Posted on 11/23/2008 7:52:42 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Cloaked by time's leafy shroud, the prehistoric settlement of Gaer Fawr lies all but invisible beneath a forest in the lush Welsh countryside. Commanded by warrior chiefs who loomed over the everyday lives of their people, the massive Iron Age fortress once dominated the landscape. Now the 2,900-year-old structure lives again, thanks to a digital recreation following a painstaking survey by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales... The study involved thousands of measurements taken in 2007, which were used build a digital terrain model of the 21-acre (5.8-hectare) site. Measurements were made manually using lasers beamed to handheld posts, each bearing a reflector... The results show the oval-shaped stronghold was defended by five tiers of stone-faced earthen ramparts, each measuring up to 26 feet (8 meters) in height. [second page] Two entranceways led up to gates to the northeast and southwest of the summit, where a timber fortress once stood. The hill fort's flat summit was later extended to the west, possibly to accommodate a growing population... Past archaeological finds, including a nearby cache of Bronze Age weapons, suggest the hill fort was active from about 900 B.C. until the Roman invasion of Britain in A.D. 43. A bronze sculpture of a wild boar -- a symbol of power -- discovered in the 19th century in an adjacent field might be a relic of the ancient chiefs who ruled over Gaer Fawr, Driver suggested... Another newly revealed feature at Gaer Fawr also hints at a much later period of occupation. An angular bank dividing the interior of the fort is so different from the site's other earthworks that researchers suspect it dates to early medieval times.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
Buried by lush forests (top), the Gaer Fawr fortress in Wales has been reconstructed (bottom) using manual surveying and computer analysis. The massive Iron Age structure was likely occupied between from about 900 B.C. until the Roman invasion of Britain in A.D. 43. [Image by Crown Copyright RCAHMW, Image copyright Geoperspectives. Copyright Landmark Information Group Ltd.]
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highly bumpable
LLikely reference bump, LLoyd.
heritage of wales. The earliest settlers in Wales arrived in the Palaeolithic Period between 225,000 and 10,000 years ago, during the warm spells of the Ice Age, when sea levels were much lower and there were land links between Britain, the Continent and Ireland...
...it’s only a model.
I’ve been to that one (Orkney). :-)
geeky ping for later.
So, to have to build fortifications like these, you must be scared witless of being overrun by pretty large forces. No?
...I have a collection of images of circular and concentric ringed structures, some with standing stones, some with mounds, some with central features, that number in the hundreds; throughout europe, the Sahara, Iran, and South America. I think I even have one from Tibet. I am inclined to believe it was not a defensive layout at all, but, because they are so wide-spread, they may be an imitation of something the people saw, perhaps a celestial phenomenon.
The design is also repeated in rock art, and Stone Henge also follows a similar lay-out.
It does raise the question of population however. How many people worked for how long to raise the structures?
Thanks, great pics!
Clare Places: Islands: Mutton Island or Enniskerry
(9th century catastrophe in Ireland)
Clare County Library | prior to November 19, 2005 | staff writer
Posted on 11/18/2005 11:58:58 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1524751/posts
Exploration of underwater forest [Loch Tay]
BBC | Tuesday, July 15, 2008 | unattributed
Posted on 07/16/2008 10:42:43 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2046747/posts
-not strictly relevant, but-
Forests Frozen In Time
Science Frontiers (#51) | May-Jun 1987 | William R. Corliss
Posted on 01/15/2005 3:53:29 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1321587/posts
[I am inclined to believe it was not a defensive layout at all, but, because they are so wide-spread, they may be an imitation of something the people saw, perhaps a celestial phenomenon.]
Could very well be. Fortifications that size presumes large numbers of people, many thousands, just to man the walls. Which implies being attacked by hordes of many thousands, on a rather regular basis. So maybe they were celestial/religious.
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