New Theory on Why Stonehenge Was Built | Hacker News Reader

New Theory on Why Stonehenge Was Built

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58 pointsdaegloe29 comments

One of my old Physics teachers was an expert on Stone Henge. Did a lot of original research in the 1980s. From what I recall Stone Henge is actually multiple sites on top of each other, so when someone says "this is what Stone Henge was for" I am skeptical because we're talking an enormous span of time and several re-buildings with no guarantee that all were for the same reason.

This article title is slightly misleading. The migration route of Aurochs theory certainly gives an explanation as to why ancient people gathered in this location. But it doesn't give reason for why the specific structures at Stone Henge were built, as people might assume from the title.

What I recall from my old teacher, and his work, was that you can pretty clearly demonstrate that the structures were there for observing the sun cycles, as was typical of many megalithic monuments - sun & moon cycles. Most of the other claimed observations can be explained away as statistical artifacts. Given the evidence of burial and the fact such observations would have had religious significance I haven't seen much to challenge the existing understanding of the site.

As an aside, I have visited many megalithic sites in the British Isles (many years go). I find them fascinating. One thing that people often remark on is how they're often in the middle of nowhere, but when they were built they were often in clearings in dense forests, but over time as we domesticated animals that would feed on the bark, killing the trees, then eat the new shoots, over many centuries - millennia - we deforested, for example the moors, and the megalithic sites became elegant monuments to a forgotten age, standing proud against a bleak landscape.

I'm wondering how you could accurately observe the rising and setting of the sun and moon from inside a forest clearing.

With the help of a hill?

Right - if you look at a lot of the locations they're on relatively high ground and in hill country so the rising and setting of the sun relative to hills or other landscape elements was what they did, and they marked off quite sophisticated cycles. Given that a 22 year cycle needs multiple observations to track, and given that the life expectancy was probably somewhere in the 40s the achievements are pretty amazing.

Plenty of people reached 60+ and some reached 90+ back then. Don't forget identical biology bad healthcare so lots of people died young and or in childbirth.

If life expectancy was in the 40s, survivors of childhood could probably expect to live significantly longer than that. Child mortality skews life expectancy downwards.

Which is why life expectancy at birth was actually in the 20s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Life_expectancy...

Life expectancy is commonly misunderstood. First, the full term is actually "average life expectancy". It was low because the huge number of child deaths simply drove down the average of the whole population. People frequently lived way into their 70s or 80s or 90s, as they do now.

Secondly, it's the average expectancy, not lifespan. The expectancy is a statistical measurement of how long one is likely to live from the time of one's birth (or from a given age). At birth, the life expectancy would low. But if you reached maturity, the life expectancy would be quite high.

In other words: The average life expectancy before the 20th century was very low. The average lifespan of mature adults was not a lot lower than today.

Or you build on a narrow isthmus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Brodgar

"One of my old Physics teachers was an expert on Stone Henge. Did a lot of original research in the 1980s."

Did your teacher publish anything? I'm aware of Alexander and Archie Thom [1], John North [2] and Fred Hoyle [3] as well as the pop science books by Gerald Hawkins.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Thom

[2] http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1999JHAS...30...83R...

[3] http://www.amazon.com/On-Stonehenge-Fred-Hoyle/dp/0716703637

PS: remember that climate in Britain was very different from now and changed a lot during the construction of megalithic sites. Inland Britain was as you say covered with dense forest so river valleys and coastal areas were very important then.

I think so ...we're going back nearly 25 years and I only had him for a Megalithic Science general studies course at A-level ...he was one of our physics teachers but not my one actually so my name recall is shaky - Andrew Taylor I think iirc

Jacques dwells on "why it was placed there", not "what it is" ("this is what Stone Henge was for"). The quality of the journalism shouldn't detract from Jacques work.

Take a second read through it and you will see that he isn't attempting to explain it's function, merely it's location.

As for the function, it's clearly used for weaponising distance star gates.

> "Researchers think the giant boulders came from a quarry near Marlborough Downs, just 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the iconic site…"

One can't help but smile at the "just" there! Perhaps if the author tried moving them they might have chosen a different word.

Or if the author didn't have a car.

The bluestones of Stonehenge come from 250 miles away in Wales - either transported by the builders or carried by glaciation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestone#Bluestone_of_Stonehen...

It doesn't seem like this is a new theory explaining why it was built as much as a theory explaining why there were people in the area to begin with.

I'm not sur if its me noticing things or the zeitgiest, but ancient history seems to be really interesting right now.

There were people here a long time ago. They were doing stuff. We have no idea what or why. A tiny fraction of their stuff was big and stone and durable enough to last thousands of years and let us know they were there and doing interesting things. But, we don't have any context. It would be like future generations finding a gigantic open pit mine in one place an airport runway in another place and a giant statue of Kim Jong Un and speculating about out society.

BTW, If there where stonehenges & Pyramids from 20k years ago, would they have lasted till now? We tend to assume not much was going on during the paleolithic. If city states trade & large structures existed during those times, would we know about it?

> the site, which was occupied continuously for 3,000 years

Gives you a pause, doesn't it?

More time has passed between the building of the ancient pyramids and queen Cleopatra, than queen Cleopatra and now.

I think most people forget that Cleopatra was of Greek ancestry (being a Ptolemy) and a player in the relatively recent classical world.

I think if someone knows anything at all about Cleopatra beyond "something to do with Egypt", they'd know she was a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony (thanks to Shakespeare at least), even if they don't know anything about the Ptolemaic dynasty.

The thing I do think a lot of people forget is just how old the Pyramids are. I do know it but often have trouble really putting it into perspective.

Also note the Great Pyramid at Giza was the tallest building in the world for almost 4000 years. And some buildings that later took the title were actually shorter than the Great Pyramid originally was at construction, but the Great Pyramid eroded over the millennia.

I'm going to Orkney in a few weeks - one of the places we are going to visit is Skara Brae:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skara_Brae

I find it amazing that this wee village was roughly 2000 years old when Troy fell.

[The Knap of Howar, also on Orkney is even older: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knap_of_Howar]

Oh definitely. But I named her because she was the last official figurehead with the 'pharaoh' title.

The Great Pyramid of Giza was built around 2560–2540 BC, Cleopatra reigned from 51–30 BC.

So - this statement will remain true for another ~446 years.

New? The story was already reported a year and a half ago and published last year.

  [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/open-eye-you-never-know-what-you-might-unearth-2365369.html
  [2] http://www.academia.edu/2488263/Vespasians_Camp_Cradle_of_Stonehenge

Resurfacing just in time for the BBC documentary, it appears.

Not saying there isn't good research here, but if your explanation doesn't cover woodhenges, you've got a way to go on "why".

It may help address "where".

Stonehenge is clearly the outside of the asylum.

Some further clarification:

Henges have a ditch with an outer bank. At Stonehenge it is reversed, with a ditch OUTSIDE the bank - effectively making the world around it the structure for which it is named.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henge

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