Mortimer wrote:
I think that just because some archaeologist says it might have been spiritual doesn't give it legitimacy. Many people have thought this in the past and been rounded on by various people in many places. Or may be it tells us that archaeologists might be a bit slower than others. I can't say. But we must be cautious in accepting something because one group says it is correct. The spirituality of the people who built these monuments is, after all, unknown. Speculative remarks such as that should at least be admitted as such.
There was a time when archaeologists were diggers with a background in classics and saw everything from the barbarians fighting for survival angle , that chaged inthe 60s-70s with processualism and post processualism when thinking that had previously been the preserve of hippies , sacred landscapes etc became acceptable . It now seems we are inundated with phenomenologists who write totally subjectively making the earlier hippy stuff seem quite pedstrian . Wainwright and Darvill are essentially repeating Geoffrey of Monmouth , others like Tilley seem to be more like Tolkein . At least there is some excavating getting done and we can make up our minds . Quite agree though we have no way of retrieving the sacredness ,if there ever was any of the "ribbon " assuming it is safe under the road some better placed archaeos will be able to play about with it in a few decades/centuries . 