May You Live In Interesting Times!!
I'm back. After an awe-inspiring week in which my days were spent hooked to the yoke of commercial archaeology, and my evenings ere spent attending the Glasgow Archaeology Society's annual Dalrymple Lectures, which this year were presented by the one and only Prof. Mike Parker Pearson of UCL.
I'm still reeling.
A host of sacred cows were corralled in an enclosure (hengiform in shape) and then systematically bludgeoned. They are now hanging up by the hoofs from the abbatoir wall.
The whole experience was wildly exciting and damned invigorating .
Lecture #1 presented us with a revised chronology for Stonehenge, and an insight into the role Stonehenge played in the Mesolithic. Of course, we all know that there was no Stonehenge as we know it at this time, but there's growing evidence that the place where Stonehenge is now located was treated as special even then. If you visit the site, keep an eye open in the car park, because marked out there are the sites of pits which form a line. They once held timber posts, and they've been dated to the Mesolithic.
I'm sure you're all familiar with MPP's theories from the Time Team special. In that respect, there's nothing much to add, except that everything was dealt with in much greater detail. I hadn't quite picked up, for example, that the configuration of the Neolithic houses and their interior layouts are demonstrably identical at Durrington Walls (the largest henge monument in the world, ever!) and at Skara Brae. We were also granted a potential explanation for the random Neolithic pits we find scattered across the landscape in our commercial work - pits were often dug in the SE corner of the houses as a kind of closing deposit. When the floor gets eroded away, the pits remain, with no other evidence for occupation present. The floors at Durrington, covered with a form of plaster, were preserved only because they'd been buried beneath the bank of the henge.
I'm sorry - I thought I had a picture of Durrington Walls, but it must have been so vast that it just looked pathetic in my photograph, 'cos I don't. You'll just have to watch the Time Team Special again instead!!
But I digress....
We were offered the argument about the various elements of the ritual landscape at Stonehenge and how they are aligned upon the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset, with a detailed insight into the individual component parts and how they can be divided into monuments for the living, like Woodhenge here:-
And monuments for the dead, or the ancestors, like Stonehenge:-
Apologies for the strange photo - I chose this one because it shows a couple of the famous bluestones in the foreground. These appear to be the earliest elements of the monument, once set upright in the so-called Aubrey Holes.
Lecture 2 was all about the monuments to the living, and in particular Durrington Walls, while Lecture 3 dealt with Beakers and revealed that the diffusionists like Vere Gordon Childe were closer to the mark than we'd envisaged, and that large scale movement of people was a characteristic of this period. Their appearance also followed a period of insularity within the UK where no foreign influences were evident and where the building of these huge public monuments reached their zenith. Lecture 4 dealt with more evidence from the Neolithic and brought in Grooved Ware and regional styles in chambered tombs and pottery. And it revealed that excavations in the Presilly mountains have revealed not only the quarry site but an in situ bluestone which was abandoned where it lay.
I'm sorry. This is horribly abridged. I took copious notes, but my head is in a whirl, and while I spent the first evening sulking because I wasn't involved in the project in any shape or form (I have no defence. I saw the adverts and didn't apply, because I'm too settled in my life up here), I'd relaxed by Lecture 2 and realised that it was a privilege to be witnessing such breathtaking results of research on a group of monuments that really mean a lot to me. I'm pleased to report that there will be a series of monographs, and that MPP is working on a shorter volume, too.
Well, I have no idea how the President of GAS managed to summarise this clearly and succinctly. If I had five hours or so, I might be able to sort out my notes and give you something comprehensive and intelligible. The bad news is, veronica_milvus that I think I've managed to get the inspiration for a trilogy of Stonehenge novels out of this one. But the good news is.... This monument and the world in which it was created and used is so rich and so complex and so completely alien that I think there's plenty of room for a whole load of us to be playing in the sandbox without treading on each others toes!
Read the interim reports. Look out for the publications. And prepare to be amazed!!
I'm still reeling.
A host of sacred cows were corralled in an enclosure (hengiform in shape) and then systematically bludgeoned. They are now hanging up by the hoofs from the abbatoir wall.
The whole experience was wildly exciting and damned invigorating .
Lecture #1 presented us with a revised chronology for Stonehenge, and an insight into the role Stonehenge played in the Mesolithic. Of course, we all know that there was no Stonehenge as we know it at this time, but there's growing evidence that the place where Stonehenge is now located was treated as special even then. If you visit the site, keep an eye open in the car park, because marked out there are the sites of pits which form a line. They once held timber posts, and they've been dated to the Mesolithic.
I'm sure you're all familiar with MPP's theories from the Time Team special. In that respect, there's nothing much to add, except that everything was dealt with in much greater detail. I hadn't quite picked up, for example, that the configuration of the Neolithic houses and their interior layouts are demonstrably identical at Durrington Walls (the largest henge monument in the world, ever!) and at Skara Brae. We were also granted a potential explanation for the random Neolithic pits we find scattered across the landscape in our commercial work - pits were often dug in the SE corner of the houses as a kind of closing deposit. When the floor gets eroded away, the pits remain, with no other evidence for occupation present. The floors at Durrington, covered with a form of plaster, were preserved only because they'd been buried beneath the bank of the henge.
I'm sorry - I thought I had a picture of Durrington Walls, but it must have been so vast that it just looked pathetic in my photograph, 'cos I don't. You'll just have to watch the Time Team Special again instead!!
But I digress....
We were offered the argument about the various elements of the ritual landscape at Stonehenge and how they are aligned upon the midsummer sunrise and the midwinter sunset, with a detailed insight into the individual component parts and how they can be divided into monuments for the living, like Woodhenge here:-
And monuments for the dead, or the ancestors, like Stonehenge:-
Apologies for the strange photo - I chose this one because it shows a couple of the famous bluestones in the foreground. These appear to be the earliest elements of the monument, once set upright in the so-called Aubrey Holes.
Lecture 2 was all about the monuments to the living, and in particular Durrington Walls, while Lecture 3 dealt with Beakers and revealed that the diffusionists like Vere Gordon Childe were closer to the mark than we'd envisaged, and that large scale movement of people was a characteristic of this period. Their appearance also followed a period of insularity within the UK where no foreign influences were evident and where the building of these huge public monuments reached their zenith. Lecture 4 dealt with more evidence from the Neolithic and brought in Grooved Ware and regional styles in chambered tombs and pottery. And it revealed that excavations in the Presilly mountains have revealed not only the quarry site but an in situ bluestone which was abandoned where it lay.
I'm sorry. This is horribly abridged. I took copious notes, but my head is in a whirl, and while I spent the first evening sulking because I wasn't involved in the project in any shape or form (I have no defence. I saw the adverts and didn't apply, because I'm too settled in my life up here), I'd relaxed by Lecture 2 and realised that it was a privilege to be witnessing such breathtaking results of research on a group of monuments that really mean a lot to me. I'm pleased to report that there will be a series of monographs, and that MPP is working on a shorter volume, too.
Well, I have no idea how the President of GAS managed to summarise this clearly and succinctly. If I had five hours or so, I might be able to sort out my notes and give you something comprehensive and intelligible. The bad news is, veronica_milvus that I think I've managed to get the inspiration for a trilogy of Stonehenge novels out of this one. But the good news is.... This monument and the world in which it was created and used is so rich and so complex and so completely alien that I think there's plenty of room for a whole load of us to be playing in the sandbox without treading on each others toes!
Read the interim reports. Look out for the publications. And prepare to be amazed!!