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3 Internal Links: External Links: Bluestonehenge submitted by Andy B
Destroyed Stone Circle in Wiltshire. Led by Professor Mike Parker-Pearson of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sheffield, archaeologists from several institutions have discovered a lost stone circle a mile from Stonehenge, on the west bank of the River Avon.
News on this exciting discovery was apparently leaked by a journalist, which upset some people involved in the project. It will be fully published as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project in Feb 2010.
Quote from the Daily Mail: Archaeologists have discovered Stonehenge's little sister - just a mile from the famous monument. The prehistoric circle, unearthed in secret over the summer, is one of the most important prehistoric finds in decades.
Researchers have called it 'Bluehenge' after the colour of the 27 giant Welsh stones it once incorporated - but are now missing. (It's not really a henge though as it doesn't have a bank and ditch) The find is already challenging conventional wisdom about how Stonehenge was built - and what it was used for. Bluehenge was put up 5,000 years ago - around the same time as work began on Stonehenge - and appears to have been a miniature version of it.
The two circles stood together for hundreds of years before Bluehenge was dismantled. Researchers believe its stones were used to enlarge Stonehenge during one of a number of redevelopments.
Professor Tim Darvill, Stonehenge expert at Bournemouth University, said: 'This adds to the richness of the story of Stonehenge. We thought we knew it all, but over the last few years we have discovered that something as familiar as Stonehenge is still a challenge to explore and understand. It wouldn't surprise me if there weren't more circles.'
All that remains of the 60ft wide Bluehenge are the holes of 27 giant stones set on a ramped mount. Chips of blue stone found in the holes appear to be identical to the blue stones used in Stonehenge.
Read more in the Daily Mail, and have a laugh at their illustration
IMPORTANT NOTE: Location is an estimate based on the aerial photo in the Daily Mail, and my memory from the recent TV programme about the Stonehenge Riverside Project, which showed where it's thought the avenue linked up with the river Avon
Note:Exploring the connection between Stonehenge and Madagascar's modern-day megaliths - an interview with Madagascan archaeologist, Ramilisonina. See latest comment.
Bluestonehenge submitted by Andy B Diggers stand in the stoneholes to mark the positions of the missing stones. The bank and ditch of the henge curve in front of them.
Image copyright Adam Stanford / Aerial-Cam, used with permission
Bluestonehenge submitted by Andy B Prof. Andrew Chamberlain (University of Sheffield) uses a laser scanner to record a stonehole.
Image copyright Adam Stanford / Aerial-Cam, used with permission
Bluestonehenge submitted by Andy B Ellie Hunt (University of Bristol) excavates an antler pick.
Image copyright Adam Stanford / Aerial-Cam, used with permission
Bluestonehenge submitted by Andy B Jim Rylatt (University of Manchester) with a chisel-shaped arrowhead.
Image copyright Adam Stanford / Aerial-Cam, used with permission
Bluestonehenge submitted by Andy B The excavation in progress. Image copyright Adam Stanford / Aerial-Cam, used with permission
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Stonehenge Riverside Project (Score: 1) by Andy B on Saturday, 03 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
There was a Time Team special on this over the summer where a small 'four poster' type circle of large stones was described and reconstructed graphically at the point where the Avenue meets the river. Is this the same site?
Re: Stonehenge Riverside Project (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Saturday, 03 October 2009
One would be hardpressed to understand why some had their feathers ruffled over the release of information by the Daily Mail, Unless of course the information was false. The discovery itself is important. and NOT the egos of those who discovered it. I'm sure we'll hear more about this, and any other "discoveries" pertaining to this great monument, meanwhile breathe easy,
As to the "Illustration"- Was that in error ??? and if so, how so ???
Re: Stonehenge Riverside Project (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Saturday, 03 October 2009
National Geographic funded the dig and I expect they will not be pleased that someone sold the story to the UK gutter press before they publish a full account.
Re: Bluehenge (Score: 1) by technopagans on Saturday, 03 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
A fact not mentioned about bluestone (that all of us locals know) is the
strange magnetic property of it.
Drive any vehicle from a small car to a tractor to near the top of the
Preseli road, put the gear into neutral and watch it slowly keep creeping UP
the hill! Really, it's true. I have personally experienced it in four
different vehicles.
Surely this unique property of the stone is why the people of Wiltshire
chose to import it over so long and difficult a route to build Stonehenge
and Bluehenge.
Re: Bluehenge (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Saturday, 03 October 2009
Mike Parker-Pearson will be giving a talk about Recent Research by the Stonehenge Riverside Project on Saturday 10 October at Wiltshire Heritage Museum in Devizes, starting at 7pm. You can find out more and <a href="http://www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk/events/index.php?Action=2&thID=452&prev=1">book online</a>.
Re: Bluehenge (Score: 1) by coldrum on Saturday, 03 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
No wonder people get fed up with archeologists when some of them act like this. I along with many others in this country want to know what is being dug up. Why should it be kept a secret. I don't care if National Geographic is sponsoring the digs we the British public have a right to know about our heritage. The fact that this has been kept secret is fuel to the protests of those pagans who don't like sacred monuments being messed with and want the reburial of ancient remains. When archaeologists act in such an arrogant way people are going to think less of them. This is our heritage we have aright to know whats going on.
Re: Bluehenge by Anonymous on Saturday, 03 October 2009
Re: Bluehenge by Anonymous on Saturday, 03 October 2009
Re: Bluehenge (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Saturday, 03 October 2009
No wonder people get fed up with pagans shouting about how they have the right to know about Everything that is going on with an ancient monument.
After seeing arthur and his crew shouting obscenities at Mike Parker Pearson last year I'm not suprised he wanted to keep things secret this year.
As far as I know the dig was on private land, just because its old doesn't mean you have any more rights to it as a pagan as anyone else does.
Get over yourself coldrum...
These people were asked Not to do this but they are so self important they couldn't resist grabbing a piece of the limelight.
Shame on the British druid types, they make themselves look very bad
and make real pagans ashamed to be associated with the stones
Re: Bluehenge by Anonymous on Monday, 05 October 2009
Re: Bluehenge by Anonymous on Monday, 05 October 2009
Re: Bluehenge by Anonymous on Monday, 04 January 2010
Re: Bluehenge (Score: 1) by mountainman on Sunday, 04 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
Now it's in the Times too -- stressing "archaeologists announced....." So although this was all supposed to be a "secret" until the spring, somebody has shunted the info out now as an appetiser. They'll build up the tension -- with some more drip feeds over the coming months. Maybe it's time to reapply for some research grants, and results have to be demonstrated!
Re: Bluehenge (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Sunday, 04 October 2009
the story wasn't leaked by anyone on the Stonehenge Riverside Project.
Many of the facts as reported in the Mail are wrong.
The Mail licensed the story through Associated Press which is why everyone else has picked up on it.
Bluestonehenge official press release from Mike PP (Score: 1) by Andy B on Monday, 05 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
BLUESTONEHENGE: A NEW STONE CIRCLE NEAR STONEHENGE
FIRST CHANCE TO HEAR FROM THE EXPERTS WHO MADE THE DISCOVERY
5th Oct 2009
Archaeologists from Sheffield and other universities have discovered a lost stone circle a mile from Stonehenge, on the west bank of the River Avon.
The stones were removed thousands of years ago but the sizes of the holes in which they stood indicate that this was a circle of bluestones, brought from the Preseli mountains of Wales, 150 miles away. Excavations in August-September 2009 by the Stonehenge Riverside Project uncovered nine stone holes, part of a circle of probably 25 standing stones. (Most of the circle remains unexcavated, preserved for future research, whilst the 2009 excavation has been filled back in.)
The new stone circle is 10m (33 ft) in diameter and was surrounded by a henge – a ditch with an external bank. These standing stones marked the end of the Avenue that leads from the River Avon to Stonehenge, a 1¾-mile long (2.8km) processional route constructed at the end of the Stone Age (the Neolithic period). The outer henge around the stones was built around 2400 BC but arrowheads found in the stone circle indicate that the stones were put up as much as 500 years earlier – they were dragged from Wales to Wiltshire 5,000 years ago.
The builders of the stone circle used deer antlers as pickaxes. Within the next few months, radiocarbon dating of these antler picks will provide more precise dates. These dates will reveal whether the circle was built at the same time that another 56 Welsh bluestones were erected at Stonehenge itself (in the decades after 3000 BC). When the newly discovered circle’s stones were removed by Neolithic people, it is possible that they were dragged along the route of the Avenue to Stonehenge, to be incorporated within its major rebuilding around 2500 BC. Archaeologists know that, after this date, Stonehenge consisted of about 80 Welsh stones and 83 local, sarsen stones. Some of the bluestones that once stood at the riverside probably now stand within the centre of Stonehenge.
Only the radiocarbon dating programme can clarify the sequence of events. In the meantime, the discovery of this unknown stone circle may well be exciting confirmation of the Stonehenge Riverside Project’s theory that the River Avon linked a ‘domain of the living’ – marked by timber circles and houses upstream at the Neolithic village of Durrington Walls (discovered by the Project in 2005) – with a ‘domain of the dead’ marked by Stonehenge and this new stone circle.
There is no evidence that the circle had a particular orientation or even an entrance. Soil that fell into the holes when the stones were removed was full of charcoal, showing that plenty of wood was burned here. Yet this was not a place where anyone lived: the pottery, animal bones, food residues and flint tools used in domestic life during the Stone Age were absent.
Prof. Mike Parker Pearson, director of the project, said: “It could be that Bluestonehenge was where the dead began their final journey to Stonehenge. Not many people know that Stonehenge was Britain’s largest burial ground at that time. Maybe the bluestone circle is where people were cremated before their ashes were buried at Stonehenge itself.”
Dr Josh Pollard, co-director, explained: “This is an incredible discovery. The newly discovered circle and henge should be considered an integral part of Stonehenge rather than a separate monument, and it offers tremendous insight into the history of its famous neighbour. Its landscape location demonstrates once again the importance of the River Avon in Neolithic funerary rites and ceremonies.”
Prof. Julian Thomas, co-director, added: “The implications of this discovery are immense. It is compelling evidence that this stretch of the River Avon was central to the religious lives of the people who built Stonehenge. Old theories about Stonehenge that do no
Re: Bluestonehenge Technical Details (Score: 0) by Anonymous on Tuesday, 06 October 2009
Don't you get fed up with archaeology professors using words like maybe, could have, possibly, to back up their personal opinions? Like Torvil and Dean's "Stonehenge as maybe a Lourds" and MPP's "Stonehenge possibly was a cemetary" and others " maybe Stonehenge was a pagan temple". Actually it maybe, could have, possibly have been. a landing platform for alien space ships. I don't need a professorship for a maybe. get a grip guys, your opinions have no real validity only facts are important. You didn't even know that the Preseli Bluestones could be polished until I showed you, and you didn't discover the "source of the Bluestones" Herbert Thomas of the British geological survey did in the 1920's. There is no single source for the Bluestones , all 5 types come from all over the Preseli Hills. all your speculation does it get your names in the gutter press. Stop being media tarts and just give us the facts like you are paid to do, paid by us I might add
Bluestonehenge Technical Details (Score: 1) by Andy B on Monday, 05 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
BLUESTONEHENGE: TECHNICAL DETAILS
The circle is just under 10m in diameter and was surrounded by a henge – a ditch with an external bank – with an entrance to the east. The henge ditch is 25m in diameter and sits at the end of the 1¾-mile avenue that leads from Stonehenge to the river. Excavations in 2008 established that this outer henge was built around 2400 BC but arrowheads from the stone circle indicate that it is likely to be much earlier, dating to around 3000 BC.
Nine stone holes were identified, part of a circle of probably twenty-five standing stones. Only the northeast quadrant of the circle, and a small past of its west side, were excavated. Six stoneholes (A-F) were found in the northeast quadrant and three (I-K) were found in the western trench. (Stoneholes G and H are putative stone sockets lying between the excavated ones; their positions are extrapolated from the known stones). The centres of Stoneholes A-F are spaced at an average distance of 1.12m from each other. However, Stoneholes J and K are more widely spaced. Given the arrangement and curvature of the known stones, the maximum number of stones in the circle was 25. It may, of course, have contained fewer.
The dimensions of the holes are too wide and too shallow for them to have held wooden posts. The imprints of the stones’ bases and the shapes of the sockets from which they were withdrawn indicate that these were too small to have been sarsens. They compare exactly with the dimensions of the bluestones in the inner oval at Stonehenge. The stones were extracted whole and were not broken up (as was the practice in the Medieval period). As a result, only two bluestone fragments were found, both of spotted dolerite.
The bluestone circle was succeeded by a henge, comprising a circular ditch 23.4m wide with an external bank. Little trace of the henge bank remains except where it was pushed back into the ditch on its north side. A date from the tip of a broken antler pick in its basal fill places its construction within the period 2470-2280 BC. The henge had at least one entrance – this was on its east side where the northern ditch terminal contained a special deposit of antlers, an antler pick, cattle bones and stone and flint tools as well as a burnt organic container.
We found the riverside end of the Stonehenge Avenue (previously only traced to a spot 150m to the north). It consisted of two parallel ditches, 18.1m apart. These formerly held upright posts, forming a small palisade on either side. The Avenue was traced to within a few metres of the henge ditch and presumably terminated at or close to the outer bank of the henge. It and the henge may have been built at the same time given their proximity and symmetrical positioning.
The western arm of the henge’s ditch silted up gradually during the Bronze Age, with silts interspersed with flint cobble surfaces in the ditch bottom. After the ditch had fully silted up, its northeastern quadrant was re-cut. The henge’s interior was also re-used in the Late Bronze Age with the digging of a small penannular ditch which terminated at its northeast in a large timber post. This and two other posts formed a façade or structure within the centre of the henge. A fourth posthole on the west side of the ditch contained tiny fragments of clay metalworking moulds.
The next phase of activity was during the Medieval period, specifically within the 13th century, when a complex series of east-west and north-south ditches were dug and filled. Ditches and pits continued to be dug into the post-Medieval period.
Although there was no evidence for domestic occupation during the Neolithic, the riverside was inhabited during the Mesolithic (8000-4000 BC) and during the Bronze Age (2200-700 BC).
Until radiocarbon dates on antler picks give us firm dates for construction and dismantling of the stone circle, our best dating evidence is from the two arrowheads found in
Re: British Archaeology on the Bluestones (Score: 1) by mountainman on Friday, 09 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
Just a clarification -- today's article in the mag was not written by the geologists Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins, but by Mike Pitts the editor. That's why, presumably, he doesn't come to the (obvious) conclusion that the new evidence of multiple bluestone sources supports the glacial erratic theory, but goes down the route of a "third option" involving tribute stones and petrified ancestors.
Re: Bluestonehenge Technical Details (Score: 1) by MikeGreen on Thursday, 08 October 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
It would be interesting to explore the distances between the stone holes at Bluestonehenge to see if it is likely that the bluestones at Stonehenge that show the use as lintels were first erected at Bluestonehenge - That might also give the circle an orientation that so far appears absent
Exciting stuff
Disappointed to discover that it is probably only 25 stones (not 27 as reported), but of course a couple of lintels would bring it back to 27 (roughly the mooon's sidereal period in days)
Exploring the connection between Stonehenge and Madagascar's modern-day megaliths (Score: 1) by Andy B on Monday, 28 December 2009 (User Info | Send a Message)
One of Madagascar's first native-born archaeologists, Ramilisonina's ethnological research on modern Malagasy traditions informs his study of ancient sites on the island. Together with Mike Parker Pearson of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, he also developed a new interpretation of the ritual landscape around Stonehenge and the nearby timber-post site known as Woodhenge. He spoke with journalist Richard Covington about the recent discovery of "Bluestonehenge", a site near Woodhenge and Stonehenge, and the similarities between Madagascar's living traditions and the burial rituals of Neolithic England.
