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moss wrote: As I am on the sceptical side of a 'carousel' Stonehenge for grinding wheat, but it did make me look at bronze age looms for weaving the sails, which are vertical and roughly a metre wide, now they seem to have rollers for winding on (for length) but surely width would have been important? As for flax being used, it does need an awful lot of work to make it flexible for the weaving - retting and scutching which takes weeks. Historically the mill seems to have been introduced in saxon times, querns were forbidden, you had to take your grain down to the mill so that a 'tax/portion' could be taken.... thank you moss, you are right in that cloth would have been made in small sizes. then it would have been sown together to make the larger sails. such is even the case today..... the sails could have been of any material, wool, linen, leather, or even fiber mats. if you take a look at the grainery thesis in the section, "what powered the mill," you will see that i propose that it could have been animal power or wind. i feel that in its first stage, it was probably turned by draft animals. at some point, it would have been natural for the people to try sails to assist the turning. the sails, rope, and main parts of the carousel would have been saved from year to year and reused. even today sails and rigging on ships are cared for with great attention because of the expense and trouble of replacing them. think of this theory as arising from a situation like this. someone using a saddle quern could easily imagine making a quern stone very long. then it would not be necessary to move the roller back and forth but, just to move it straight along. make the quern base large and circular like a track and the operation becomes one of moving the roller constantly around the track never reversing. it is very hard for modern people to believe that neolithic people could devise a mechanical mill. science has constantly underestimated the ability of early man and is constantly having to rethink prehistoric skills. after all we know that neolithic man moved great stones and built stonehenge, something modern man could not do before the invention of cranes and heavy trucks......... i think that our ancestors were just as intelligent as ourselves and far better at using primative technologies then we imagine. they traveled and populated the entire world and developed all the agricultural foods we rely on today. the idea that they could have devised a windmill at stonehenge is completely within their ability and technology.... the wheel was known at the time, sailing was known, and people were already grinding grain on sarsen stone querns. putting the three together is not rocket science. thanks for your thoughts. clyde Reply | with quote | Posted by beatles 29th March 2008ce 13:59 In reply to: Re: granary followup (moss) |
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