Stonehenge and its Environs 134
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Stonehenge and its Environs

The bluestone debate

mountainman M
mountainman Nov 17, 2008 13:41:37
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
Stoneshifter wrote:
Another profitable line of enquiry is to investigate other sites which incorporate stones from outside their immediate area. Long Meg is the most obvious one that I can think of. The stone was probably dragged a dozen miles, at the most.
The recumbent at Old Keig weighs over 40 tons , is not local and was dragged uphill , total distance about 3 miles .
From memory, I recall that Olwen Williams-Thorpe et al looked at all the "long distance" transport examples they could find in the UK, and came to the view that all of the ones they could find involved a maximum "carrying" distance of up to c 6 km? I suppose terrain would be important, social factors like manpower, and technical factors such as availability of ropes etc.

N nigelswift
nigelswift Nov 17, 2008 14:55:13
Replying to mountainman

It's probably more revealing to assess these things in terms of distance x weight. On that basis, with the bluestones having a total weight of 260 tons and the sarsens having a total weight of 1,700 tons shifting the latter may well have been the greater feat. You'd never guess from the internet though.

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