What Lies Beneath Stonehenge? (article)

Gaffney’s latest research effort, the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project, is a four-year collaboration between a British team and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology in Austria that has produced the first detailed underground survey of the area surrounding Stonehenge, totaling more than four square miles. The results are astonishing. The researchers have found buried evidence of more than 15 previously unknown or poorly understood late Neolithic monuments: henges, barrows, segmented ditches, pits. To Gaffney, these findings suggest a scale of activity around Stonehenge far beyond what was previously suspected. “There was sort of this idea that Stonehenge sat in the middle and around it was effectively an area where people were probably excluded,” Gaffney told me, “a ring of the dead around a special area—to which few people might ever have been admitted....Perhaps there were priests, big men, whatever they were, inside Stonehenge having processions up the Avenue, doing...something extremely mysterious. Of course that sort of analysis depends on not knowing what’s actually in the area around Stonehenge itself. It was terra incognita, really.”

Link to Smithsonian article

A full map of the project’s findings is to be presented September 9 at the British Science Festival in Birmingham, England. (David Preiss)

This is a really interesting read! I don't have any thing to add right now, but I figured several folks would be interested in this. It will be interesting to hear what is revealed of this study on September 9th.

I figure there are many ATSers who have studied Stonehenge throughout the years that might be willing to share some interesting factoids about it. There's been so much doom and gloom lately, I think this is a refreshing little break for a moment.

Peace!

a reply to: raedar

Great article - a fascinating read.
Seems that with every new study comes even more questions.
Looking forward to an even more depth report on September 9th.

Thanks for posting this.

Interesting,I'm going there tomorrow so will let you know if I feel anything stirring inside of me.

a reply to: raedar

Brilliant find, S&F!

Thanks for linking the article, it's going to be fascinating reading when they announce their report.

NIce information

sad realy how we judge the way people lived back then, assuming that it was a no go area for the "public", with just the select few being allowed access, kind of how we live today, we've forgotten how to live as a society, its just the authorities and the public, we should try to learn a bit from what we find and start remembering that the population are the country not just a herd to be excluded, restricted and controlled. should be interesting to see the results of the work,

good find

If you didn't know, the Smithsonian also has an app. I watch full length documentaries on there.

There is a documentary on there regarding Stonehenge. Idk if its still one of the full lengths being offered.

a reply to: raedar

Thanks for the great read!

Stonehenge is one of only a few places I have ever really wanted to visit.
It captures the imagination.

s&f

Just a quote from your link that I liked.

Take the big question: Was Stonehenge predominantly a temple, a parliament or a graveyard? Was it a healing ground? We don’t know, for sure. We know that people were buried there, and that the stones are aligned in astronomically important ways. We also understand, because of the chemical composition of animal bones found nearby and the provenance of the stones, that people traveled hundreds of miles to visit Stonehenge. But we cannot say, with certainty, why.

Interesting. My mother had been on a tour there once. So does this reinforce the notion that Stonehenge was a sacrifice or ceremonial area of sorts? That sure is something to watch for.

At that time, the population of Britain numbered in the tens of thousands, not the millions we have today.

Go back four thousand years and you could have walked from Europe straight over to England. Those new sites seem to be on the line that is the shortest path from France to England.

I do wonder whether Stonehenge didn't have a thatched roof and walls over it, to form an annual meeting place. None of the major religions would have been around then, so they worshiped the natural world; the seasons, summer, spring, autumn and winter. The small villages would have needed somewhere where they could all meet and provide updates.

a reply to: raedar

Interesting read. The science behind the great monuments and earthworks is clearly beyond us now.

The glib answer to what lies beneath Stonehenge is, concrete.

a reply to: raedar

I am not surprised to learn that there were a number of things around that had not been noticed before and look forward to hearing what they say at Birmingham.

I feel quite strongly that my heritage was wiped from the face of the earth by the early religious fathers and wish we had a lot more information about the druids and what they believed in.

I have always had this inner feeling that Stone Henge and the numbers of other monuments that today we are told act as calendars were created, not because of knowing the seasons - you don't need huge great blocks of stone to tell you those in the UK, the weather and cold does that, but I feel they are there for calculating when something happens. I don't know what but I just feel that our ancestors knew a lot more than we do today and they were watching for something. I wonder if anyone else has that quiet inner feeling?

S & F Good article.
Here is a link to LiDAR (Light Distance & Ranging) map of the area.
www.wessexarch.co.uk...

Above seeing below.

a reply to: Shiloh7

You need to read 'We - The Skythians' By David Alan Ritchie.

Harmonic patterns within the cycle. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions. Measurement. Mass migration before the events.

We are as children compared to the mathematicians of ages past.

a reply to: Kester

Thanks Kester for that book recommendation. I will get it and enjoy reading it - if you have any more recommendations, they will be gratefully received

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Shiloh7

You need to read 'We - The Skythians' By David Alan Ritchie.

Harmonic patterns within the cycle. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions. Measurement. Mass migration before the events.

We are as children compared to the mathematicians of ages past.

Do you mean; WE - THE SKYTHIANS: THE LIE OF THE LAND OF AEGYPT?

Kester why don't you start a thread on that subject and tell us the basis of his ideas.

It doesn't end there either, if you look at the whole landscape around the monument, it's just alive with many many miles of fascinating ritual structures and monuments, curses, forts, there's a vast ritual landscape. Frankly enough to keep every archaeologist in the country employed for their lifetimes, to even begin to scratch the surface of it.

a reply to: Hanslune

I'd like to do that but my brain is about one ten thousandth of the size needed to grasp the basis of his ideas. Perhaps some time soon with more than a little help from my friends.