Re: Shapes and altered states. Experiences anyone? | Forum

Shapes and altered states. Experiences anyone?

more_vert

PeterH Nov 28, 2005 23:53:35

Replying to Littlestone

Would you want a corral in one place for very long? Would it not get very shitty? Recent corrals or cattle pens are of wood and in Africa they make them of thorn. Cattle have to be kept on the move for fresh grazing and so pens/corrals have to be moved with them. The exception would be for regular market places where cattle are brought for auction. At Flag Fen, Mr Votive Pryor has shown that Bronze Age animals were taken along drove roads and it is conceivable that large permanent cattle markets received them, but is that how we understand the Neolithic economy?

Littlestone Nov 29, 2005 00:18:51

Replying to PeterH

>Would you want a corral in one place for very long? Would it not get very shitty?<

Yes, good point (though going back to today's prog on Durrington Walls, looks like those places were quite shitty most of the time and people were OK with that).

How about this, we have a circle, say the size of Castlerigg, which has good pasture and maybe a bit of agricultural land in the vicinity. We have a reasonably secure circle for people and livestock - a circle that's been constructed from stone posts with fences between the stones. Over a period of a couple of millennia all the organic stuff disappears and what remains are the stones - some fallen, some taken away.

Beautiful mysterious places for us to enjoy now, much like our ruined castles and abbeys, but for the most part (perhaps) not aligned to anything astronomical or 'magical' but just lovely utilitarian relics from our past?