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jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 817
from UK
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|  New Message Posted!2012-10-10 17:42
While on the Long Man, there's also this feature at the bottom (there are two features, I'll do the other one later)
From above (sorry for the rubbish shot but photographing it was a bit of an afterthought)
and from in front:
This feature seems to be a very large oval platform protruding out of the base of the hill. It's flat on top and has very steep sides below which there is a flat walkway 3 metres to about 1 metre wide decreasing) and below that steep sides.
Anyone know anything about this?
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jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 817
from UK
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 19:13
Thanks George
That's interesting: So nobody really thinks they are flint mines! The 'flint mines' are below an unrecorded bowl barrow about 300-400 metres east of the main barrow and to the left of them you can see down onto the Long man slope. Each also appears to have a peculiar feature of a slight raised mound associated with it and protruding from the hill. The access path winds through the middle of them.
The marl pit idea is also interesting. But marl tends to form at low level and, from the rabbit burrows further down along the path, there doesn't appear to be any marl there.
The 'flint mines' didn't interest me much to be honest. They're very tidily and regularly formed for something supposed to be industrial.
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tiompan
Joined:
09-01-2005
Messages: 2644
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 18:07
http://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=408823
The John Pull story is worth investigating .
George
Quote:
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On 2012-10-09 17:41, jonm wrote:
Thanks George
Seems to show all confirmed flint mines as being in Hampshire and West Sussex. Makes a lot of sense given the coastline: You wouldn't want a two day walk and two days back just for a bit of flint if you could mine it locally.
Interesting that none of the confirmed flint mines appear to be in East Sussex!
Jon
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jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 817
from UK
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 17:41
Thanks George
Seems to show all confirmed flint mines as being in Hampshire and West Sussex. Makes a lot of sense given the coastline: You wouldn't want a two day walk and two days back just for a bit of flint if you could mine it locally.
Interesting that none of the confirmed flint mines appear to be in East Sussex!
Jon
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jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 817
from UK
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 17:29
Hi Neil
I have to admit that I can't see how it could form naturally either. Occasionally you get bowls form in chalk where an underground stream has created them, but not at the top of a hill because that's not where the streams are. The flat base to the interior, walkway and exterior and the consistent 30 degree angle of the north facing slope of each amphitheatre also seems too much of a coincidence (there are actually three bowls at high level.. one is very small and difficult to spot on GE)
Then there's all the other odd features, each of which also appears too good to be natural.
I admit it: This one is a direct result of the 'platter': Nothing to do with Stonehenge. The odd thing is that I went looking for something else (which also exists and seems to work as configured!) and sort of stumbled across this by accident. I wish I had more time to put these things together.
It looks a bit like a lecture theatre to me. Maybe "the oldest profession" isn't what we think it is?
Jon
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tiompan
Joined:
09-01-2005
Messages: 2644
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 17:25
http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/caah/landscapeandtownscapearchaeology/neolithic_flint_mines_of_sussex.html
Not sure if they above tells the John Pull story but it's pretty dramatic .
George
Quote:
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On 2012-10-09 17:03, jonm wrote:
I've heard that there are flint mines too. Though the idea perhaps is that they were 'ritual' mines.
Flint mining is a bit of an odd thing to do in this area: If you walk from the Long man over to the area near Birling Gap (a pleasant stroll that can be done in less than an hour according to one of my younger, much fitter, relatives), you reach an area below the cliffs in which large pieces of flint are available by the lorry load (I'd estimate that there's about half a million tonnes of the stuff, ready to be picked, at that location).
So flint mining is an odd thing to do. The nearby mines that are said to be mines are also odd because, if they are mines, the miners seem to have gone for pocket rather than seam trench mining: It's an inefficient, more difficult and more dangerous method of mining than following the seam laterally using small trenches (largely because chalk weathers at the top surface making trenching simple)
Then where the people constructed barrows, the barrows are full of flints which they didn't bother to pick out (for example, rabbits are currently destroying the Folkington Hill barrow and they are chucking out large amounts of good sized flint)
Overall, I find myself doubting the mining idea in this area. I understand why you would do it somewhere like mid Norfolk or Suffolk, where there's no easy access to flint.
Not sure where the idea of mining here came from. Anyone know?
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jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 817
from UK
OFF-Line
| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 17:03
I've heard that there are flint mines too. Though the idea perhaps is that they were 'ritual' mines.
Flint mining is a bit of an odd thing to do in this area: If you walk from the Long man over to the area near Birling Gap (a pleasant stroll that can be done in less than an hour according to one of my younger, much fitter, relatives), you reach an area below the cliffs in which large pieces of flint are available by the lorry load (I'd estimate that there's about half a million tonnes of the stuff, ready to be picked, at that location).
So flint mining is an odd thing to do. The nearby mines that are said to be mines are also odd because, if they are mines, the miners seem to have gone for pocket rather than seam trench mining: It's an inefficient, more difficult and more dangerous method of mining than following the seam laterally using small trenches (largely because chalk weathers at the top surface making trenching simple)
Then where the people constructed barrows, the barrows are full of flints which they didn't bother to pick out (for example, rabbits are currently destroying the Folkington Hill barrow and they are chucking out large amounts of good sized flint)
Overall, I find myself doubting the mining idea in this area. I understand why you would do it somewhere like mid Norfolk or Suffolk, where there's no easy access to flint.
Not sure where the idea of mining here came from. Anyone know?
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juamei
Joined:
28-11-2002
Messages: 24
from Buxton
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 14:58
I always assumed these features were remains of the flint mines which were at the top of the hill. The barrow also being slightly dubious due to its proximity.
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Feanor
Joined:
11-05-2011
Messages: 316
from Cape Cod Massachusetts, US
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 14:26
Hi Jon,
Very Briefly ... After posting my 'clarification' request I went to GE and surveyed the area in question.
I can't imagine that this 'Double Amphitheater' feature isn't man-made. Many other features in the immediate vicinity are clearly natural, so maybe you're on to something yet again.
(Silver Platter - here we come!)
Best,
Neil
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jonm
Joined:
12-07-2011
Messages: 817
from UK
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| New Message Posted!2012-10-09 09:58
Hi Neil:
Yes, this feature is above the 'head' of the Long Man. Here's a couple more shots of it:
and
[ This message was edited by: jonm on 2012-10-09 09:59 ]
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