The “greased sled” theory of Stonehenge | Hacker News Reader

The “greased sled” theory of Stonehenge

atlasobscura.com

33 pointswormold19 comments

About 2/3 down of this page suggests grease has been tried before and was not effective: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_about_Stonehenge#Cons...

As someone who's moved a lot of machinery the hard way (i.e. not paying someone else to do it with a fork lift) I like the stone rollers and wood track the best. One dude with a pry bar can roll a >3-ton (per the manufacturer, not just a guess) mill sitting on rollers sitting on 2x4s sitting on rough ground (protip: vary the thickness of the lumber depending on how much you want it to conform to the ground). A 100+ people should have no problem rolling a 40-ton stone if said stone is sitting on a wood and roller sandwich. If you have a 10yr project deadline you could build a few miles of track a year, get the whole village together, roll the stone a few miles over the course of a week then throw a party to celebrate how far you've moved the stone then leave it to sit for 6mo and do it again.

In Peru I saw are several very large stones sitting on the trail between the quarry and a partially finished temple. One of them at the bottom of a very steep hill. Our guide did speculate that getting the stones on site was a gradual process.

And presumably, with a large enough team, the "track" could be lifted once the stone has gone over it, and relaid at the front JIT.

I also think that the people of the time were very adept at working with large tree trunks. Many late stone-age structures used them extensively, eg large round houses, platforms on lakes, etc. Fashioning smooth round rollers would have been relatively straight-forward for them IMO.

Bill Bryson on Stonehenge:

"Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, 'Right, lads! Another twenty like that...and then we can party!'"

(Yes, I only know that quote from Civ 6)

If you consider how much time and effort goes into making a lot of movies and music which to all intents and purposes are identical as far as I can tell (but which I'm assuming makes someone a lot of money) then it's not clear why people find it puzzling that a bunch of smart (if missing some modern implements) people moved a few stones around a bit for a laugh.

"which to all intents and purposes are identical as far as I can tell"

What naked disdain for the creative labor of others.

An opinion, yes. The horror!

I didn't read that comment as disdain at all; just drawing an equivalence between prehistoric, not-necessary-for-survival activites and modern not-necessary-for-survival activities.

The key is to tell them that God(s) told you to tell them to do it.

I did some reading around to see how chariot axles were done at the time. This predates the chariot, the wheel and possibly domestication itself.

So even my visions of a nice iron age pig farm is as likely to be a reality of hunting wild boar in the forest, on foot.

Stonehenge is around 3-2000 BC, the iron age in, say, France started at about 700 BC, pig domestication started from beyond 10000 BC according to Wikipedia, so an iron age farm is conceivable. Partly domesticated pigs could also simply stay close to human settlements, without any tech necessary.

Solved by W. Wallington over a decade ago. The stones "walked", just like the old tales say. One man could have built Stonehenge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wally_Wallington

140 miles to haul a bunch of 1-2 ton stones on perfectly flat ground with grease is one thing, if there are any minor hills or a good set of them, that would require massive amounts of energy.. any chance they used animals at all?

If you want some archaeological engineering theories that aren't obviously wrong, I highly recommend this youtube series about how the Antikythera mechanism could have been made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4tw_UzqZE

It's the complete antithesis of this pig fat hogwash.

This is probably a less effective approach than the "fed a gaul some magic potion and got him to throw it 140 miles" theory.

I remember that! Good old Goscinny and Uderzo. :)

Who said fat? (I'm just well-built, that's all.)

I suspect that if we could figure out how Edward Leedskalnin did it[0], we could probably piece-together if Stonehenge was done the same way.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle#History

Reply on news.ycombinator.com