Here is the full video. I imagine that very many of Coral and Jacky's followers will never have encountered any of this before...... some will no doubt be outraged by the lack of respect which I show towards our learned archaeological friends......
7 comments:
At 44 minutes you say there's no evidence of adequate ropes, technology development and so on. At least for land transport, we know that they must have had a short distance transport method. That applies even if that were only a couple of miles (because the stones exist and are grouped together). To do the larger sarsens, that short-medium term transport method must have been fairly sophisticated.
So I think we know, with a very high probability, that sophisticated short to medium haul transport was used. There's no evidence of this being done elsewhere. And there's also no evidence of the technology development. But yet it must have existed at that time.
So either the short haul technology was developed specifically for Stonehenge or it was developed gradually but left no trace (so wasn't used for stone transport purposes)?
Thanks Jon. Yes, I agree that short haulage must have happened during the building project. That probably occurred in the cases of all the other megalithic monuments in the British Isles. But the cost / benefit equation is vastly different from that which would apply for LONG DISTANCE transport, as I have argued over and again on this blog.
It is. On the other hand, if the technology was sophisticated enough to do short haul of very large stones, and we don't have evidence for it, then sophisticated long haul technology might also have been developed without leaving a trace. The effort per mile for sophisticated long haul is often less than short haul (this would apply especially to the welsh blue-stones and, to a lesser extent, a journey from Scotland. I think the journey from Scotland, if it took place, would be much more challenging in effort per mile.)
The issue I guess is that we probably wouldn't have tell tales left over. In the modern era, it's more usual than not for there to be no trace of the temporary and transport works after construction.
Quite interesting this. There's an archaeological interpretation that some types of postholes are the remains of construction of buildings (presumably designed to last a decade or two). From a temp works perspective, those same postholes could indicate the temporary works for the construction of much more durable permanent works (designed to last many decades). The reason that's interesting is that we have no way of knowing: both would leave the same trace.
Then there's the argument that the technology didn't exist to do sophisticated works. For example, quite a few archaeologists argue that metals were not available for such works until after Stonehenge was built. But at the same time, the Institute of Metals have published works showing that some types of softer metal were probably being mined in significant quantity long before Stonehenge was built. Soft metal that is easily moldable (tensile capacity typically about 15 mPa) doesn't sound very useful compared to steel (>300 mPa) but it would allow a society the means to produce complex devices, and especially jointing details, that might not be achievable using timber.
The problem would be that the same metals, once alloying was discovered (for example bronze which has a tensile strength up to 1000 mPa) would become much more valuable as alloy material so would be unlikely to survive. Tin would be the worst example of this because, if the alloy people didn't get to it, then our climate would (known as “tin pest”: no trace at all would survive).
Super job! The video is a great explanation of several basic principles. Well done all concerned.
Thank you Chris. Glad you liked it.
I liked it too, Brian. You're a star.
Just ventured into part of the video. Watching and listening to you rolls back the years to Durham Geography Department on the Science Site of the University back in the late 1960's........I still recall when you first remarked in your geomorphology lecture series that you thought the Stonehenge bluestones arrived courtesy of glaciation. I sat up and took (even more!) notice....
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