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So it wasn't a stone henge after all but a stone circle. I'm surprised they made that mistake on their own website.

Anyway who cares, I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. I thought the mesolithic aspect was particularly interesting that it was still being reveered in the bronze age.

A bit like the totem poles at Stonehenge or the neolithic long house found at Warren Field in Aberdeenshire recently which was near to a large mesolithis post alignment.

The mound reminded me of a book I read recently called a gathering night, set is Scotland in the mesolithic. They used a sacred mound for rituals to contact animal spirits. Would be good to get others views.

I thought it was one of the best episodes as most of the prehistoric ones tend to be and it's definitely whetted my appetite even more for a trip to the dartmoor sites.

Gwass wrote:
So it wasn't a stone henge after all but a stone circle. I'm surprised they made that mistake on their own website.

Anyway who cares, I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. I thought the mesolithic aspect was particularly interesting that it was still being reveered in the bronze age.

A bit like the totem poles at Stonehenge or the neolithic long house found at Warren Field in Aberdeenshire recently which was near to a large mesolithis post alignment.

The mound reminded me of a book I read recently called a gathering night, set is Scotland in the mesolithic. They used a sacred mound for rituals to contact animal spirits. Would be good to get others views.

I thought it was one of the best episodes as most of the prehistoric ones tend to be and it's definitely whetted my appetite even more for a trip to the dartmoor sites.

Negativity alert .
There seemed an undue haste in ascribing the post hole and some of the flint to the mesolithic .
The pit alignment at Warren Field like others asscociated with the Scots "timber halls "didn't hold timber .
Totem poles at Stonehenge ? we don't know that .
I enjoyed the prog though .

Your enthusiasm is catching Gwass, I managed to see most of it (with a 10 minute interruption). Perhaps I've been hanging around here too long because when they started talking about a ritual site I thought 'they would say that, wouldn't they'. What puzzles me is when they talk about a period of 4,000 years almost as though there was a continuous use of the site for the same purpose. How can this be known for sure.

Will future archaeologists be saying this about churches and graveyards which may or may not have been built on top of ancient stone circles or long barrows. Quite a few of the little churches around Wiltshire have large sarsens as their corner stones - including apparently the one at Marden (although an important henge nearby there doesn't seem to have been a stone circle).

And will the Magic Roundabout in Swindon have gained a sacred status 1000 years down the line.

Enjoyed the show as ever, but they do seem to jump the gun in nearly every episode. Wasn't surprised when the cairns turned out to be 'modern', and a lot of the time 'speculation' is presented as fact, which can get a little trying. Also the whole 'post hole' hypothesis is stretching it for me.
How many pieces of timber stuck in open ground without eventually being covered by peat or some other anaerobic substrate do you know that last a century or more let alone 2-4000 years. I've inadvertently been photographing a fallen tree that turns up on one of my walks through a local nature reserve for the last 10 or so years. Parts of that are nearly dust/dirt in that little time. Give it another 20 or so and there will be no evidence (other than the small earth mound around it's roots) that it was ever there.
Despite all that, and my inevitable rant at the tele when it's on, i do enjoy Time Team (honest!) being one of the few archaeology progs still on. Mind you, being a bit of an oldie, i do mourn the loss of progs like Chronicle, where they covered all sorts of great digs, sites and finds from around the globe.

Gwass wrote:
.....................I thought it was one of the best episodes as most of the prehistoric ones tend to be and it's definitely whetted my appetite even more for a trip to the dartmoor sites.
Hi Gwass,

I agree entirely with your assessment of the programme. For a team that only had three days, as usual, to dig and interpret the site, I thought they did incredibly well, and Tony Robinson did what he does best - presented a down to earth programme that was both interesting, entertaining, and informative. Long may it continue. Can't believe how long it's been going myself, even though I've watched them all.

Cheers,
TE.