In before the anachronistic fantasies.
U.K. archaeology students attempt to prove a rail-and-ball system could have moved Stonehenge stones. [Photograph courtesy University of Exeter]
Posted on 12/30/2010 3:10:25 AM PST by SunkenCiv
It's one of Stonehenge's greatest mysteries: How did Stone Age Britons move 45-ton slabs across dozens of miles to create the 4,500-year-old stone circle?
...A previous theory suggested that the builders used wooden rollers -- carved tree trunks laid side by side on a constructed hard surface. Another imagined huge wooden sleds atop greased wooden rails.
But critics say the rollers' hard pathway would have left telltale gouges in the landscape, which have never been found. And the sled system, while plausible, would have required huge amounts of manpower -- hundreds of men at a time to move one of the largest Stonehenge stones, according to a 1997 study.
Andrew Young, though, says Stonehenge's slabs, may have been rolled over a series of balls lined up in grooved rails, according to a November 30 statement from Exeter University in the U.K., where Young is a doctoral student in biosciences.
Young first came up with the ball bearings idea when he noticed that carved stone balls were often found near Neolithic stone circles in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
"I measured and weighed a number of these stone balls and realized that they are all precisely the same size -- around 70 millimeters [3 inches] in diameter -- which made me think they must have been made to be used in unison, rather than alone," he told National Geographic News.
The balls, Young admitted, have been found near stone circles only in Aberdeenshire and the Orkney Islands -- not on Stonehenge's Salisbury Plain.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.nationalgeographic.com ...
U.K. archaeology students attempt to prove a rail-and-ball system could have moved Stonehenge stones. [Photograph courtesy University of Exeter]
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“Wyngardium Leviosa!”
Levitation....everyone knows thats how Stoneburg was built.
Obviously remnants of an ancient and highly evolved civilization.
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff |
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Photograph courtesy Crown Copyright, National Monuments Record |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff |
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Photograph by Andrew Henderson |
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Photograph by Andrew Henderson |
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Photograph by Andrew Henderson |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff; photographed at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff; photographed at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff; photographed at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum B.C. with metalworking tools, a quiver of fine arrows. What brought him to within a few miles of Stonehenge at its height? Another mystery. |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff; photographed at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff; photographed at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum |
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Photograph by Jason Hawkes |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff |
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Photograph by British Geological Survey/NERC |
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Photograph by Andrew Henderson [http://pictopia.com/perl/ptp/natgeo?photo_name=1162528] |
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Photograph by Andrew Henderson [http://pictopia.com/perl/ptp/natgeo?photo_name=1162529] |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff |
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Photograph by Ken Geiger, National Geographic staff |
| If the Stones Could Speak: Searching for the meaning of Stonehenge [National Geographic Society] | |
Okay, I had to look that up — you’re number two in the search hit results! :’)
:’)
And that only got a Nbr 3 ranking?
The idea sounds neat, inventive, practical, do-able.
Makes sense. And the rocks would not be discarded after one use in one place. At 3 inch diameter, the priests/builders/foreman/stonecutters would simply find it easy to just pick them all up and take them to the next site.
Wow. Those ancient British had big stones, didn’t they?
Probably to make up for their bad teeth.
Aye it took balls. Large brass ones laddie.
and ample free time and ale
I love these threads. Thanks for the post!
The History Channel said it was built with alien technology, so, you know, it’s gotta be true.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/4123764.stm
Is there any possibility that there is a stone quarry UNDERNEATH Stonehenge?
It would have been possible to remove the dirt and leave the stones exposed in the formation.
I still believe it was physically impossible for humans to drag those monsters 240 miles - without a thousand dray horses on rotating shifts.
I bet he's related to Angus Young of AC/DC...
What did they use for high tensile strength rope?
With perfectly round bearings and straight grooves they would hit soft spots in the earth.
How many pushers could be engaged?
My guess is that it would tend to nose down and need to be pulled out?
What? These college students think women provided the horsepower?
Lots of things are possible -- with enough people over a long-enough time frame.
As an alternate possibility, how cold might British winters been at the time? Instead of stone balls, could they have poured water along the path, had it freeze, and had a huge party at the winter solstice, moving the stones a couple of miles every year until they were done?
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