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Gwass has already posted this under General News but it may also make for an interesting discussion -

"A team of archaeologists have been digging up the entire prehistoric landscape of the famous monument over the last six summers to crack its secrets. During their excavation they discovered the biggest Neolithic settlement in Northern Europe and found evidence that Stonehenge was a resting place for the remains of the departed as they pass into the afterworld. Then a pivotal excavation reveals not only when the ancient stones were built, but, perhaps more importantly, why."*

The Secrets of Stonehenge: A Time Team Special. C4. Monday, 1 June from 9:00-10:35.

* From the RadioTimes. 30 May - 5 June. Page 71.

Littlestone,
At last, a programme worth watching on a Monday night. Makes a great change from the usual dearth, such as endless shite soap operas, so-called celebrity crap-horror, and other media-hype bollocks. Sorry for the rant, but the latest telly offerings turn me into grumpy old man mould, and rightly so.
Three cheers for Time Team.
Thanks,
T.E.

Apparently, Mike Pitts thinks that if you had people with large poles you could propel large stones along. If you had enough of them you could "practically row it along". Hhhmmmm .... that sounds familiar!

I enjoyed the program and only screamed a couple of times at the gogglebox. I actually think the link is there between Durrington and Stonehenge - the similar radiocarbon dates say that much. However, I don't agree with the conclusions. If you excavate a church and its graveyard you find a place for the dead and a temple for use by the living that celebrates life. Why should this be different? Probably only to fit in with your theory, that's why.

The erosion marks in the top of the avenue were interesting. I know they are natural, but surely the got their sequence wrong. They reckon they were caused by water running between two natural banks. Well, why couldn't they have been formed by water running down between two manmade banks? There's no evidence of two natural banks, but we know there were two manmade ones! I was at an ancient roadway on a steep hillside this weekend in Mayo and the ground was scarred with similar grooves down its length. Granted, these grooves were in the soil that had accumulated since the road went out of use (about 150 years ago), but the effect was the same.

What is great is that a project of this scale found funding. The new finds are amazing: stones at the end of the avenue, possible mortuary structures, the huge road from Durrington to the river & the sheer scale of the housing around Durrington.

So we have a "Four Poster" on Sailsbury plain :D


Is this the most southern example of a four stone square setting ?

I only just saw this and I found MPP and Co.'s theory an imaginative and plausible one but the reverse logic of saying that because the Durrington settlement was only occupied for 35 years, Stonehenge was built in such that period seemed quite a leap.

And doesn't it undermine the notion that the relationship between the timber / / living / temporary circle of Woodhenge was a long used beginning of a ritual journey ending at stone / dead / eternal circle of Stonehenge if Durrington was only in use for such a short period? Or did I miss something?

If the theory is accurate, does it say something about the relationship of the timber circle of the Sanctuary and the stone circle of Avebury?