Stupid Hippies. I hate Hippies. They think they will change the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.
Posted on 06/21/2005 2:52:07 PM PDT by blam
Stonehenge druids 'mark wrong solstice'
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
(Filed: 21/06/2005)
Modern-day druids, hippies and revellers who turn up at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice may not be marking an ancient festival as they believe.
The latest archaeological findings add weight to growing evidence that our ancestors visited Stonehenge to celebrate the winter solstice.
Analysis of pigs's teeth found at Durrington Walls, a ceremonial site of wooden post circles near Stonehenge on the River Avon, has shown that most pigs were less than a year old when slaughtered.
Dr Umburto Albarella, an animal bone expert at the University of Sheffield's archaeology department, which is studying monuments around Stonehenge, said pigs in the Neolithic period were born in spring and were an early form of domestic pig that farrowed once a year. The existence of large numbers of bones from pigs slaughtered in December or January supports the view that our Neolithic ancestors took part in a winter solstice festival.
The revellers at Durrington Walls, the largest ceremonial site in the country and even larger than Avebury, are also thought to have feasted on cattle and aurochs - an extinct wild ox - before going to Stonehenge while fires burned on cliffs or hill tops. Prof Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield university, who leads the project, said: "We have no evidence that anyone was in the landscape in summer.''
Up to 20,000 people were expected at Stonehenge last night with visitors being allowed in from 10pm. The site will be closed from 9am today for the whole day so that the area can be cleaned up.
Stupid Hippies. I hate Hippies. They think they will change the world, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.
For example: I've seen 30 below, lived thru Michigan winters and spent several Februarys in the mountains. But I've never been as cold as I was in Alabama, on a dank 40 degree day.
When things happened to the sun, the ancients were generally freaked out. I can understand why after seeing a total eclipse in Mexico a few years back. If you didn't understand what was happening, you'd think that it was the end of the world.
This Alabamian found his coldest day back in the 60's in the North Sea.
Cold is when your nose hairs freeze together.
It ain't just the temperature. It's also the humidity...and the wind. I suspect there are those who have been to Shemya and Adak who would warrant the highest spot on the "discomfort index".
But I'd come in from a day in the orchard up in Lowndes County after a 40 degree high and have to sit for an hour in front of the fire before my innards got warm...
I've had those days here in Mobile. When it gets below 40 degrees here, I put on thermal underwear when outside. 40 degrees and below with high humidity is numbing.
We used the term butt cold quite a lot up there.
I went to Kadena AB (79 - 80) in Okinawa, Japan and froze when the temperature dropped in the 50's ABOVE ZERO. There in the summer you enjoyed the 90 - 90 club where the temperature was 90 degrees or more and the humidity matched it.
I think it's all relative. I lived in Hawaii for a year. That winter, there was a cold spell where the high temperatures didn't get above 65 for a week. The natives were suffering a lot from the cold.
Then, after living for several years on the East Coast, I moved to LA on the 4th of July. In the East, the temps were 90, and so was the humidity. In LA, the temps were 90, but the humidity was 30. The first day I could stand to take my sweater off was when the temp got to 118.
People adjust amazingly well. It's the abrupt changes that get to us.
Kadena sounds like Houston. Or, for that matter, Mobile...
"I have a practical question. Are we going to do Stonehenge tonight?"
Feet!
Not inches, feet!
LOL. That's what I was thinking
No we're not fockin' doin' Stonehenge!
Humidity, or rather the lack of it, is an amazing phenomenon. It can make a warm day feel 40 or more degrees cooler and vice versa.
When I lived in Boulder, CO in the late 80's, one nite around midnite the temp was around zero, absolutely no wind, and humidity at around 6%.
I walked around in a T-shirt for at least 20 minutes before I started getting cold enough to have to come in. You wouldn't believe how loud the snow would crunch under your feet, sounded almost like dry brittle bones breaking. Weirdest thing I have ever experienced.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Thank-you Ping :)
That reference to "the science of archaeoastronomy" set off the tinfoil hat alarm.Archaeoastronomy Links Stone-Age Tomb Builders With SunUsing techniques from the science of archaeoastronomy, this research has already identified significant astronomical orientations in the larger focal tombs and significant patterns in the relative orientations of the monuments... Loughcrew is a nationally important archaeological landscape located 70 km north-west of Dublin in County Meath. It is the site of one of the four major passage tomb cemeteries in Ireland and dates from the Middle Neolithic (3600-3100 BC) and later... Previous investigations by archeologists indicate that these monuments were landmarks on the Neolithic landscape, and the larger focal tombs and their smaller surrounding satellite tombs would have had a major impact on prehistoric communities and their ritual and ceremonial practices. Frank Prendergast's investigations show that two of the largest focal tombs are oriented towards the rising Sun at the equinoxes... It is well known that many such tombs found elsewhere in Ireland and beyond, such as at Newgrange, are oriented towards the direction of the rising Sun on the solstices... [A]t Loughcrew, there is a pattern of orientation between many of the smaller satellite tombs -- both towards each other and towards the two focal tombs.
Dublin - Apr 22, 2003
Here are some megalithic websites, though not the one I was looking for. Seems like a week or so ago someone emailed or posted a link to a very nice site, but I can't seem to find it as a link file on the machine here. Oh well.
http://home3.inet.tele.dk/mcamara/stones.html
(listed that one first, because it shows sites in Gambia, western Africa)
http://www.stonepages.com/
http://www.megaliths.co.uk/
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146412189
http://www.megalithicsites.co.uk/
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