Stonehenge was moved from Wales

[Pyan]

I thought that building the henge was itself a sign that the warring between the tribes was stopping?

Professor Mike Parker Pearson, of Sheffield University, said: 'When Stonehenge was built there was a growing island-wide culture - the same styles of houses, pottery and other material forms were used from Orkney to the south coast.
'This was very different to the regionalism of previous centuries.' The building of the monument also underlined the new spirit of co-operation, he added.
'Stonehenge itself was a massive undertaking, requiring the labour of thousands to move stones from as far away as west Wales, shaping them and erecting them,' he went on.
'Just the work itself, requiring everyone literally to pull together, would have been an act of unification.'

Research finds Stonehenge was monument marking unification of Britain

 

[Ursa major]

I didn't read very far into that article, if only because I'm not sure the idea of people copying each other's style of housing represents any sort of unification and I didn't feel the inclination to wade through other silly "justifications" that might have presented themselves.

 

[Overread]

We also have to consider population density. Today the population of the UK is insanely high, yet in the past it was nothing like as big. Heck even going back a thousand years the population is drastically smaller than it is today. With smaller populations you create more chance to move around without encountering other humans. So it could be possible that several larger tribes/groups could create larger structures even having to move within the territories of those they are at war with. Heck there might even have been stones lost to attack which fell to the bottom of riverbeds and have been lost to time.

Or perhaps there was peace for a generation or two over a majority of the area. A time when technologies and trade happened more freely.


I think the idea that history is full of constant war is because historical classes at school and in the media often tend to focus on battles and wars. Furthermore battles and wars create lots of nice juicy archaeological digs and evidence of their happening. I think it can give us a coloured view that the past was one long constant dark period of war and feuds and fights. Yet we know from even recent history that if your nation is in a constant state of war with nations of equal power, then your nation is unlikely to develop far. Indeed you're more likely to collapse if you're not defeated because you can only dedicate majority of resources to war before you run out (this includes people to fight). Nations that tend to rise up and develop and advance tend to have peace within the interior and trading partners on their boarders. Where war is kept on the fringe or far afield.

Even Rome, famous for being on the march and conquering, only really started to become powerful once its interior was at peace. The war went to the boarders and the Empire grew and grew with peace and trade in the interior regions.

At least that's my casual observation.

 

[Pyan]

Mary Beard did an excellent series on everyday Roman life, available on the BBC iPlayer:

Meet the Romans with Mary Beard

 

[Vladd67]

It does not surprise me that the means of moving the stones existed. What does surprise me is that they were able to do so because I had supposed that they would have had to pass through the territories of potentially hostile neighbouring tribes.

Maybe it was a religious thing? Hostilities suspended over the duration?

 

[svalbard]

It brings to mind the GOM legend that Merlin stole the Giant's Dance(Stonehenge) from Ireland and brought it to Britain. Little kernels of historicity in the legends.

 

[BAYLOR]

Did they have a moving in permit ?

 

[Venusian Broon]

It brings to mind the GOM legend that Merlin stole the Giant's Dance(Stonehenge) from Ireland and brought it to Britain. Little kernels of historicity in the legends.

Or a guess at the origins of the stones rather than any direct knowledge of what actually happened! The locals in Wiltshire would know what sort of stone was available nearby - I believe there are plenty of sarcen sandstone outcroppings nearby, but, of course, no bluestone. Hence a nice tale to explain where this strange foreign stone had come from

 

[paranoid marvin]

It does not surprise me that the means of moving the stones existed. What does surprise me is that they were able to do so because I had supposed that they would have had to pass through the territories of potentially hostile neighbouring tribes.

I agree. How do you communicate with someone 100 miles away that you will be lugging enormous stones through the middle of their territory, possibly in several years time. It would have taken collaboration on a huge scale and over a long period of time. The logistics would have been an enormous task, especially without (probably) any written form of communication and who knows what potential language barriers?

 

[reiver33]

It was originally errected in Wales due to an early GPS error.

 

[paranoid marvin]

We also have to consider population density. Today the population of the UK is insanely high, yet in the past it was nothing like as big. Heck even going back a thousand years the population is drastically smaller than it is today. With smaller populations you create more chance to move around without encountering other humans. So it could be possible that several larger tribes/groups could create larger structures even having to move within the territories of those they are at war with. Heck there might even have been stones lost to attack which fell to the bottom of riverbeds and have been lost to time.

Or perhaps there was peace for a generation or two over a majority of the area. A time when technologies and trade happened more freely.


I think the idea that history is full of constant war is because historical classes at school and in the media often tend to focus on battles and wars. Furthermore battles and wars create lots of nice juicy archaeological digs and evidence of their happening. I think it can give us a coloured view that the past was one long constant dark period of war and feuds and fights. Yet we know from even recent history that if your nation is in a constant state of war with nations of equal power, then your nation is unlikely to develop far. Indeed you're more likely to collapse if you're not defeated because you can only dedicate majority of resources to war before you run out (this includes people to fight). Nations that tend to rise up and develop and advance tend to have peace within the interior and trading partners on their boarders. Where war is kept on the fringe or far afield.

Even Rome, famous for being on the march and conquering, only really started to become powerful once its interior was at peace. The war went to the boarders and the Empire grew and grew with peace and trade in the interior regions.

At least that's my casual observation.

I agree that internal peace is required for consistent growth. but that - certainly in the past - a state of war against enemies was also a necessity. You could argue that only when the Romans settled down and became more 'civilised' and peaceful that they then became more vulnerable to aggressive, warlike rivals.

I agree though that for trade to flourish you need peace and stability. Was there some understanding that the movement of these stones was a religious undertaking , and therefore exempt from attack? There is also a possibility that there was a collaboration of manpower, and that perhaps each year each of the tribes would send a few men to join the work. Or perhaps it was the job of each tribe along the route of the stones to be responsible for moving it through their territory and on to the next?

One thing I feel fairly sure of is that -once constructed - the individual tribes would have come together at the monument to celebrate the solstice.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I agree. How do you communicate with someone 100 miles away that you will be lugging enormous stones through the middle of their territory, possibly in several years time. It would have taken collaboration on a huge scale and over a long period of time. The logistics would have been an enormous task, especially without (probably) any written form of communication and who knows what potential language barriers?

You're assuming that people of that time held concepts such as territory or 'owned land' in the modern sense. I think when you get to the iron age that makes more sense as we see large numbers of hill forts built in clearly strategic places to control land in the vicinity. Added to that the fact that population densities in 800BC were much higher and I believe deteriorating climatic conditions would have put good land at a premium. Hence there is quite a lot of evidence of endemic warfare at those times.

At 3000BC which is when we think Stonehenge was built conditions were different. I believe the people that built Stonehenge were farmers and probably migrated from Europe - probably focused on raising cattle and growing wheat. However there could well have been vast tracts of Britain that still supported the original hunter gather peoples. These people would range very far as they moved around to exploit seasonal foods. Perhaps Wales at the time was mostly 'hunter-gather' land that saw mostly small bands of people going through? Added to this is that it seems quite likely that the first farmers were more pastoralists than sedentary crop growers - so they too would have moved around the countryside with their herds taking advantage of whatever pasture they could find. Maybe setting up temporary farmsteads, using slash and burn to grow their crops, until the soil degraded and they would move on?

(I should point out that there are, of course, neolithic remains of settlements and tombs in Wales at the time period and earlier as well, but I'd guess at nowhere near the density of later iron age populations Also I do believe that the old idea that there was no warfare or violence in the Neolithic is probably wrong - we are finding evidence of violence.)

I also think it much more likely that they did most of the transport of the stones via boat, along the coast and up the River Severn. The interior of Britain at the time would have been heavily wooded and it took a long time for farmers to make inroads and open up the countryside. It probably made much more sense to roll/push the stones to the coast to the North, which looks only a few miles, and then boat around to the Severn, rather than go up and down hills, and through marsh and forest (And also avoiding any other curious or hostile tribes if that was the case.)

I definitely could see Stonehenge very much as a collaborative effort though - I can see the site being used for religious reasons - but also function as a time for 'tribes' to get together to trade, find wifes and husbands, find out what's been happening and just have a great big party, after a year with their herds or hunting in other parts of Britain.

 

[paranoid marvin]

If they had the technology to transport them by sea, that would surely have been the easier option. But would they have had the capability to float such heavy pieces of stone? There is also the possibility that the movement of such massive rocks over such a long distance and such difficult terrain, was to some extent part of the ritual. After all, they could have built it out of more local stones, or even used wooden ones as were seen close by. It's possible that it all added to the wonder and mysticism of so unique a place. It's still impressive to this day; what must it have felt like 4-5000 years ago?

I agree with you that the people of the British isles were more likely to be wanderers rather than settled into settlements, but they must surely have had regular places that they travelled to that had good feeding for the livestock and a local supply of fresh water. Although land itself may not have been possessively protected , surely the finite natural resources were?

 

[Tirellan]

Having watched the programme it was mentioned that some researchers tried to transport a large stone by water and they lost it within the first 5 miles. I have failed to find a direct reference to this attempt, maybe someone with better Google-fu can find it. This publication also argues against it: (PDF) Stone Henge and Open Water Transport of Bluestones

 

[Venusian Broon]

Having watched the programme it was mentioned that some researchers tried to transport a large stone by water and they lost it within the first 5 miles. I have failed to find a direct reference to this attempt, maybe someone with better Google-fu can find it. This publication also argues against it: (PDF) Stone Henge and Open Water Transport of Bluestones

That's very interesting.

Mind you it's a quite old paper and perhaps we've got more information now, about 20 years later. It's clear that there was a lot of sailing/boating by Neolithic peoples, for example the crossing between Ireland from Wales, amongst the various islands in the West and North of Scotland. And of course the Neolithic farming people of ~4-3000 BCE are themselves thought likely to have migrated to Britain via the mediterranean and Spain - although, of course, there is a debate about exactly how many would have been required to do so to fit the genetic data. Perhaps there were more skilled in boating and knowledgeable about construction of better ships than the author of the paper assumed they were?

Anyway, I found the 'researchers' that tried the water transport:

Why a bid to roll a three-tonne rock from Wales to Stonehenge failed

It was meant to be a glorious Lottery-funded millennium project - moving a three-tonne rock from from Wales to Stonehenge by Stone Age methods. But it never worked out. Tim Dowling chronicles a short but expensive journey which ended last week.

www.theguardian.com

Apparently it was done by a 'cultural group' called Menter Preseli for the Millenium 'celebrations', receiving lottery money. I'm not sure how rigourous, academic or skillful they actually were

 

[mosaix]

If they did try to transport them by sea and failed, surely they would have tried it at least once before giving up? If that's the case there's probably one or two stones in the Bristol channel fairly close in to the shore and not far from the starting point. Could be a great research project.

 

[paranoid marvin]

The thing is that we don't know what technology they had available then . Necessity is the mother of invention, and although we might try to float the stones, if we fail we don't have to drag them more than 100 miles over land. That gives you some kind of incentive to make it work! There is so much we don't know about the past, and stuff that we find hard to be existed and happened. The building of the pyramids, the domed roof of the Pantheon to name but a few; it quite obvious that they had knowledge that has been lost to us.

Perhaps they knew of a method of floating objects, and perhaps we are blinded by the technology of everything we know that says it's impossible. Reminds me a little of Luke raising the X-Wing from the swamp! Or perhaps it was impossible and they dragged them over land. Personally if I'd have been alive back then, I wouldn't have even considered the possibility that a 10 ton stone might float!

 

[mosaix]

Personally if I'd have been alive back then, I wouldn't have even considered the possibility that a 10 ton stone might float!

But given the alternative of dragging/rolling the thing over 170 miles you might have been out-voted by the rest of them.

 

[Venusian Broon]

But given the alternative of dragging/rolling the thing over 170 miles you might have been out-voted by the rest of them.

Yeah if it were dragged overland, this was not nice terrain. Even for a small stone only about 4 tons. And they had to do this journey at least 43 times - perhaps up to 80.

Mind you, about 1500 years later the egyptians dragged the two Colossi of Memnon, each 700 tons, 675km overland, not using the Nile. But I suppose at least they could use arid flat desert paths, none of these wet damp foresty places with hills.

 

[hitmouse]

Yes, but: the closest bit of sea to the Preseilis is North Pembrokeshire, around Fishguard or Newport ( where Alice Roberts was standing in the doco). It is quite a difficult bit of water from there round to South Pembs and the Bristol channel. There are some nice land routes East from the Preselis, and the valleys open out into the South Wales coastal area. Who is to say that there were not well- worn paths in neolithic times?

A phenomenal feat whatever the method.