Skeleton Could Hold Secret To Stonehenge

Salisbury Journal ^ | 2-5-2008

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[org.whodat]

How, did he have his MP3 player on record?

[dfwgator]

In before the Spinal Tap references.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Its my uncle Jake.

[ConservaTexan]

"...sites regularly witnessed the violent death of individual humans..."

The same could be said of Philadelphia and New Orleans. Maybe Stonehenge was the location of a failed welfare state.

[rjp2005]

“could hold the secret to Stonehenge’s mysterious past and show the site to be an arena of gladiatorial combat”

That’s cool. Forgive the testosterone, but I always thought the “druids prayer circle thing” was lame. (Not that prayer is lame, but praying to trees/stones is...)

[Spunky]

"Dennis Price's idea that there was a sentinel or guardian of Stonehenge, who could only be replaced through combat to the death, conjures up a harsh image of life more than 4,000 years ago, but it also has a certain romantic quality to it."

Must be a guy thing to want to kill a person so you can stand guard over some rocks.

[Beowulf9]

"That’s cool. Forgive the testosterone, but I always thought the “druids prayer circle thing” was lame" I don't know much about the druids, and maybe they even did some sacrificing, but the same kind of guys that who worships trees doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who is into rocks. Especially since it takes big strong guys to move THOSE rocks at Stonehenge. Druids:the First Tree Huggers?

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Stonehenge: Where Atlantis Died
(1972)
A novel by

Harry Harrison and Leon E Stover
by
Harry Harrison

This rousing adventure story set in the Europe of 1473 B. C.
Above all sets out to entertain.
But it also has a rather more serious purpose -
to expound another theory about the reasons for
the building of the fascinating stone circles.

[Old Sarge]

Arkancide?

[shineon]

[Greysard]

This is curious; however Roman gladiatorial contests started two thousand years after this guy died. Gladiator fights are expensive (there must be a need) and assume large audience, both of which Rome had. There is no reason to believe that back in 2,300 BC Stonehenge area hosted more than a handful of people, and so it could not afford gladiators, and would have noone to see the fights. I'm unsure if they could afford food back then either.

The professor reads way too much from a dead body. The man could be simply killed in a skirmish and buried near a sacred site (in a graveyard.)

His theory of ritual combat also holds no water. You can't do ritual combat by sneaking behind an unsuspecting man and sending an arrow into his back; it's plain murder, not a ritual. Besides, death from multiple arrows would suggest a combat situation, against multiple archers. Further invalidating the prof's original theory, no sane gladiator will ever go against an archer, let alone several; he'd be a pin cushion before he reaches them.

but it also has a certain romantic quality to it

Yes, that's the reason for all those theories. A fairly tale is always more pleasing than a real, sad story of that time.

[JasonC]

It seems remarkably unlikely. The headline, I mean.

[tracer]

You can have the key when you pry it from his cold, skeletal fingers...

[tracer]

You can have the key when you pry it from his cold, skeletal fingers...

[SunkenCiv]

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[Ciexyz]

He could've been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the temple guards had target practice.

[Ciexyz]

Sacrificed for blasphemy?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Besides, death from multiple arrows would suggest a combat situation, against multiple archers.

Maybe it was a really brutal version of "Red Rover".