand if answering the question “what was it like to be Neolithic?” can help explain Stonehenge’s “peculiar architecture”.
He started with an anthropological viewpoint from Polynesia, where the “chants of Creation” help the people relate to their ancestors. Their use of tools (creation) gives birth to “things” so, conceptually, there is a relationship between genealogy and objects. He quoted MPP on Stonehenge: “… the living will have visited Stonehenge at certain times to meet the ancestors, and to communicate directly with them.” People need a relationship with the supernatural to use its power for sustaining life, and this gives rise to what he called an “economy of vitality”: the procreating power of the deity gives rise to more life that needs to be acknowledged and returned through sacrifice. The approach to the awesome power, normally a taboo, requires a graded approach – that is, a ritual – which activates a contextual relationship between living and supernatural and eventually results in a transaction with the deity.
At this point Richards introduced the concept of “wrapping” which, from its common and practical uses, can imply secrecy (and hence disclosure), protection for something (without or within), enclosure (and hence unification), and containment of something animated (and here he gave the example of a tattoo, which I confess I didn’t fully understand.) Richards, guided by his Polynesian experience, asserts the idea of animation is important, particularly in the context of animism: a belief that natural phenomena such as rocks, trees, or thunder have life or divinity. He wonders if, in Neolithic times, all things were considered living, or animate?
[As an aside, this idea is also very similar to the Australian aboriginals' idea of songlines, whereby their ancestry is defined through connections to different parts of their landscape along routes through their land. The hills, rocks and other features are equated to characteristics of the creator-spirit.]
So how does the idea of wrapping influence our view of Stonehenge? Richards believes that the monument was subject to constant wrapping and re-wrapping through modification and re-cutting of the ditches, containing depositions. And what was actually wrapped? The Altar Stone. There is more wrapping through the medium of the bluestones. We’ve already heard from Tim Darvill that the bluestones were in a constant state of flux – and Richards believes that the Y/Z holes too held bluestones in one incarnation of a wrap (Atkinson found rhyolite in some of the holes.)
He also believe that there was an even wider concept of wrapping that involves the whole landscape. It’s apparent from the remaining stones that there were two main types of stone, rhyolite and dolerite, undressed and dressed. I didn’t collect his argument fully, but the gist of it is that bluestone chips of rhyolite are found all round the Stonehenge landscape, especially at the end of the Cursus. His theory is that Stonehenge was originally “wrapped” in a number of bluestone henges, probably of rhyolite, surrounding dressed dolerite trilithons. Perhaps at some stage the wrapping was consolidated by bringing the wraps from outside to within the henge – we can see the remains of dolerite trilithons, with mortice recesses, within the monument today. And if you’re wondering why I’m so enthusiastic about Richards’ thesis, it’s because I suggested something very similar here earlier, proposing that Coneybury henge, Bluestonehenge and the Fargo henge/hengiform could all have been consolidated into one super-site, around the time when the sarsens arrived. It seems as though Colin Richards sees an even wider collection and consolidation.
Julian Thomas gave a wide-ranging talk on “The Stonehenge Cursus complex” which is difficult to summarize succinctly. In viewing Stonehenge and Durrington Walls as the two ends of a journey, involving the dead and the living respectively, he pointed to the frequent pairing of a long barrow with a long enclosure. The pairing is seen at the Great Cursus (Amesbury 42, the long barrow, sits at the eastern end of the Cursus), the Lesser Cursus, Normanton Down, and so on. This seems again to be a similar conjunction of the living and the dead, where the cursuses, for instance, may formalize a long-established pathway. Radiocarbon dating of antler picks discovered at the bottom of the western terminal ditch, plus other features, all suggest that the Stonehenge Cursus was first constructed around 3500 BC, forming a highly visible feature in the landscape. It then appears that, around 500 years later, there was a social change from a society that saw the dead as part of itself, to one that regarded the dead as being kept at a distance, in a separate zone.
Mike Parker Pearson (MPP) spoke about “Future research priorities.” He’s interested in where the people came from, and envisages more isotope analysis like that which determined the origins of the Amesbury Archer. So the Beaker People Project will sample a proportion of the well-preserved skeletal remains of the Beaker period, aiming to reconstruct individuals’ diet and mobility. He wondered whether Stonehenge was a specific place of pilgrimage, and appeared to answer his own question by saying that there are similar results from other equivalent sites … but I’m afraid that I didn’t capture the details of what I presume are still pilot studies.
He also talked about some post-excavation research for the Stonehenge Riverside Project that he called “Feeding Stonehenge.” This involves analyzing the large quantities of pig and cattle remains from Durrington Walls. I’m not sure how definite these results are, but he said that the animals are raised off the chalk, and are therefore imported, and that all the evidence points to temporary settlement. Interestingly, the evidence from the pigs points to slaughtering at two peak points in the year: midwinter and, less convincingly, midsummer. All of those straws seem to point to a pattern of twice-yearly solstitial use. He plans to look for similar patterns at Avebury, but he suggested that it would not be the same at Avebury, where there are no strong solstitial alignments. However, there do appear to be spring/May Day alignments. And that raises the interesting possibility that perhaps Avebury and Stonehenge were used in a complementary way at different times of the year, by a widespread Wessex people. Just my speculation.
Mike wouldn’t be Mike without leaving us a little surprise. On this occasion, he told us of some recent fieldwork he’d done near the Devil’s Den, a cromlech at the bottom of the long valley running south from Fyfield Down and the Grey Wethers, a valley that must have been a stone chute for the sarsens sliding down the valley sides. MPP said that he and Mike Pitts had spotted large depressions in the valley above the Den, and he suggested that these might have been the resting places of sarsen stones before they made the journey to Stonehenge. So, what would that journey have been? It’s very unlikely that they’d have been dragged up the valley and then down again to Avebury. So the only reasonable suggestion is that they went down Clatford Bottom, the valley continuation to Clatford, and crossed the river Kennet. Crossing the Kennet would require a causeway – and MPP thinks he’s spotted one beside the existing bridge. Exciting, or what? The obvious route then is to take the easy slopes through Lockeridge to Knap Hill, and then down to Marden henge, and the headwaters of the Avon. Perhaps the Marden henge monumentalizes the crossing of the Avon? The Clatford hypothesis should be easy enough to test and, if MPP is right about a heavily-piled Kennet causeway strong enough to carry stones weighing up to 50 tons, there could still be some mud-preserved remains in the river bottom. And that could lead to an RC dating that would date Stonehenge precisely.
And on that bombshell, as Clarkson says, I’ll say goodnight. That was the end of the presentations, leaving just enough time for a short Q&A session. In my view, the day was an outstanding success – my only suggestion would be to spread it over a whole weekend to do full justice to that volume of material. It sounds as though there are plans to repeat the seminar next year and, if so, I’d strongly recommend that you try and attend. It’s an almost unique opportunity to hear the world’s experts on Stonehenge and Avebury talking together.
Once again, I’d like to extend my grateful thanks to Alex for his generosity of spirit in compiling this report and for his kind permission to use the photos of the 2009 Bluestonehenge excavation.
More original posts to follow as soon as time allows.
It has never been a problem to write for Eternal Idol, aside from finding the time to do so. Time is something that’s been in extremely short supply recently for a number of reasons, but I’m certainly not complaining. I’m extremely grateful to everyone for all the correspondence I receive, with suggestions, new material, new information, new ideas, photographs, diagrams, offers to investigate localities and so forth; as I’ve mentioned numerous times, I have a backlog of posts to complete and publish, while there are ongoing investigations such as that into the Spoils of Annwn, on a separate static page, but there are others still that keep my attention.
In addition to all this, I’ve been working non-stop on two separate projects and I’ll post something up about these as soon as I can. I’m always mindful of the observation “Men talk of killing time, while time quietly kills them”, so I couldn’t be happier that I have so many things to engage me, but back to the matter of writing. I’m generally satisfied with what I’ve posted here over the years, although I’m painfully aware that some pieces could be a great deal better. Every now and again, however, something comes along that makes me wonder why I bother with the keyboard at all, and one such occasion came about as a result of watching a video sent in by Red Raven, one of Eternal Idol’s many prolific and insightful contributors.
To cut a long and involved story short, the video was made to promote a song called “Roots” by a folk band called Show of Hands. This is turn led me to being contacted by another visitor, Yvonne, who informed me of a play in the West End of London called Jerusalem. She was kind enough to transcribe and send on the text in the programme, and I was so taken aback by what I read that I contacted the author, Paul Kingsnorth.
Paul very kindly allowed me to reproduce his words here, so I would urge you all to visit the various links I’ve supplied for Paul’s site and for the play, while you might also like to see this review in the Guardian, which echoes my thoughts on Paul’s writing. There are many reasons I’ve reproduced Paul’s brilliant essay, one being that I am of course intensely interested in the legends of Jesus visiting Britain, while I’m also fascinated by tales of supernatural creatures emerging from barrows. Paul’s work also reinforces an idea I’ve mentioned here several times before, where I’ve quoted the late Ralph Whitlock, from his wonderful book In Search of Lost Gods:
“Against the backdrop of human settlement in Britain, even the Celts were relative newcomers. As warlike invaders they started to arrive in Britain about the middle of the first millennium BC, but before that the island had an unwritten history of at least two thousand years. The Celts came in no great numbers, imposing themselves as an aristocracy on the older races, and it is unlikely that they initiated a great religious upheaval. Rather, their own beliefs were probably grafted on or merged with those of a much older religion.
Thus, in our search for the old gods, we may well find traces of those who had commanded the worship of men in the days when Stonehenge was young…”
Most of all, however, I’ve reproduced Paul’s words in the hope that anyone reading this will enjoy them one half as much as I did, so without further ado, here is the work in question:
[This article is taken from the programme of the play JERUSALEM and is followed by the words of William Blake's Jerusalem on a separate page]
OAK, ASH AND THORN
Paul Kingsnorth is the author of Real England, The Battle Against the Bland
Before the Normans arrive in 1066, and began to unravel the English sense of self at the tip of a sword, everyone in the country would have known the story of Wayland the Smith. Travelling storytellers – gleemen or scopmen as they were known – would have trawled his tale from village to town to port, embellishing it in the telling but keeping the basic spine of the story intact. The legend told of how Wayland, or Weland, a blacksmith whose works were the wonder of the world, was enslaved and crippled by a greed-blinded king and forced to work for him alone, and how he enacted his revenge in the most terrible way. The story of Wayland spoke to Old English society of themes at once specific and universal: power misused, leaders blinded by cupidity, ordinary men wronged and out for revenge. If we were searching for a foundation myth for the English people, the story of Wayland would be a strong contender.
Who in England knows the legend of Wayland today? The English, notoriously, have a blind spot when it comes to their myths, the legends of their past and their people, their folk tales and their origins. This is not something that could be said of any of the other peoples of the Biritsh Isles. The Scots and the Irish share Cuchulainn and the legends of Finn, and celebrate any number of ancient and modern folk heroes; the Welsh have the Mabinogion and the re-invented Druids, and lay claim (in rivalry with the Cornish) to Arthur and Merlin. Britain’s ethnic minorities bring stories, folk legends, songs and still-living religions from India, Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere.
But the English are strangely quiet about their deep past; disconnected, embarrassed. It’s a curious thing, for the country is full of living reminders of its mythical history and prehistory, from the green men on the lintels of old churches to maypoles and even Christmas trees. But the English have nothing to rival the Mabinogion. They have no W.B. Yeats or Dylan Thomas, diverting old myths through new channels. What are the foundation myths of the English. Who are their folk heroes? When they look for a mystical past, why do they turn to the Celts? Where did they come from, who built their landscape? Why are the barrows silent and where have the faeries gone?
It’s not as if the stories aren’t there waiting to be found. The old English tales are as deep, as archetypal, as any other myth cycle. As well as Wayland, the Old English pantheon included one-eyed Woden, also known as Grim, god of the slain, who walked the high downs with his familiars – the raven and the wolf – looking down on the world of men. There was great Thunor with his hammer of fire and his sacred groves, and Frig, Woden’s consort, pagan matriarch and goddess of the green. There were Balder and Ing and others long-forgotten, whose swords and carved idols are still dragged up today from riverbeds and bogs. There were orcs and ents, dwarves and elves, demon hounds and giants in the landscapes and mindscapes of England long before they re-emerged in the pages of Tolkien.
These were the gods and the demons of the Old English; dead but not resurrected, unlike their Celtic forbears or Christian conquerors. But the myths of a nation are about more than gods; they are about the folk legends, the small stories, the culture that grows from season and place. In England this gives us, amongst others, the strange mystery of the green man, his foliate head carved on churches, over centuries, a heathen riposte on a Christian building. Who is he? If we once knew we have forgotten, like we have forgotten Jack in the Green and the origins of Robin Hood; like we have forgotten Hereward the Wake and Eadric the Wild and Jack Cade, like we have forgotten the craft of the village witch and the story of the wind smith, the meaning of the white horses and the ballads of the sea.
Times change and the world moves on. Perhaps the English have forgotten because they wanted to forget. Perhaps English is such a self-confident, forward-looking nation that it doesn’t need to bolster its self-image with half=remembered stories from a dead world. But it doesn’t seem that way to me. Rather the opposite: it seems as if, for some reason, the English are afraid of their myths – intimidated by their stories, maybe even by their past. For whatever political, sociological or historical reason – take your pick, according to your inclinations, from a ragbag of defendants that includes the Norman Conquest, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, political correctness or the simple process of historical forgetting – we do not seem inclined to dig into the barrows and unearth the old hoards. Maybe we are afraid of seeing our faces in the reflection.
Over a century ago, in Puck of Pook’s Hill, Rudyard Kipling resurrected Puck, the impish faerie that Shakespeare had himself laid down from the collective memory centuries before. In Kipling’s tale, Puck is the last of the faeries, “the oldest Old Thing in England”, summoned accidentally from his barrow by theatrically-minded children. The first tale he tells them is the tale of Wayland the Smith.
And so the cycle continues. Because though we have forgotten much in England, we don’t have the option of leaving the past behind. No-one ever does. Weirdly, obtusely, at the margins and from the corners of your eyes, the old myths can still be seen. A hundred years on from Kipling, the long barrow on the Ridgeway near White Horse Hill is still known as Wayland’s Smith; the old smith, it is said, will shoe any horse left there overnight if a coin is placed on the stones. The third day of the week is still Woden’s Day, the green men on the cathedral ceilings receive coats of fresh paint, and every May Day, even now, the strange green dance goes on in crevices and byways while most of the nation is driving to the out-of-town retail park.
This is the England of Johnny Byron, a post-modern Puck, a dangerous spirit of the old world and the new, leading the children astray, telling them stories, a story himself. The old gods are still with us, and the myths. Not because we have held onto them, but because they have held onto us. We tried to banish them, like the council tries to banish Johnny from his wood and the developers try to banish the woods themselves. But like Puck, they linger in the barrows long after they were supposed to be gone. “I came into England with Oak, Ash and Thorn” says Puck in Kipling’s tale, “and when Oak, Ash and Thorn are gone I shall go too.” Perhaps when climate change comes to England it will banish the oak and the ash and the thorn, but more likely they will cling on, like Puck and Jonny and Wayland and Grim, like lichen on bark or moss on stone, impossible to shift, so common as to go unnoticed unless we go out and search for them.
The photograph above shows, from left to right, Professor Josh Pollard (Bristol), Professor Mike Parker Pearson (Sheffield) and Professor Julian Thomas (Manchester), of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. They are pictured on the steps of the British Museum with the award from Current Archaeology, sponsored by Andante Travels, for their discovery of Bluestonehenge last year.
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At The Mountains of Madness?
1:09 am
In a comment on the “Missing Years of Jesus” post, Thelma wrote about one particular site in Britain and added that in this place “…perhaps there is another sacred landscape to be found?” I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if this turned out to be the case and it may be that instead of being gradually teased out, the whole thing will appear in a flash, as leylines did to Alfred Watkins.
Thelma’s observation about a sacred landscape waiting to be found reminded me of a news item I saw a little while back, and it was something that positively took my breath away. You can read it for yourselves, if you wish, but it concerns the discovery via Google Earth of what appears to be a ‘Lost City’ in the Amazon jungle, close to Brazil’s border with Bolivia.
Of course, I was extremely interested by the whole article, but I was particularly pleased for the ghost of Colonel Percy Fawcett, a man who has been vilified for decades and dismissed as a madman on account of his belief in the existence of a ‘lost city’. Now, to my amazement, it seems as if he’s been vindicated, while in my view, someone whose family motto was “Difficulties Be Damned” and who went on to die in the Amazon jungle in pursuit of his dream deserves every accolade going. My approval may count for little, but as Fawcett is acknowledged as being the inspiration for Indiana Jones and as he’s due to be played in a forthcoming film by Brad Pitt, then I’m sure that this will make him very happy, wherever he may be right now.
As I’ve written a number of times, I can trace my inspiration and enthusiasm for looking into ‘ancient mysteries’ back to a book given to me by my mother when I was a child, a book by C.W Ceram entitled Gods, Graves and Scholars, in which I read the story of Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the ‘lost’ or fabled city of Troy.
In brief, at a time when the entire academic establishment was convinced that Homer’s Iliad was a “pretty legend”, Schliemann chose to believe every word of what Homer had written, thereby discovering the lost City of Troy. As anyone who has ever browsed through the various entries on this site will be aware, I’m particularly interested in trying my best to explore whatever the old myths and legends have to tell us about Stonehenge in prehistory and it’s gratifying that I’m not alone in this. Aynslie is similarly interested, while I’m indebted to Professor Melrose for the many things he’s been able to tell me about the meaning and derivation of numerous words related to this study.
Some time back, I corresponded with Dr Angelika Franz of Der Spiegel, after which she wrote and published an account of what I had to say about the “Stonehenge Sentinel“, exactly two years ago today. I was surprised to learn from Dr Franz that Schliemann isn’t held in universally high regard in Germany and there’s no denying that there are good grounds for this. Similarly, Colonel Percy Fawcett doesn’t seem to have endeared himself to sundry establishment figures, and yet I still find myself occasionally baffled by the hostile reactions these people engender in others.
For anyone who isn’t aware of it, in March last year I had a book published, entitled “The Missing Years of Jesus”. It’s an investigation into the legends of Jesus visiting Britain, as suggested in the opening lines of William Blake’s famous poem Jerusalem, and it should be clear to anyone who’s read the book or browsed through this site that there’s no doubt in my mind that Jesus did indeed spend a considerable amount of time in the West of England and in South Wales before returning to his homeland to embark on his famous ministry.
Of course, not everyone agrees with me, but the vast majority of correspondence I’ve received on the subject has been perfectly civil, with the exception of the occasional sarcastic remark, which is to be expected and which I can live with.
By way of sharp contrast, I wrote in great detail a few years ago about my belief that Stonehenge was the circular temple referred to by Pytheas of Massilia and that the nearby Vespasian’s Camp was the ‘City of Apollo‘ that he also described. All the posts are still on this site, if anyone cares to peruse them, while they attracted some attention from the media at the time. What surprised me, though, was the sheer outrage from certain quarters that greeted the posts and the media reports, so there seems to be something about the mere phrase ‘lost city’ that arouses extreme passions in some people today, just as was the case back in the times of Fawcett and Schliemann.
I’ve recently had cause to look into Julian Richards’ “Meet the Ancestors” series and I note that episode 34, in series 6 was entitled “The Lost City of Roman Britain”, so I can’t help but wonder what kind of reception the programme received on account of its obviously highly presumptuous title.
There are other ‘lost cities’ in Britain, most notably Camelot, but there are also lost sunken lands such as Lyonesse and Ys on the coast of Britanny. The enigmatic mediaeval poem The Ruin speaks of a large settlement or city, whose identity is not known to us, while I’m sure there are others still, but they are all surely worth investigating.
As I wrote in a previous post, the existence of Bluestonehenge was predicted back in the 1980s and this astonishing structure came to light last year, as a result of the efforts of the Stonehenge Riverside Project. I could list many other discoveries in the Stonehenge landscape and elsewhere, but it seems to me that the British Isles are an absolute cornucopia or treasure-trove of ancient landscapes, alignments, features and artefacts just awaiting discovery. I understand that Lee Smeaton is making progress as far as his “Kentish Walls” are concerned, while one of the many subjects I’ve been trying to find time to do justice to is the ‘Ghost Avenue’ at Stonehenge, as discovered by Juris Ozols and Alex Down.
With all the means and material available to us, it strikes me it would be madness not to look into these mysteries, so I’ll keep doing so as long as time allows. And it’s extremely gratifying that there are so many others of you ‘out there’ who are just as keen on looking into these matters as I am.
PS: I’ll be away in London on business and pleasure until late Tuesday night, just in case anyone wonders about a lack of response from me.
I had many reasons in 2009 for feeling very happy and very proud. I had thought of listing them, but it seemed wrong, somehow, while most of them are documented on this site in any event. While not everything went to plan, I can’t complain, so I hope that you all had an equally satisfying year as well.
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Bluestonehenge Predicted
2:06 amOnce again, I’m grateful to Juris Ozols, this time for bringing the prescient paragraphs on page 111 of Rodney Castelden’s 1987 book “The Stonehenge People” to my attention.
I’m not sure that I can add to this in a meaningful way, other than to reaffirm my belief that some thing or some things of importance remain to be discovered to the northwest of Stonehenge. I’m certain that if any further laser scanning of Stonehenge is undertaken, then more prehistoric engravings will come to light, but I could continue in this vein for a long time.
And I still can’t understand why, after all these years, I’ve never dreamed of Stonehenge.
Druids, Reburial & Red Ice Creations
11:43 pm
I hear that Frank Somers, the leading Stonehenge Druid, has recently been interviewed by the Heritage Key site, which recently carried a report on Bluestonehenge by the writer and Egyptologist Charlotte Booth. Perhaps the planned celebrations for my impending 50th birthday are making me aware of my advanced age, but I couldn’t help noticing that Charlotte was born at around the time I was applying to study Egyptology and this was long before Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. Still, she’s made a far better job of her Egyptological studies than I ever did, so I wish her the best of luck.
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One of the biggest advances ever in understanding Stonehenge in its landscape – this year’s Stonehenge Riverside Project (SRP) dig beside the Avon has produced some astounding results. The highlight is the discovery of a new stone circle and henge, called Bluestonehenge by the SRP’s leader, Professor Mike Parker Pearson, and Mike was kind enough to present his findings to the Wiltshire Archaeology and Natural History Society in Devizes recently. This is my report on what he had to say. I was privileged to play a very small amateur part in the dig, so I’ve added my own observations if I think they can supplement Mike’s story.
The site
The new Bluestonehenge (BH) occupies a site close beside the river Avon in the hamlet of West Amesbury, at the end of the inferred Avenue route. The Avenue, which had never been properly explored at its far end, crosses a small field as it approaches the Avon, in a sheltered and fertile shallow valley, watered by a small spring.
Anyone who is familiar with the rather bracing conditions to be found up on the chalky, dry and exposed shoulder where Stonehenge is sited can’t fail to notice the polarising differences between the two sites. Although the stone ring in BH sits on a small spit or tongue of natural chalk – which probably marked the site on the river bank as a natural landing point – the surrounding subsoil is mostly sticky periglacial clay, making digging conditions rather difficult.
Only part of the henge site was accessible to the excavation team, as a property boundary crosses it, and the remaining land is river bank with carefully protected fishing rights. Some of the original henge bank and ditch has been lost to the river, but the stone circle is largely intact, and a little more than a third of it was excavated, giving a high degree of confidence in the conclusions.
The discovery
Last year’s SRP excavations (2008) included a short exploration at West Amesbury to locate the end of the Avenue. Extensive geophysics surveys – resistivity, magnetic, radar – showed nothing, but a long narrow trench was dug across the field close to the river. By good fortune, the trench showed two segments of a circular ditch: the henge ditch. If the dig had been a few yards further away from the river, then the ditch would have been missed, and probably the Avenue ditches too, because they don’t reach quite as far as the henge.
The original henge bank had disappeared, eroded back into the ditch. But the discovery forced a re-examination of the geophysics records, and with hindsight it was possible to see four anomalies within the ditch, arranged in such a way that they could be on a circle. Perhaps they were the remains of sarsens forming a stone setting within a henge?
No further excavation was possible at that time, but 2009′s SRP dig was designed to explore this exciting possibility.
Early finds
Test pits over a wide area showed two main areas of flint finds. Most of the finds were either Mesolithic or Bronze Age, showing that the site seemed not to be inhabited by Neolithic people. Many Early Mesolithic flints were found on the tongue of chalk showing that this area had been used extensively, possibly since the time that the Car Park posts were erected at Stonehenge (8000BC). This is important in itself, as it indicates that the Stonehenge area must have been highly significant while the Mesolithic people who erected the posts were living in the valley, near fresh water.
The major trench at BH showed that the henge ditch is 25m in diameter, with a 30m diameter bank. The Avenue ditches almost meet the henge bank but fall short. Finds from the Avenue and the henge ditches show that they’re likely contemporary, dug at the same time. Last year’s dig uncovered an antler at the bottom of a ditch segment that dated to around 2400BC. The henge/Avenue dates inferred from flint finds have yet to be confirmed by the radiocarbon dating from this year’s organic finds.
The four anomalies – the possible sarsen holes – were a big disappointment. They turned out to be dense distributions of flint nodules in the natural spur of chalk, a result of natural weathering causing a “deflation horizon”. They were simply a natural phenomenon, but they played their part in the big discovery by contributing to the expectations of the site.
A narrow trench across the Avenue line and further away from the Avon revealed the Avenue ditches, as well as a mass of mediaeval activity. In fact, it was difficult to disentangle all the mediaeval land boundaries and pits from the prehistoric targets. But eventually the two Avenue ditches, about 18m apart, became clear, and the eastern ditch was particularly fruitful. It showed a line of stake holes in the bottom of the ditch, the remains of a length of palisade. The palisade does not seem to have extended all the way to the terminus of the ditch. In the same area as the stakes, one lucky excavator found the most incredibly perfect and delicate oblique ripple-flaked arrowhead. It was pointing up the Avenue towards Stonehenge, and must have been a deliberate deposit.
Within the henge
The archaeological sequence within the henge was complicated. Apart from the inevitable mediaeval disturbance, some Late Bronze Age post pipes cut into the filled henge ditch and intersected with the bottom of what was to prove a bluestone hole. The dating was provided by post-Deverel Rimbury pottery which was in use around 1000BC. At least one of the post holes was massive – the photo shows an excavator removing material from a still deepening post pipe. The significance of these posts is that the Bronze Age people must have known of the presence of something highly important from the past – the posts were erected right at the edge of the earlier stone circle.
Elsewhere, excavation uncovered patches of flint-cobbled surfaces at the bottom of the henge ditch, so that people could stand in the clayey bottom. Nearby was found the butt of a greenstone axehead.
Where the ditch had been recut in the Bronze Age, it had narrowly missed the bottom of the original ditch terminal. And that allowed Mike’s team to discover an important “structured deposit” of a flint-worker’s hammerstone, shaped antler tool, a series of struck flints, and the sacrum of a cow. (Cattle remains are often found in ditch terminals.) But the most interesting find was almost missed – the vestigial remains a “burnt organic container” – was it a basket, or a bowl? And what did it contain? Maybe time and expert investigation will tell.
The stone ring
There’s no doubt the finally-revealed stone holes – the hoped-for target of the dig – contained bluestones. There were only four pieces of sarsen found within the henge, and they were river-worn. The nine stone holes uncovered showed the characteristic proportions and dimensions of their counterparts at Stonehenge, though perhaps were dug a little deeper, probably because of the softer clay subsoil.
The interpretation of the stone holes changed dramatically during the dig. An early count showed only four holes in the trenches, and an aerial shot I was able to get from a flight overhead allowed me to calculate a circle containing about 10 stones. This was similar to the directors’ estimate, but within a few days the diggers appeared to discover intermediate stoneholes, and suddenly the estimate shot up to around 24 or 25 stones. These were erected on a circle of almost exactly 10m diameter across the ditch centreline.
Each stonehole excavated differed slightly, showing that it was likely that different gangs erected each stone. One showed a nest of packing stones, carefully placed around and under the bluestone, while the next revealed a pad of alluvial clay, compressed into the underlying chalk. The pad retained a perfect imprint of the bottom of the original stone.
The packing stones gave rise to a mystery. Each hole had an extraction ramp, showing the angle at which the stone was withdrawn. Each stone was extracted whole, for there were no bluestone fragments. And yet the nest of packing stones was virtually complete, which would have been impossible if the stone had simply been dragged up the extraction ramp. The photo shows a nest of packing stones, lower right, with the excavator standing in the angled extraction ramp, below the edge of the packing stones.
So how was it done?
The answer the team came up with was the use of an A-frame. Their hypothesis is that the stones were physically lifted up from the holes by attaching ropes to the peak of the A-frame, and then hauling the frame more upright. This would allow the stone to clear the packing, and then be withdrawn by hand along the extraction ramp.
This was a clever solution to the problem, but gives rise to another question. Why was so much care expended on removing the stones?
Repurposing the stones
It was at this point in the excavation that Mike made his momentous announcement. He often gave a progress report at the start of the day’s dig, and on this occasion he really caught his audience’s attention. The gist of the theory was that the 24 bluestones from BH were carefully removed, and then dragged up what is now the Avenue to be reused in the later designs of Stonehenge.
This is a seductive idea, because of the arithmetic. Mike excavated Aubrey Hole 7 last year to remove the buried cremated remains that had been deposited there since 1935. He discovered the characteristic crushing of the bottom chalk indicating a standing stone. This had been observed by the original excavator in 1920, but he’d been overruled by others. In addition, the proportions and dimensions of the Aubrey Holes all show the same characteristics of known bluestone holes. So the deduction is that there were 56 bluestones dating from the earliest Phase 1 in around 3000BC.
When you add the 24 stones transported from BH, they total 80 stones, which is too close for coincidence to the usual estimates of 79-80 for the bluestones in the later settings. It appears that the BH ring had been desanctified, the stones carefully removed and consolidated with the existing stones at Stonehenge, to re-launch the monument. At the same time, or soon after, the bluestones were joined by the massive sarsens to create the monument we know today.
This completely rewrites the history of not just Stonehenge, but a much enlarged Stonehenge ritual landscape. Mike summed up the significance of this revelation with the words that I can still clearly hear in my mind: “It’s not quite Tutankhamun’s tomb, but…”
Not only do we have an astounding new theory that closely links two separate monuments over a period of around 500 years, but a double slice of luck should enable definite confirmation. Not only was an antler found directly under the bottom of one of the original holes (incontrovertible dating for the date of erection), but another antler was found near the top of an extraction ramp, most likely confirming when the stone was removed. So, when the RC dates are in, they should provide reliable dating for both start and end dates of the BH ring. And these can be compared with corresponding dates at the Stonehenge site.
Shapes and sizes
The comparison may be a lot tighter than simple dates. An intriguing consequence of the imprints left behind in the bottom of the bluestone holes is that they can be accurately modelled in 3D using a laser scanning technique. And if the shape of the original stones can be retrieved, then they can be compared with existing stones at Stonehenge.
It turns out that there is a strong candidate for a match. This photograph from English Heritage shows the bluestone 68 at Stonehenge which has a strongly defined groove, and it’s possible that this groove matches a similar grooved base to one of the stones from the west of BH.
If such a connection can be made, then it’s unquestionable proof that the two sets of stones were integrated into the new design at Stonehenge.
Another intriguing possibility that will be much harder to prove is that the ring at BH was lintelled. Stonehenge possesses two lintelled bluestones, and Mike thinks that it’s just possible that they could also have been used as lintels at BH, in which case the theme for the unique design we see at Stonehenge today could have been inspired by the lost ring beside the Avon.
But where might the inspiration for BH have sprung from?
Origins
There is a strong association between Stonehenge and Wales and the West Country. Whether the bluestones were transported by glaciers or human agency, they incontrovertibly originated from Wales. In addition, strontium analysis of animal remains found in the Stonehenge landscape show they came from the west.
The earliest Neolithic finds in the British Isles come from Ireland, and pottery styles show that Early Neolithic culture spread all the way along the west coast from the Scottish Isles in the north, to Paignton in Devon and to France. Wales has an impressive collection of 4th millennium tombs that show an active Early Neolithic culture. And it also has a proto-Stonehenge, near Bangor.
Although Mike didn’t mention it by name, I think he must have been referring to Llandegai 1, a henge outside Bangor that is the most closely aligned in the British Isles with the Stonehenge design. With dates of 3,200 BC from ditch material and 3,350 BC from a cremation, it’s possibly the earliest dated henge yet found. Its bank is within the ditch, as at Stonehenge, and it’s described as having been the site of a large Neolithic ceremonial centre which sounds very similar to the Stonehenge complex – for instance, it had a cursus, and many cremation burials were found in the henge, as at Stonehenge. Its excavator described it as “a natural meeting place of land and sea routes”, and he associated the early usage of the site with axe-trading. (Perhaps the greenstone axe found at BH came from here?) And Stonehenge is of course at the nexus of major overland routes, like the Ridgeway and Harroway, and the Avon river route to the sea.
So it’s possible that Llandegai provided the jumping-off point for a migration of the Welsh Neolithic culture and cattle towards the east that ended in a similar settlement on the easy grazing of Salisbury Plain. And what more natural than to import the familiar religious designs that reassured the new settlers that this was their new home from home? But it will take a lot more research using techniques like strontium analysis before proving this theory of origination.
Human agency, or glaciation?
The two monuments at Stonehenge and BH both show an impressive collection of bluestones. We know they came from Wales, but how did they arrive? While acknowledging that current research is casting new light on glaciation, Mike still prefers the idea of human agency. He referred to the latest article in British Archaeology from Rob Ixer, that relocates the source of many of the stones away from Carn Meini, the traditional source, preferring Carn Goedog, for instance for the source of the spotted dolerites, because of a closer chemical match.
Mike’s opinion gained from his glaciation experts is that potential bluestone-carrying glaciations would have come no closer than about 50 miles, dropping their load in the area of Somerset and Gloucestershire. So what evidence is there for bluestones in that area?
There we find Stanton Drew, a massive henge that incorporates stones of varied geology that have been imported from many miles away. But there isn’t a single bluestone there. Mike feels that if glaciations were a factor, then bluestones would inevitably have been used at Stanton Drew. They haven’t – and that destroys the credibility of the glacier-borne theory.
So did the Neolithic people transport the stones by water or land? For Mike, they’d have done anything to avoid the uncertainties of a water route. In short, he believes that – “it’s the labour that counts” – and that work gangs would have competed eagerly for the prestige of the heaviest stones or the greatest distance.
Construction
The dimensions of BH are simple: the stone circle is 10m in diameter, the henge ditch is 25m, and the bank is 30m (midline to midline). There are some small variations in these figures, because of the inevitable irregularities introduced by construction, but it seems that there was a basic multiple of five underlying all the dimensions.
At this point, I have to suspend my disbelief. Mike claims the basic unit of length that was used by the designers was (in current terms) 5 metres, and this length corresponds very closely to what in traditional English measure is a rod (or a pole, or a perch.) Mike’s advisors propose that this basic prehistoric measure of length is 15 “long feet” (a multiple of 5 again) where a long foot is 1.056 English feet.
The proof appears to be evident in the design at Stonehenge. The Aubrey Holes are spaced one rod apart. For comparison purposes, the BH ring is only two rods in diameter, so it’s tiny. I didn’t collect all the details, but the rod underlies the entire Stonehenge design: the Aubrey Holes have a diameter of 9 rods, the bank 10 rods, the ditch 11 rods, and the counterscarp 12 rods. In the lintelled ring, each lintel is 10 long feet (two thirds of a rod) while the trilithon horseshoe is constructed on a spacing pattern of multiples of 5 rods. Each trilithon lintel is one rod in length.
Mike claims that this produces an extremely simple construction method, that bypasses all the complicated geometrical constructions required by Anthony Johnson’s analysis, for instance. Mike is not proposing a universal measure, like Alexander Thom’s Megalithic Yard. Rather, he is proposing a local measure that persisted in the area of Salisbury Plain. Is it possible this measure ultimately become the English rod that, apparently, defined the length of the stick needed to control oxen at the plough?
Connection to Stonehenge
During the active phase of BH – assumed to be between 3000BC and its dismantling in around 2500BC – how did it relate to its bigger neighbour, Stonehenge? During this time there was no Avenue connecting the two, yet there had been some early logical connection through the common use of bluestones. Puzzlingly, Stonehenge went through a long period after 3000BC when it was used less – indeed, became partially overgrown – although it was still used for cremation burials.
Mike Parker Pearson believes that during this period BH had more of a connection with Coneybury Henge. Coneybury is close to a direct line between Stonehenge and the Avon site, and is high up on the chalkland, overlooking Stonehenge. It was excavated in 1980 by Julian Richards, who found a north eastern entrance, like Stonehenge’s, with wooden settings within, and the possibility of an east-west setting of bluestone-sized pits.
But the really intriguing characteristics of Coneybury are its dates. Outside the henge is a pit, called the Coneybury Anomaly, filled with early Neolithic pottery and a large deposit of animal bones, including a minimum of 10 cattle, plus several roe deer, two red deer and a pig. This pit may represent the remains of one major episode of feasting, carefully buried. The remains would have fed a lot of people, and the bones date to early in the 4th millennium BC. A series of dates from pits inside the henge and the primary ditch show that Coneybury was in active use from about 3300BC to 2450BC – in other words, completely spanning the dates when BH was in use.
It seems possible that Coneybury may have been the first point of contact for the earliest Neolithic settlers from the west. One way of settling this would be to test the teeth from the cattle buried in the Anomaly, using strontium analysis, to see if they originated from Wales. Mike is planning to carry out this test, and the results should be extremely interesting. But whatever the origin of the animals and people, it seems to have been an important component of the Stonehenge landscape at the same time as BH.
Coneybury is accessible from BH directly, with no more effort than using the Avenue route – both routes have to climb the King Barrow ridge. But Mike makes an interesting proposition for the route from Coneybury to Stonehenge: he thinks that it took a more southerly route, and used a coombe, or shallow valley to go west before approaching Stonehenge directly from the south. The southern entrance, marked by the diminutive sarsen stone 11, could be a recognition of the earlier approach route.
In the footsteps of the Gods
We may never know what was the transformational event or belief that prompted the dismantling of the bluestone ring at BH, and its re-erection at Stonehenge. But Mike Parker Pearson is sure that he knows how the change took place, and was marked.
After the careful removal of the bluestones from their BH setting, they were moved to Stonehenge along what we now know as the line of the Avenue. This route is the most direct and follows an economical line across the King Barrow ridge but, most significantly, it joins with the solstice sunrise line at the bottom of the final slope up to Stonehenge – the dramatic approach to the Heel Stone when the rising midsummer sun shines directly into the centre of the monument.
Mike Parker Pearson opened his talk with a discussion of this line, but it seems most relevant here. When a trench was opened up across this final part of the Avenue last year, Mike’s geomorphology experts pointed out that the two parallel ridge and ditches that mark the sunrise line are natural features (caused by periglacial erosion) which coincidentally are directly on the sunrise axis.
Mike surmises that this natural feature and its significant alignment must have been known to the Neolithic people, and this was a major reason for the siting of Stonehenge. This natural astronomical alignment was then enhanced by a circular cremation cemetery with a bluestone ring at the top of the rise.
When Stonehenge was redeveloped around 2500BC, it was natural to incorporate the new bluestones by using the original feature that had made the site special. The route by which they had been moved was commemorated by an extension of the Avenue banks and ditches all the way down to the circle by the river. And there a circular ditch and bank was dug to mark the place where the where the stones had originally stood.
Stonehenge’s key position in a ritual landscape appears to have been originally a recognition of the Sun or Sky gods, and this aspect was preserved through its history, until it was finally commemorated in the connection to its early partner site, Bluestonehenge.
Thus a continuity of memory was assured, a continuity that has allowed modern archaeologists to reveal even more of Stonehenge’s early history. There will inevitably be yet more exciting discoveries in the future.
All the text and photographs in this report are courtesy of Alex Down, apart from the illustration of Bluestonehenge which was created by Peter Dunn [see previous post on Bluestonehenge Press Release for details]. It surely goes without saying that I’m enormously grateful to Alex for all his hard work and dedication in enabling us all to read this account.
Bluestonehenge Update
12:40 am
Earlier this morning, Professor Mike Parker Pearson sent me the full official press release for Bluestonehenge, which includes photographs, illustrations and technical details, with his blessing to reproduce it here for everyone to see on Eternal Idol. I’m certain that Mike would have far preferred to have issued these details at a time of his own choosing, but he was prevented from announcing the news of his astonishing discovery by the Daily Mail choosing to run a feature of their own on Saturday.
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