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Monday 26 March 2012

The Stonehenge prehistoric landscape


I found this wonderful image on the stone-circles web site.  See it here:
http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/stonehenge.htm

It shows the "ritual" and non-ritual features in the Stonehenge area -- with the features themselves overlaid onto a satellite image of the district.  Click to enlarge.

Chris Collyer's site is thoroughly recommended -- it's full of very useful info.

13 comments:

Tony Hinchliffe said...

Brian's projected bluestone glacial erratic train may well have travelled in a west-to-east direction..............the same as the orientation of the Neolithic Greater Cursus. See my comments on the preceding Post headed Boles Barrow.

Bob said...

"It shows the "ritual" and non-ritual features in the Stonehenge area"

What ritual is that exactly?

You have features in the landscape that covers over 4000 years - do you think these 'rituals' would change over the thousands of years?

You starting to sound like Francis Prior!

RJL

BRIAN JOHN said...

Robert -- I have a perfectly simple definition of the word "ritual". It means "nobody knows what it was for."

Davey said...

it uses Dyfed to mean Pembrokeshire!

And propagates the land/sea transportation theory in the notes on Parc y Meirw

Could it be that these famous stones passed by Parc Y Meirw on their way to harbour to start their long sea journey to Salisbury Plain?

Davey

BRIAN JOHN said...

Davey -- thanks! I said the information was useful -- not necessarily the opinions! And yes, there are still many people around who have failed to notice that Dyfed ceased to exist in 1994.......

chris johnson said...

i did not know that "Dyfed" was defunct currently. I still use it on my snail-mail and the post still arrives, speaking volumes for the superior intelligence of My Pembrokeshire Postman (MPP). Doubtless a Cro-Magnon at heart (RJL).

It is a fantastic map. As a publisher, Brian, do you have thoughts on making it available for the common man? I have space on the wall in my office! It would fit nicely next to my photo of the Taf estuary taken from Laugharne, close to the Boat House. The tourist office in Laugharne is missing an opportunity - perhaps they should commission a book?

BRIAN JOHN said...

Yes, Dyfed is certainly defunct. But it was of course the name of one of the old Welsh tribal territories.

Not my map, Chris! I have credited it to Chris Collyer -- but whether he made it or borrowed it, I'm not sure. Maybe he should set up a little commercial enterprise, if the map is his own.

Bob said...

Brian

You maybe interested that Geoff Carter has just stuck a roof on your 'ritual landscape'.

http://structuralarchaeology.blogspot.co.uk/

You could be classified as a 'non-ritual' feature as it has a function of 'keeping the rain off'.

RJL

BRIAN JOHN said...

Ah, this wouldn't be the first time that somebody has stuck a roof on it. As you say, that would make it strictly utilitarian -- maybe a shed for keeping the rain off all the guys who were enthusiastically smashing up bluestones?

Bob said...

Brian, I think it's your duty to tell him, that it wasn't finished - so no roof required. Or could it be those 'devious' Irish navvy's again covering up a botched job?

We can't have this idea of a sophisticated civilisation making two storey buildings with roofs, do they not know that the 'Celtic tribes' lived in mud huts (ask Francis Prior or read previous posts!)for these fur covered 'savages' couldn't even count, let alone construct a building.

We can't let this go Brian, people may start suggestion that they had house boats and lived on the waterways and where would that leave the poor academics trying to sell outdated books?

RJL

Tony Hinchliffe said...

A shame Chris Collyer's overlaid image doesn't cover the whole of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site, i.e. significantly further south, as, for example, shown in the official English Heritage Stonehenge Guide, written by Julian " Quite simply,the theory of glacial tranport does not stand up to scrutiny and should be dismissed*" Richards.

* I am quoting from his 2007 volume,"Stonehenge: the Story So Far", English Heritage, published the year BEFORE Brian John's "Bluestone Enigma".

Tony Hinchliffe said...

Continuing on the theme of whether or not the term "Dyfed" is now defunct, or at any rate out of vogue, I noticed in the current Radio Times a letter from an Emeritus Professor Salmons (who, admittedly, seems to be of English stock) saying, not only is the current BBC2 Horizon series notable for its "glacial slowness", but also that the letter writer lives in Wrexham, Clwyd.

Well, during my working life in South East Wales I worked for both Monmouthshire AND Gwent.

As for "glacial slowness", I am reminded of the song lyric quite a few Stonehenge archaeological 'experts' perhaps might bear in mind......essentially suggesting a @no sweat' approach to life in general:-

.......Nice And Easy Does It Every Time!!

BRIAN JOHN said...

Glacial slowness, indeed! Have these emeritus professors never heard of SURGING glaciers? The level of ignorance out there is quite appalling......