Anthropology
Related: About this forumStonehenge Had Lecture Hall Acoustics
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=stonehenge-lecture-hall-acousticsThe stone slabs of England's Stonehenge may have been more than just a spectacular sight to the ancient people who built the structure; they likely created an acoustic environment unlike anything they normally experienced, new research hints.
"As they walk inside they would have perceived the sound environment around them had changed in some way,"said researcher Bruno Fazenda, a professor at the University of Salford in the United Kingdom. "They would have been stricken by it, they would say, 'This is different.'"
These Neolithic people might have felt as modern people do upon entering a cathedral, Fazenda told LiveScience.
Fazenda and colleagues have been studying the roughly 5,000-year-old-structure's acoustic properties. Their work at the Stonehenge site in Wiltshire, England, and at a concrete replica built as a memorial to soldiers in World War I in Maryhill, Wash., indicates Stonehenge had the sort of acoustics desirable in a lecture hall. [In Photos: A Walk Through Stonehenge]
Stonehenge itself is no longer complete, so Fazenda and colleagues used the replica in Maryhill as a stand-in for the original structure. At both locations, they generated sounds and recorded them from different positions to see how the structure influenced the behavior of the sound.
pscot
(21,023 posts)This is an artist reconstruction of what stonehenge might have looked like
This is stonehenge today
LASlibinSC
(269 posts)I thank you for the photos and the link. I think I read somewhere that maybe there was a similar structure of wood and that the stone structure was perhaps involved in funeral rites. I'll look for it. This would dovetail nicely if so. Again I'll have to search to see if I am remembering correctly. Thanks again!
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Weren't the stones somehow arranged to permit determining the seasons, etc.?
LASlibinSC
(269 posts)Last edited Mon May 7, 2012, 01:02 PM - Edit history (1)
I'm thinking it was an annual event.Stonehenge a Burial
Ground, Archaeologists
Say : NPR
Jun 2, 2008 ...
Stonehenge a Burial
Ground, Archaeologists
Say .... So we think that
these are two separate
rites.
www.npr.org > News >
US > Around the Nation
I'm not sure I did that right.But hope this helps. Man it sucks getting old!