nigelswift wrote:
The bit about the prone sarsen found at Bulford is interesting. It had been raised upright at one stage, but the horizontal pit from which it had probably been originally prized was close by (and mirrored it in shape).
So....
"This would indicate that sarsens were distributed over Salisbury Plain as well as the Marlborough Downs 20 miles to the north"
Are they implying the Stonehenge sarsens were local? Are all the original extraction pits awaiting discovery?
Not quite, they seem to be implying here ......
"The presence of the Torstone together with a number of other monoliths within
the Stonehenge area and Stonehenge itself (e.g. Hell Stone, Station Stones,
etc.), raises the question of their origin. Clearly, the Torstone was a naturally
occurring sarsen in close vicinity to Stonehenge. Hence, there is a clear
possibility of far more sarsens being present within southern Wiltshire than was
previously thought. This should not be seen as supporting the idea that the
sarsens at Stonehenge had a local origin."
Though somewhere else it argues that Stonehenge looks unfinished because there was not enough sarsen around. The Torstone/Bulford stone excavation revealed a single stone, with burials nearby, and the socket from which the stone was pulled had a "cairn"" of flint and fragemnts of sarsens (presumably from the dressing of stones at Stonehenge) commemorating the hole. So, if I read it right, single stones were venerated in their own right, as shown by the stone socket found under the neolithic longbarrow - Fussell I think... lots of complex ritual over a period of time with the "materiality" of the stone being recognised as well....
