jimit wrote:
Hi Clyde,
There is speculation that the Sarsen Circle was not continuous.
When this full scale representation was made in 2005, the archaeologists suggested that the gap was bridged by wooden lintels. The short stone in the middle doesn't seem to have ever been any higher and it has not been broken.
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/38175/images/stonehenge.html
I still have too many problems with the practicality of the theory; as the "mill" is horizontal the chaff from one side would land on the rolled grain on the other side, the amount of corn produced on Salisbury Plain wouldn't warrant this huge "industrial" machine, the complete lack of archaeological evidence of domestic habitation in the area (2,000+ people x 1,000 years would leave a load of rubbish!), the difficulty of making lightweight ropes and sails, the danger involved in feeding new sheaves to the rollers and clearing the inevitable jams.
Any larger scale model must be made using ONLY Neolithic techniques. No polypropylene ropes or ready-made sails and all the wood shaped with flint axes.
Jim.
dear jim.
yes i would like to build a larger mill model but it would not be nesessary to do it entirely with stone axes. i noticed that the reconstruction that you mention of stonehenge that you participated in was built from styrofoam. not exactly a stone age thing. and you had polyethelene ropes did you not. still you must have learned a few things or may even have proved a few things.
just as in your foamhenge, my theory would not require using huge natural stones and flint axes to prove the point. we know neolithic man could work stone and wood. that is not the question here.
as for the gap in sarsen circle and its probable bridging with timber. i know about this and it has a place in my theory. here it is for your consideration.
the gap was a place where the wooden bridging could be lowered or removed (hence the lower upright in that area) so that the wooden rollers could be replaced or serviced without having to raise the entire carousel. this would have been needed for servicing the rollers. the gap could also possibly have been a place where the grain spilled off the circle into a sort of wooden hopper.
as to the chaff blowing across a 100 ft. circle and depositing on the other side. that is impossible. the chaff would have had to not drop at all in that 100 feet. not likely in less than a hurricaine.
i never proposed that there was "heavy habitation" ever in the stonehenge area. quite the contrary. the mill was only in operation once a year perhaps for a few weeks.........
you make this mill idea sound way more complicated to operate or build than it was...........we know that the people raised great stones at the site against all sorts of dangers and obviously using heavy rope. "light weight" rope is less of a problem to make. building the actual light-weight mill parts and operating them would have been child's play by comparison to raising megaliths.......
your arguments do not hold water. sorry
clyde
