Huge Pre-Stonehenge Complex Found via "Crop Circles"

nationalgeographic ^ | June 15, 2009 | James Owen

[JoeProBono]

Given away by strange, crop circle-like formations seen from the air, a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex discovered in southern England has taken archaeologists by surprise.

A thousand years older than nearby Stonehenge, the site includes the remains of wooden temples and two massive, 6,000-year-old tombs that are among "Britain's first architecture," according to archaeologist Helen Wickstead, leader of the Damerham Archaeology Project.

For such a site to have lain hidden for so long is "completely amazing," said Wickstead, of Kingston University in London.

Archaeologist Joshua Pollard, who was not involved in the find, agreed. The discovery is "remarkable," he said, given the decades of intense archaeological attention to the greater Stonehenge region.

"I think everybody assumed such monument complexes were known about or had already been discovered," added Pollard, a co-leader of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, which is funded in part by the National Geographic Society.

Six-Thousand-Year-Old Tombs

At the 500-acre (200-hectare) site, outlines of the structures were spotted "etched" into farmland near the village of Damerham, some 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Stonehenge (Damerham map).

Discovered during a routine aerial survey by English Heritage, the U.K. government's historic-preservation agency, the "crop circles" are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering with plant growth. True crop circles are vast designs created by flattening crops.

The central features are two great tombs topped by massive mounds—made shorter by centuries of plowing—called long barrows. The larger of the two tombs is 70 meters (230 feet) long.

Estimated at 6,000 years old, based on the dates of similar tombs around the United Kingdom, the long barrows are also the oldest elements of the complex.

Such oblong burial mounds are very rare finds, and are the country's earliest known architectural form, Wickstead said. The last full-scale long barrow excavation was in the 1950s, she added.

[JoeProBono]

Etched into crops, the outlines of Bronze Age burial mounds surround a roughly 190-foot (57-meter) circular Stone Age temple site about 15 miles (24 kilometers) from Stonehenge in southern England in an undated aerial photo.

[Abathar]

Looking at the date stamps it seems your post killed Free Republic this morning...

:)

[CholeraJoe]

Here's an Iron Age fort from Ireland I snapped a picture of in 2007:

[JimSEA]

6000 yo but erected with such precision. Remarkable. It makes you wonder what the timber architectural forms which have not survived were like. I’m guessing they were far more than the mud and wattle huts that have left evidence elsewhere.

[JoeProBono]

[raybbr]

ping

[raybbr]

I don't think they had barbed wire in the Iron Age...:)

[BlueLancer]

"Looking at the date stamps it seems your post killed Free Republic this morning..."

That's because our Alien Overlords didn't want the knowledge of their old spaceport to be revealed! FreeRepublic was taken down long enough for them to evacuate their underground complex.

[wardaddy]

is this back when those Godawful white people were painting themselves blur and orange and eating each other?

while the rest of the non white world was so advanced and all?

leaving behind culture in the jungle no one can find now

[CholeraJoe]

Here's a close up:

[Reeses]

the "crop circles" are the results of buried archaeological structures interfering with plant growth.

The plants are acting as bio-indicators which gets me thinking. It might be possible to genetically engineer a plant to change a certain color if its roots find gold. Poison oak might be a good plant to start with since you don't want people touching your new gold.

[CholeraJoe]

But...it’s made out of iron.

[raybbr]

But...it’s made out of iron.

Well.. Duh!

In the words of Steve Martin: "I am so confused!"

[SunkenCiv]

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[Little Bill]

We got out of Gloustershire because our neighbors got uppity and didn’t want us to eat them, damned Royalists.

[Fred Nerks]

The image you posted reminds me of:

Dun Eochla Ring Fort, Araan Island.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[rdl6989]

Thanks. Back to the top (BTTT)

[CholeraJoe]

It does look similar. The one I posted was on the Connemara peninsula somewhere north and west of Galway. More or less the same coast as the Araan islands.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"Given away by strange, crop circle-like formations seen from the air, a huge prehistoric ceremonial complex discovered in southern England has taken archaeologists by surprise."