en
Stonehenge
Stephen McCarthy
26 Feb 2017, 07:09 PM
Chapter 2
2
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When, by whom, how, why? These questions will always be open to lots of opinions. We may never have exact answers, but slowly the science is helping. The dates are ok and fairly accurate. Not important to have an actual date, more important to learn about the type of society that existed at the time. How they were built, we have lost much of the ancient technology they must have used! We would struggle now to build using what they had available. My favourite question is why? Like the idea of a temple with multiple functions. Winter sunset, burial and worship of ancestors and other religious uses.
Stonehenge took over 1000 years to build. It was started about 3100 BC and ended about 2000 BC.it was built by neolithic people, who were semi settled and did some farming. The Amesbury archer in Salisbury museum is from the Alps and died in the late neolithic period about 2300 BC.
The sarcens can be over 40 tons and we are not that sure how they were moved! The small blue stones are between 2 ans 4 tons and must have come by sea from Wales.
Think I remember seeing a bluestone in Amesbury, brought from Wales in the 1960's by students ?