'Breakthrough' at Stonehenge dig

[rumpel]

By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

Archaeologists carrying out an excavation at Stonehenge say they have broken through to a layer that may finally explain why the site was built.

The team has reached sockets that once held bluestones - smaller stones, most now missing or uprooted, which formed the site's original structure.

The researchers believe that the bluestones could reveal that Stonehenge was once a place of healing.

The dig is the first to take place at Stonehenge for more than 40 years.

The team now needs to extract organic material from these holes to date when the stones first arrived.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7337292.stm

:)

[Cleita]

1. Thanks rumpel.

BBC has an ongoing report as the dig goes on. It should be interesting.

[MorningGlow]

2. That is VERY cool--but one question

I read the article and watched the videos and read other related articles, but none of them says why researchers now believe it was a place of healing. Do you (or anybody in our hallowed group) know how they came to that conclusion?

I am so, so, SO interested in this (of course--witch and anglophile that I am--hee) but I just don't get how they arrived at this latest theory. :shrug:

[Why Syzygy]

3. It must be the stones?

In ancient times, stones were considered to be holy and magical objects, homes to spirits and the Gods. In local Welsh legends and folklore it is said that the Preseli Bluestones possess healing and magical powers. It is no surprise then that this rare stone should be used for this Island's greatest megalithic structure - the very root of all our architecture.
http://www.stonehengestones.com/cgi-bin/ston.cgi

More about bluestones >
http://www.britannia.com/history/preseli_blue.html

[MorningGlow]

4. That was what I was thinking

It's just that none of the stories or videos said so in so many words. :)

I say 'bout time some scientists tweaked to the importance of stones and minerals to Neolithic people!

I also wonder, however, how they managed to come to this conclusion after decades/centuries of erroneously insisting it was a burial site :eyes:, sacrifice site, calendar, and everything else. Personally, I believe it was a sacred/magical temple on an important ley line, so it was a healing site AND a "calendar" (dramatic way to mark the sabbats, with the sun rising over the stones and hitting certain marks on certain days of the year) AND a place of magic AND a place of worship, because to these people, they were all one and the same.

Perhaps our scientists are finally catching up with us. :evilgrin:

[Why Syzygy]

5. Absolutely, it was all those things.

*snort* . yeah, funny they think it has to be ONE thing when most likely it was all the things you mention. For the ancients, calendars were a mode of survival. I've recently been reading >
http://www.amazon.com/Math-Mystics-Fibonacci-sequence-Labyrinth/dp/1578633834/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207852198&sr=8-1 . and astrology/astronomy, and the need to measure the seasons were a very real cause for the development of mathmatics. It is woven into all.

I was confused about what the article means by "sockets". I haven't watched the video yet because I don't have speakers at work, so maybe they show what those are?

[MorningGlow]

6. Hey now! That looks like an interesting book!

I may have to pick that one up.

As far as I'm concerned regarding scientists' theories, I'm actually impressed that they didn't try to cram "fertility" in there yet again. I get so aggravated that the general belief is that our predecessors were obsessed with the whole "be fruitful and multiply" thing--as if they were so ignorant and starving and lost so many people to disease without knowing how to cure illnesses that they felt "fertility" was the cornerstone of their lives. Scientists have no idea how intelligent these people really were, mainly because they believe that all of humanity has evolved in an upward trajectory with regard to knowledge and skill, when that couldn't be farther from the truth--it's more cyclical than linear. (There's that sacred geometry again!)

I'm just waiting for the discovery that the Willendorf Goddess was actually a form of Neolithic porn instead of a fertility icon.
:rofl:

As for the sockets--I think they're looking for the places where the other bluestones were set, and for a layer under that where the builders may have left tools or something.

[Why Syzygy]

7. They probably had better birth control than we do!

The moon told them all they needed to know. I really love that book. It's more of a reference once you get into it. I may post some from it after 4/15. It got me much more interested in getting back to my lunar *worship* activities and attentions. I get a lot from Moon watching.

[cliss]

8. Thanks for the info Rumpel.

Like many others, I too am bewitched by Stone Henge. The more you look, the more fascinating it becomes. What was it used for? What about all those other mysterious stone circles, like the ship settings in southern Sweden. What were they really used for? There are more mysteries than answers at this point.

And yes I believe "modern" "science" has completely underestimated these earlier cultures. I also believe they knew happiness in ways that we don't.

There was a great article, here at the DU a few years ago. It was about how researchers had finally located the original source of the stones at Stone Henge. (this was not the blue stones from the post above). Researchers had located a spot, several hundred miles away (I believe) in Northern England (?). They located some cliff dwellings, and sure enough there was a chunk of rock missing on a cliff. It matched one of the stones exactly.

Which brought up even more questions: how did they get the stones from there to Stone Henge? Researchers looked for tracks, but found none. So many mysteries, and so few answers.