Crop circles - a theory

[Vertigo]

I don't live very far from you Anya - I live in Garve on the Ullapool road!

Did you see that programme I mentioned because if not and you have an interest in archaeology you should give it a look - should be available on iPlayer. It really does seem to be putting Orkney on the Neolithic map in a big way (bigger than before that is!).

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I don't live very far from you Anya - I live in Garve on the Ullapool road!

Did you see that programme I mentioned because if not and you have an interest in archaeology you should give it a look - should be available on iPlayer. It really does seem to be putting Orkney on the Neolithic map in a big way (bigger than before that is!).

I'll look for it.

The whole of the North of Scotland should be - we now have an advantage that wasn't present before - in the past twenty Aberdeen resurrected their archaeology department and UHI started doing courses. The Highlands and Islands have always done better than Moray. With the likes of Martin Carver showing an interest. We finally have a champion at the Museum of Scotland.

Having lived here Stonehenge was a bit of a disappointment and I failed to get what the fuss was about.

 

[Vertigo]

I'd agree with you on that one and I first went there when you could actually wander around in amongst the stones. I mean it is impressive and I certainly don't want to knock it, but having travelled around a bit and seen other things I somehow always expect it to be bigger

 

[Metryq]

I somehow always expect it to be bigger

Like the Stonehenge stage model in This Is Spinal Tap?

Also, "I thought you'd be taller" was a running joke in Escape From LA.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I'm afraid I'm with the Scots on this one; often are, similar landscapes. About 10 miles down the road from me, literally in someone's front garden, there's a huge dolmen; Irish neolithical grave. Oisin's grave in Cushendall is another; I walked up to it last year, against the wishes of the farmer, but it was John Hewitt's (the poet of the glen's) chosen ground, where he had his memorial place, and I really wanted to see it; stone circle on the side of the hill overlooking Glenann; the fairy glen, very lovely (I'll see if I can scan one of the photos of me there and put it up tomorrow).

I've been to several of the famous ones in England, and miss the sense of them not being celebrated, just being part of the landscape, accidental. (I'm sure there's many that are, but the famous ones tend to take the attention from them.) There is a sense of wonderment, whereever they are, a sense of someone went to a lot of trouble to put them there.
Not sure where they tie into crop circles, though; we don't get any of them here, the farmer's wouldn't take kindly to it, I suspect, and we have mostly small farms, not the big industrial type, and an awful lot of hill farming/ coastal land/ bogland, so probably not ideal locations.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I'd agree with you on that one and I first went there when you could actually wander around in amongst the stones. I mean it is impressive and I certainly don't want to knock it, but having travelled around a bit and seen other things I somehow always expect it to be bigger

LOL That was exactly my reaction and I got to wander amongst the stones more than once. It didn't have that 'feel' I usually get from historical sites and I felt no connection to it.

It was a lot smaller than it looks in the pictures. And umm to be honest I have been known to knock it. I guess when you go to a bonfire night literally spitting distance from where a Macbeth witch died, The Wolf of Badenoch burned down the other main town and the tiny village you live in has a 10th Century monastery (ruined of course) - the history has to be special elsewhere Another tiny village is one of the villages that was moved because the original ones were buried under sand. Another has a Pictish Fort that Ptolemy is reported to have visited etc Like Springs said about the stone circles, henges and other remnants cropping up in gardens and fields. (The above ruined monastery was part of a farmer's field until about 15 years ago and Historic Scotland took it over). Stonehenge had to be something really special to deserve it's status. For me it failed, but I loved Old Sarum.

This is our local stone - it's pictish and heavily carved. It's huge just in a field as you drive into town:

It's never felt the same since they did this to it:

 

[Vertigo]

Well that's progress for you

 

[JunkMonkey]

Not sure of the lack of circles in Scotland? Perhaps in earlier neolithic times Scotland had a more temperate climate which encouraged the planting of cereal crops and thus the building of stone circles?

More likely because when we get drunk in Scotland we don't think "Oh what a jolly jape it would be to draw in a field!" We just batter each other round the head with whatever comes to hand or sit about singing maudlin songs and bemoaning the fact that the auld days were better.

 

[Peter Graham]

I'm afraid I'm with the Scots on this one; often are, similar landscapes.

Nothing to be afraid of! Scotland has an absolutely magnificent selection of prehistoric sites and it is a shame that they are not more widely known and celebrated. We have talked about Orkney, but there are many other important concentrations - not least the Kilmartin Glen or the brochs of Glenelg.

I've been to several of the famous ones in England, and miss the sense of them not being celebrated, just being part of the landscape, accidental.

Some - like Stonehenge - are rather too celebrated, in my view. This is surely the problem. There is so much hype that the monument is always likely to disappoint. What's more, then tend to be most volubly celebrated by drippy hippy types who wish to obscure the true magnificence of the monuments with a load of half-baked, spiritual-lite claptrap. In addition, a spot like Salisbury Plain or the Somerset Levels has little or none of the scenic grandeur enjoyed by Callenish, Kilmartin or even Skara Brae (when the tide is out, at least).

That said, there are plenty of English sites in beautiful places where the hype and the new age claptrap is kept to an absolute minimum - Long Meg being one example and Castlerigg another.

Not sure where they tie into crop circles, though; we don't get any of them here, the farmer's wouldn't take kindly to it,

I suspect it ties in rather well. Fewer hippies = fewer crop circles made by hippy-baiters!

Regards,

Peter

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I suspect it ties in rather well. Fewer hippies = fewer crop circles made by hippy-baiters!

r

Findhorn Foundation - except we also have this who for its neighbours had an RAF Base that is now becoming an army base. It's great means I can live in a small village and have access to a great shop of world foods, and a theatre. The area I live in has a good concerntration of hippies and fantastic sites for them to enjoy.

 

[Peter Graham]

Ah yes, but Findhorn is a bit different in that it is populated by folk who actually Do Stuff and who have serious minded views about things. Similar folk can be found in places like Alston or Hebden Bridge.

Glastonbury, by contrast, is stuffed full of numpties whose grip on reality is tenuous at best.

Regards,

Peter

 

[AnyaKimlin]

True we had a very interesting experience when we walked into Glastonbury to find Dr Cris Gerrard was giving a lecture on something like Metaphysical sex.

The lead archaeologist on our site assured us the gentleman was Crispin Gerrard and not Christopher Gerrard. Apparently no relation either .

 

[LadyLara]

I've pasted this comment from the old 'crop circles' thread, which was my own personal conclusion after all the discussion on the subject:

Science spends billions on telescopes and so on, searching for 'exoplanets' and 'et' radio signals. It's right at the top of the list of priorities. So it's not as if scientists would be making fools of themselves by investigating the 'bent-stalk' and 'soil-radiation' in crop circles. To find something linking circles with 'et' would be probably the biggest scientific breakthrough of all time. Nobel prizes all round. So where are these 'scientists and researchers and biologists'?

They can't give their names? Yeah, right. Well, when they do ...

To be fair, searches for exoplanets are, by and large, done with the same equipment that already exists for all the other astrophysical research. Also, exoplanets don't really have anything to do with ET life-forms any more than Saturn does, they're just planets. As far as I know hardly any money at all is spent on SETI and similar projects, it's just a token effort. And even then... discovering distant civilisations around other stars isn't really anything to do with discovering them flying around in our own back yards burning holes in our wheat. It's a bit like comparing Egyptologists with people who claim that Horus himself is living in their attic.

 

[Interference]

The important thing is, perhaps, to find out definitively what causes each of these things. They are happening. Some are perhaps hoaxes while others are perhaps real phenomena that require a little bit of understanding.

There may be little difference between alien and succubus mythologies, between crop-circles and fairy rings or even "matrices" and ancient Olympus. Perhaps their true origins are connected, or perhaps each one is its own discreet expression of reality, but until all such mysteries are understood, emphatically and explicitly, can scientific investigation ever be said to have finished?

 

[Rosemary Fryth]

The important thing is, perhaps, to find out definitively what causes each of these things. They are happening. Some are perhaps hoaxes while others are perhaps real phenomena that require a little bit of understanding.

There may be little difference between alien and succubus mythologies, between crop-circles and fairy rings or even "matrices" and ancient Olympus. Perhaps their true origins are connected, or perhaps each one is its own discreet expression of reality, but until all such mysteries are understood, emphatically and explicitly, can scientific investigation ever be said to have finished?

True enough. Personally I feel it would be silly to outright catagorise all crop circles/crop designs into the 'man-made basket' just as it would be equally silly to categorise them all into the 'insert Twilight Zone' basket as well. We know little enough about own world as it is, and less than nothing about the enigmas, so I reckon some 'what if' daydreaming cannot harm and just adds a little more interesting mystery to our lives.

Anyway, a slight deviation off topic. Has there been any new discoveries or theories about Silbury Hill? I'm fascinated by that place (we stayed nearby during our last trip to the UK) and as far as I am aware its not a tomb (unlike the nearby East Kennet Long Barrow).

 

[AnyaKimlin]

About six years ago they announced there had been a Roman Settlement around or at the foot of the hill. And there was something about a letter and a totem pole.

I remember thinking at the time it was like a big version of a mound from an excavation - maybe it was soil excavated during the settlement of Romans and they just fancied a big hill.

One thing working in archaeology taught me is that often the simplest explanation is the correct one. Complicated theories are the ones that prove to be fads and come and go.

Working in a museum in Scotland we have these mysterious carved balls the picts used. Total mystery to archaeologists - hand them to a group of primary school kids from fishing areas and they will tell you they are for wrapping twine or rope round lol It's as good a suggestion as I've heard for them.

An excavation near Glastonbury everyone was getting very excited about this fancy new earthwork. Farmer came by and said, '' Hmm, see you've hit bedrock then it's awful shallow round here ''

 

[Vertigo]

Anyway, a slight deviation off topic. Has there been any new discoveries or theories about Silbury Hill? I'm fascinated by that place (we stayed nearby during our last trip to the UK) and as far as I am aware its not a tomb (unlike the nearby East Kennet Long Barrow).

I think this is the latest info from English Heritage )and very interesting reading it is too!):

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/professional/research/archaeology/silbury/

They discuss in this article then many bits and pieces they discovered in the process of doing conservation work after the shaft dug in the 1770's collapsed in 2000.