Re: Why is it that every TV special on Stonehenge mentions Druids?


"Matt Giwer" <jull43@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:48ec6f5b$0$4913
Given the rate of cultural diffusion limited by walking and the English
Channel that geographic range at that time would be like substituting
Spain and Mesopotamia for Stonehenge and Baltics.

never underestimate the distances people were travelling in prehisotry. Once
you start to understand the evidence you find that people were travelling
mind-boggling distances. We already know there were very close links between
Britain at this time and north western Spain.

Yes, I am aware of henges throughout northern Europe

Actually, no henges per se exist outside the British Isles but maybe you
don't fully understand what a henge actually is.

But, big *** here ;), the idea that a particularly impressive henge was a
place of pilgrimage leaves me cold. Maybe a tribe that could afford to
build it INVITED others to show off their wealth. However such invitations
usually means military superiority. Any signs of that? None I hear of.

I don't follow your argument here. The military thing is a red herring as
far as I am concerned. What we DO now know about Stonehenge and what used to
be called the "Wessex" culture, is that there does appear to be evidence
that the builders of the Wessex Henges may also have been in control of the
Copper/Bronze trade in the British Isles and NW Europe.

There is the problem again, probably. A fixed population showing up every
"sunday" and a large seasonal population would leave the same quantity. So
there has to be something in the quality of what is in the trash to
distinguish between the two.

There's plenty of evidence. We know from the animal bones in the midden,
EXACTLY what time of year people were at the site. Read the reports and
you'll see how this evidence works.

The evidence from human bones excavated around the locality does
demonstrate that people were traveling from far and wide to visit the
site and, perhaps, settle in the wider area, (although the immediate
environs of Stonehenge seem not to have been permanently occupied).

OR it shows the peoples of the islands were nomadic and were buried where
they died. A nomadic culture is one with a fixed settlement and the able
bodied men are gone from after planting until before harvest doing the
herding and hunting and such. In their travels the men visit the
settlements of other tribes and trade, barter for women, get into fights
and die and are buried.

Read the reports, then comment. We know that people were at the site who
began their lives in Wales, Northern England and Mainland Europe. The
distances from point of origin would suggest that there is something more
than a nomadic round going on here. Unfortunately we can't yet tell where
people died but we CAN tell where they were born.

Even though I do not have a dog in this fight, I see so many of the
"interpretations" of the data arguing to a conclusion. The conclusion here
is that Stonehenge was the Vatican of ancient of northern Europe.

Not necessarily. It *may* have been the Vatican of its day. It may have been
the Lourdes of its day. Equally, it might have been the Wall Street or the
Wembley Stadium of its day. We simply don't know yet. All we can say with
any certainty is that the site was VERY VERY important for some people
liviing in prehisotric Britain and Europe.

I know of no signs of organization in northern Europe in those days which
could make Stonehenge a focal point.
Then I would suggest you need to read more widely.

Given the tendency of religious splitting, if Stonehenge were popular I
would expect several of them competing to be the the "real" Stonehenge of
the "real" religion.

There are plenty of candidates to be rivals to Stonehenge under the type of
system you propose. Avebury could have made a claim to be the greatest, as
could Knowlton, Marden, Mount Pleasant, Thornborough, Arbour Low and many
others.


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