Latest News

A flint blade dating circa 4000 years Before Present was found during roadworks in Herefordshire. This discovery is very near to the Rotherwas Ribbon, an ancient trackway constructed in the Bronze Age from fire fractured rock. The find amplifies the importance of the Rotherwas Ribbon site, which is presently being buried under a new road by the Herefordshire Council....Read the full story by BBC News

Two Short Lectures
by
Robert Hensey
NUI Galway

When Space and Time Collided:
A Ritualistic Perspective on the Beginnings of Astronomical Alignment in Passage Tomb Tradition

Between Salmon and Ceremony:
Seasonal Ritual in the Boyne Valley

Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre
Wednesday June 11th 2008
7.00pm
Free of Charge

A radically different picture of the prehistoric landscape around Orkney’s World Heritage Site is beginning to emerge – a landscape which perhaps didn’t feature the Stenness and Harray lochs.

Preliminary results from an archaeo-environmental project indicate that, prior to 1500BC, the Stenness loch was an area of wet marshland surrounding small pools or lochans.

orkneyjar.com/archaeology/sealevel2008.htm

Geophysics has revealed that thiis is not a chambered cairn but more like Silbury Hill, as with a site at Dunragit in Dumfries and Galloway, the BA cist and animal bones from ?feasting towards the top being later additions orkneyjar.com/archaeology/saltknowe.htm

“All this excitement about a collection of battered old rocks and mounds of earth must be puzzling to those who have yet had no direct experience of Megalithomania”
John Michell , Megalithomania! 1982

Stone circles, dolmens, burial chambers and unusually designed megalithic sites are not limited to the landscape of Britain. A sophisticated understanding of megalithic construction techniques were in use across the whole planet in Neolithic and Bronze Age times. Local sites near Glastonbury are the starting point for this year’s Megalithomania conference, but distinguished researchers and authors from all over the world will be discussing their cutting-edge research into ancient civilisations and megalithic sites. From the jungles of Peru, to the temples of the South Pacific and from the mountains of New Zealand to the stones of Brittany, Megalithomania has gone global!

Glastonbury’s MEGALITHOMANIA Conference is now in it’s third year and is taking place in the Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury on 17th & 18th May 2008. On the Friday (16th) before the event, local sites Stanton Drew and Stoney Littleton will be visited on a guided tour with local author Gordon Strong and archaeo-botanist Gordon Hillman, co-star of the Ray Mears Wild Food TV show on BBC2. On the following Monday, a private tour to Stonehenge will be led by David Furlong and John Michell (tbc).

The keynote speaker for the event is David Hatcher Childress, well known for his groundbreaking research into ancient civilisations. He will be discussing his travels in South America and the Pacific. Geomancer Hamish Miller will be presenting his research on The Stone People of New Zealand and Nicholas Mann & Philippa Glasson will be presenting their breakthroughs on the astro-archaeological alignments of Avalon and how the ancients understood precession of the equinoxes. Other speakers include Tom Graves, who will be re-launching his classic work Needles of Stone, David Furlong will be walking in the footsteps of the ‘dod-man’ and examine how the megalith builders surveyed, measured and studied the landscape. Special guests from Holland and America, Reinoud Du Jonge & Jay Wakefield have followed clues of a Neolithic maritime civilisation who left maps encoded within rock-art around the world. Author of Europe’s Lost Civilisation Peter Marshall, who travelled over 4,000 miles of Europe’s megalithic coastlines, will be pinpointing his favourite stories from his epic journey. See the website and posters for the full line-up.

There will be a Megalithic art gallery during the event curated by Antiquarian artist Kate Masters, including original paintings, photography and 3D pieces. There will be an exclusive preview of the new Standing with Stones film with producer Michael Bott; plus there will be several book launches and signings from some of the authors speaking at the event.

MEGALITHOMANIA is organised by Hugh Newman, Gareth Mills and John Martineau, who in late 2005 realised that the megaliths were not really being looked at by conferences in Britain. With a passion for visiting ancient sites and reading many books on the subject, the three of them dedicated themselves to organising the ultimate conference on megaliths. Leaving no stone unturned, Megalithomania was created to shine a new light on the megalithic sciences and maintain a multidisciplinary forum to help unlock these mysteries. On the Sunday evening at the conference, a speakers forum will be joined by the earth mysteries pioneer and inspiration for the conferences name, John Michell, who published his classic Megalithomania Book in 1982.

The status quo does not immediately support new or radical theories, but a conference like this allows all angles of research to be explored. For example, in the early part of the last century, archaeoastronomy was fumbling to find its feet, but now it is now established that our ancestors were keen astronomers. Earth energy, once thought of as part of the dowsers’ overactive imagination, has recently been scientifically verified, documented and used by big business to improve seed production and fertility of crops. The study of sound at sacred sites, archaeoacoustics, is also becoming accepted in some pockets of academia with repeatable scientific study.

Although the old stones can seem like a stuffy and boring subject, the mysteries of our ancient relatives still retain their mystique. As we have seen, modern technology is verifying ‘radical’ theories and helping unlock some of the secrets of the megaliths. There is a new breed of Megalithomaniac, who don’t just want to measure, dig and record what they find. The subtleties of musical harmony, earth energies and altered states of consciousness are now being examined with an open mind, yet from a scientific perspective. We should not hark back to the ancient way of life and pretend it was a ‘golden age’, but reopen the book of the past with reverence, respect and the knowledge that the builders of the megaliths were not savages, but possessed the same level of intelligence and compassion as we do today.

The conference takes place at the Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury on 17th & 18th May 2008. Field trips to Stanton Drew, Stoney Littleton, Stonehenge and Avebury will take place on the Friday and Monday. Tickets are £68 for the first 50 sold, then £80. Field trips are not included in the price. Call 01458 831800 for tickets or visit megalithomania.co.uk
myspace.com/megalithomania

Archaeologist David Mason has developed a new theory of the basis for siting Agamemnon’s tomb, based on topographical features and road layouts in the vicinity of the tholos tombs at Mycenae. Read the full article in Current Archaeology.co.uk

This year the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust celebrates the 20th anniversary of the Sarsen Trail, and to mark this milestone is encouraging us to take part in the ‘Walk for Wildlife Week’ which precedes the Trail, Saturday 26th April to Sunday 4th May.

The Week will culminate with the Sarsen Trail and Neolithic Marathon on Sunday 4th May.

The Sarsen Trail and Neolithic Marathon is a 26-mile sponsored walk and run between the two World Heritage Sites of Avebury and Stonehenge, with shorter courses available to those who prefer shorter distances.

The route offers some of the most spectacular view across Wiltshire’s undulating downland and the opportunity to walk on Ministry of Defence land that is usually closed to the public. Part of the route is also of major historical importance as it traces the approximate trail along which the Sarsen stones were dragged to build Stonehenge in the Neolithic times.

The event is the Trust’s most important annual fundraiser. Over 1,700 walkers and 400 runners from across the UK and from abroad, 100 dogs, and 250 staff and volunteers took part in last year’s event raising over £60,000, money that will be used to help protect Wiltshire’s wildlife and environment and safeguard its natural heritage for future generations.

There are frequent water stations along the route and once you’ve reached Stonehenge, you can lie back and enjoy a well-earned massage or feast on a hog roast.

The Sarsen Trail walk, Neolithic Marathon and Half Marathon are organised to raise vital funds for the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust.

The next Sarsen Trail and Neolithic Marathon and Half Marathon will take place on Sunday 4th May 2008.

The Marathon starts at Avebury at 10.30am. The half marathon starts at Charlton Clumps on Salisbury Plain at 11am.

wiltshirewildlife.org/ – Click link on right for Sarsen Trail

REGISTRATION FEES 2008 – Close Registration – 11th April

Adult Full Walk £24.00
Adult Half Walk £18.00
WWT Member £12.00
Child (under 16) £6.00
Watch Member £4.50
Child Group £4.50
Family (2 adults, 3 children) £50.00
WWT Family £35.00
Group Rate (5 or more) £20.00

Marathon £30.00
Marathon (WWT Member) £15.00
Half Marathon £25.00 £20.00
Half Marathon (Member) £12.50

Bringing the birds and bees and monkey babies together – Lovely

People, Place and Polity in the later Third Millenium BC
Friday 18th – Sunday 20th April 2008

A major international conference organised by the Prehistoric Society and Bournemouth University Centre for Archaeology, Anthropology and Heritage

This conference will address the concept of the Chalcolithic in British archaeology. Our continental colleagues have long used the term to augment their three-age system. Why has the term not been adopted so universally in Britain and Ireland? Is it relevant to our islands? Or is it a misnomer?

bournemouth.ac.uk/conservation/conferences/chalcolithic/

From Lynn News:

“VISITORS will be taken back in time 4,000 years when (King’s) Lynn Museum re-opens to the public on Tuesday (1st April) after its £1.2 million redevelopment.

For on display for the first time will be Seahenge – the man-made timber circle found on Holme beach in 1998 which has been hailed one of Britain’s most exciting archaeological discoveries.

A new gallery has been created to show half the 55 preserved timbers from the circle and the giant upturned oak stump they surrounded, against an illuminated backdrop of Holme beach today.”

Full story

Update

Old timbers bring in new visitors

A Norfolk museum has recorded a large increase in visitors since opening a unique display of the Bronze Age wood circle known as Seahenge.

The Lynn Museum in King’s Lynn underwent a £1.2m redevelopment before the exhibition was opened last month.

Norfolk Museums Service said 1,500 visited in its opening month, 73% more year-on-year before the display opened.

Full story

Read about it here

berwick-advertiser.co.uk/news/planners-reject-wind-farms.3923173.jp

Up date....

ESSENTIAL improvement works on Castle Hill will start within days.

Contractors will be on the hill – a protected Ancient Monument – to begin improvements to footpaths and to create a wheelchair-accessible pathway.

But there are no plans yet to replace the former pub, the centre of a controversial planning saga for the past five years.

To minimise disruption to visitors the work will be done in two successive phases, each lasting about six weeks.

Kirklees Council officials have promised to work closely with conservationists and archaeologists to protect the history of the landmark site.

The new footpaths will generally be constructed in the same position as the old ones, with some modifications to reflect existing desired footpath lines and passing places.

A new level pathway route around the perimeter of the site will improve access for disabled visitors, as well as for families with pushchairs and people who experience mobility problems.

It will be reached from the existing car park on top of the hill and will have passing points at regular intervals.

The footpaths and pathway will be constructed using low-maintenance and environmentally friendly materials that have been tested in a trial section of footpath laid on the hill last summer.

Special techniques will be used to minimise disturbance to the underground archaeology.

The work, which will also include repairs to eroded areas, will be done in two sections.

While one section is under construction the second will be accessible to the public. Section 2 will start as soon as section 1 is finished.

Seats and viewing platforms will be installed to enhance visitors’ enjoyment of the spectacular views.

The work is part of a programme of improvements outlined in the Castle Hill Conservation Management Plan.

This was approved by Kirklees Council in 2006 following discussions with English Heritage and a range of local interest groups and people living nearby who continue to meet regularly as part of the Castle Hill Management Advisory Group.

Clr Elizabeth Smaje, the Kirklees Cabinet member for Leisure and Neighbourhood Services, said: “’Renewal of the footpaths and repairs to eroded areas are starting points for improving Castle Hill.

“This work will help to preserve this important site and enhance the experience for visitors to the site.”

Later plans also include the installation of a bridge – subject to planning permission – leading up to the Victoria Tower. That work is expected to start in the winter.

The changes at Castle Hill, the site of an Iron Age hill fort, have been given Scheduled Monuments Consent authorisation by the Department of Culture Media and Sport.

Archaeologists will have a watching brief for the work and any finds will be immediately recorded and then taken to the Tolson Museum at Moldgreen for investigation.

examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2008/03/27/work-on-castle-hill-starting-soon-86081-20680414/

Even though the Bremore monuments have been the subject of a protective order for decades, discussion of a new deepwater port site at Bremore poses a threat to their preservation. The port proposal is entering into the planning process... Read the full story in the Meath Chronicle.

“Prehistoric cave sculptures never seen by the public will be revealed today thanks to the most advanced, computerised techniques of laser-copying and visual display.

“A museum to open near Poitiers, in western France, will span one-a-half millenniums of human image-making, from stone chisels to computers. The star of the show, at Angles-sur-L’Anglin, in the départementof Vienne, will be a 60ft-long frieze of bison, horses, cats, goats and erotic female figures, carved into the limestone of western France 15,000 years ago.

“The caverns containing the frieze were discovered by French and British archaeologists in 1950 but have never been opened to the public. The Roc-aux-Sorciers (witches’ rock) caves are the only site of their kind in Europe: a two-dimensional, carved equivalent of the celebrated cave paintings at Lascaux in Dordogne, 120 miles farther south, which were created 1,000 years earlier.“*

* independent.co.uk/news/europe/cave-sculptures-go-on-display-for-first-time-in-15000-years-799030.html

More here, in French, but with some stunning pics roc-aux-sorciers.com/

orkneyjar.com/archaeology/stronsayflints2008.htm

There has been a major research project on Kendrick’s Cave, and this talk explaining it will be by Jill Cook, the deputy keeper of prehistory and early Europe at the British Museum. She will also reinterpret the 19th century excavations by Thomas Kendrick.

Meanwhile, the ‘Sharing Treasures’ exhibition will open at Llandudno Museum, at which the mesolithic finds from the cave (including art and jewellery) have been reunited from various collections ‘for the first time in 100 years’.

Was the cave just a campsite or a place of more special significance?

Sounds all very interesting. The talk is at 7pm, in Llandudno Town Hall, on Tuesday 1st April. Entry is free but donations to the Museum are welcome.

newswales.co.uk/?section=Community&F=1&id=13599

More about the art on a horse’s jawbone found in the cave at
icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2008/03/19/is-jawbone-the-ancient-souvenir-ancestor-of-the-humble-snow-globe-91466-20643806/
- it’s thought to be 13,000 years old!

news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Older-than-the-pyramids-buried.3883464.jp

Local plumber David Barnes saw the circular markings in the low afternoon light on Sandwick Bay. Julie Gibson, the county archaeologist, suggests it could come from a chambered tomb.

No picture at the link though, sadly.

PLANS for a controversial quarry extension near Thornborough Henges have been thrown into disarray following a legal challenge.

Tarmac Northern won planning permission in January 2007 from North Yorkshire County Council to extract 1.1 million tonnes of sand and gravel over eight years from land at Ladybridge Farm, between Bedale and Ripon, half a mile from the nearest of three Bronze Age earthwork henges on Thornborough Moor.

Tarmac said the unanimous decision would ensure the future prospects of 15 full-time quarry workers and 40 hauliers at the neighbouring Nosterfield quarry, where reserves are almost exhausted.

The henges, described as the Stonehenge of the North, have legal protection as a scheduled ancient monument but worried campaigners who organised a 10,000-name petition insisted that their surroundings, including Ladybridge, must be protected from the effects of further quarrying.

The formal decision notice was not issued until October following completion of a detailed agreement with Tarmac covering conditions attached to the permission.

However, council lawyers have now confirmed that it should be quashed following a legal challenge on eight grounds concerning the handling of the planning application. The issue is expected to be reconsidered by the committee at Masham Town Hall on April 22.

A spokeswoman for pressure group, Friends of Thornborough, said it challenged the decision in the name of one of its members.

She said: ‘’A number of faults were identified in the way the county council had made their decision.

They agree they have got it wrong on three counts and have agreed to the quashing of the decision through the judicial review procedure.

‘’There are still five grounds outstanding which remain to be challenged and on that score they should be extremely careful when they take their decision at the meeting due to take place on April 22.’’ Gordon Gresty, the council’s director of business and environmental services, said: ‘’This development has had a contentious history and the legal challenge needs to be seen against the background of the wide range of issues the committee took into account when it made its decision. Those issues were properly and comprehensively considered.

‘’However, in order to avoid further legal proceedings we have agreed to the quashing of the present planning approval and it would be our intention to take the issue back to the committee in the future.’’ Some preliminary work has been done at Ladybridge, but mineral extraction has not yet started.

A Tarmac spokesman said: ‘’We understand that following legal submissions, the planning consent is no longer in effect.

We hope that a corrected report will be placed before the committee at the earliest opportunity. Meanwhile, we have stopped work at the Ladybridge site.’‘

darlingtonandstocktontimes.co.uk/search/display.var.2100713.0.legal_dispute_overturns_quarrying_permission.php

29th May – 1st June 2008 @ THE SUNRISE CELEBRATION, near Yeovil, Somerset.

AVALON RISING, an ‘earth mysteries’ group from Glastonbury, have teamed up with Sussex based THE ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY to organise an arena at this years SUNRISE CELEBRATION called ‘Out of the Ordinary’. The ‘Conference-in-a-Field’ will host multimedia talks and workshops by an international line-up of authors and researchers.

There are 24 talks and workshops to stimulate the mind and heart. Some of the distinguished speakers who have agreed to appear at the ‘Out of the Ordinary’ arena at The Sunrise Celebration include:

GLENNIE KINDRED – Ceremony and the Cycles of the Year
SUSAN JOY RENNISON – Tuning the Diamonds: The Electric Universe
JONATHAN CAINER – Astrological Insights from the popular Astrologer
WILLIAM BLOOM – Trance, Ecstacy and Internal Martial Arts
HUGH NEWMAN – Stone Age Survival & Earth Energies
STUART MASON – Introduction to Astroarchaeology
GILES BRYANT – Earth Healing and Planetary Consciousness
PETER KNIGHT – Archaeoastronomy of the Sacred Sites of Dorset
RICHARD CREIGHTMORE – Earth Acupuncture and Geomancy
MADAN MOHAN – The Summer of Love and the Circle of Perpetual Choirs
JINPA SMITH – The Ancient Art of Feng Shui and Chinese Geomancy
STEPHEN ‘SEM’ MEAKIN – Sacred Geometry: The architecture of the Universe.
TONI PERROTT – The Dragon Paths of London
JULIE ROCKA – Geopsychic Stress – is it draining your life force?
JIM MITCHELL – Astronomy of the Ancients
STEVEN ASH – Glastonbury, Stonehenge and the Avebury Heart Chakra
GRAHAM GANE – Shamanic Drumming Workshop
....And many more

DISCOUNTED tickets for the SUNRISE CELEBRATION are available from avalonrising.co.uk and you will get a FREE Avalon Rising magazine and an Antiquarian Society sticker. Tel 01458 835211 for more info. Also see outoftheordinaryfestival.com

By – Adam Harvey.

CONSTRUCTION WORK on the M3 motorway will continue at the foot of the ancient Rath Lugh promontory fort near Tara, despite claims from an NUI Galway archaeologist that the work is putting the site at risk.

The National Roads Authority says that a 2,000-year-old circular fortification – declared a national monument – will not be damaged by work to remove part of the hillside on which the fort sits.

“The construction work will not be impacting whatsoever on the declared national monument”, said Seán O’Neill, a spokesman for the NRA. “The area of the national monument is being avoided at all costs – the contractors have put up fencing, which the protesters have removed. There wouldn’t even be partial impacting on the site”, said Mr. O’Neill.

However, Conor Newman, an archaeology lecturer at NUI Galway, says that the motorway will cut open the hillside on which Rath Lugh sits, and a steep cliff will eventually be formed just 20m from the outer wall of the fort.

The entire hill is unstable, he said, as it is built on an esker – a ridge made of small rocks left behind by the glacier that formed the local hills and valleys.

“It’s the bed of a river that ran under a glacier”, said Mr. Newman, “small round stones held together by sand and silt”.

Mr. Newman, and the small group of protesters camped on the side of the esker in the path of the M3, argue that cutting into the esker will inevitably damage Rath Lugh. “The monument is at the top of the esker – you can’t divorce one from another”, he said.

The protesters have built an elaborate camp on the side of the esker, and they say that they have also dug tunnels into the ground which they will occupy in an attempt to stop or delay construction.

The esker is one of the last obstacles to construction in the Lismullin area. The motorway’s path is clear from the side of the esker, as bulldozers have cleared the land on both approaches to the site. A confrontation with protesters is looming as the contractors will need to clear their camp to shore up the esker before work at the site can continue.

Mr. Newman says the fort was one of the original defensive positions protecting the Hill of Tara, and would be one of the first purely military settlements built in Ireland.

“It probably dates from shortly after the birth of Christ”, he said.

© The Irish Times, 11th. March 2008.

An Illustrated Lecture

The Prehistoric Solar Calendar:
Is Knowth the Key?

By

Dr Euan MacKie
Honorary Research Associate,
National Museums of Scotland

at

Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre

Tuesday 25th March

7pm

Free of Charge

guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/02/northernireland.tara

Seamus Heaney claimed this weekend that the ancient Hill of Tara was safer under British rule than the present Irish government, describing the construction of a motorway near the site as a betrayal of ‘Ireland’s dead generations’.

The Nobel laureate’s attack on the construction of the €800m road linking Dublin with Counties Meath and Cavan is compounded by sharp criticism from the World Monuments Fund. The New York-based organisation has compared the building of the motorway through the Tara Skreen valley to the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of the giant Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.

The assaults on the Tara motorway project are broadcast in a documentary this weekend on BBC Radio Ulster.

The Irish government has insisted the road is a vital piece of infrastructure to ease severe traffic congestion suffered by commuters in the satellite towns on the north and west of Dublin. Conservationists and historians from all over the world furiously oppose the project, which they say will desecrate the ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland – and a place of Celtic mythological legend.

Speaking on Tar and Tara, to be broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster at 2.30pm today, Heaney said the Irish government had ignored the sacred and spiritual significance of Tara.

‘The proclamation of the Irish Republic in 1916 summoned people in the name of the dead generations. If ever there was a place that deserved to be preserved in the name of the dead generations from prehistoric times up to historic times, up to completely recently – it was Tara.‘

On the attitude of the Irish government, Heaney said: ‘Tara had been protection under British rule. I was reading around recently and I discovered that WB Yeats and George Moore and Arthur Griffith wrote a letter to the Irish Times, some time at the beginning of the last century, because a society called the British Israelites had thought the Arc of the Covenant was buried in Tara, and they had started to dig on Tara Hill. And they [Yeats et al] had written this letter and they talked about the desecration of a consecrated landscape. So I thought to myself if a few holes in the ground made by amateur archaeologists was a desecration, what’s happening to that whole countryside being ripped up is certainly a much more ruthless piece of work.‘

The Nobel literature prize winner said Tara was ‘a source and a guarantee of something old in the country and something that gives the country its distinctive spirit’.

Dr Jonathan Foyle, the World Monuments Fund’s UK chief executive, said: ‘This actually reminds me of the Bamiyan Buddhas that were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. It was a government that decided that these monuments would be erased, and cultural erasure is part of the game of war and buildings very often suffer from that.

‘This entire site [at Tara] is the equivalent of Stonehenge and Westminster Abbey all rolled into one. And that is to be made way for, well, maybe not a radical Islamist view of God, but it is a radical view of Western consumerism as a be-all and end-all that must be serviced by the state. I really think that to destroy culture to shave 20 minutes off a journey time and turn County Meath into a vast car park is a really quite radical thing to do.‘

The European Commission has begun legal proceedings against the Irish government over its decision last year to build through an archaeological find classed as a ‘national monument’ at Lismullen, close to Tara on the M3.

Noel Dempsey, the Irish Minister for Transport, refused to participate in the programme.

Megalithic Conference in Glastonbury

The third annual ‘Megalithomania conference’ is taking place at the Assembly Rooms, Glastonbury on 17th and 18th May. Speakers include David Hatcher Childress, Hamish Miller, Gordon Hillman, Tom Graves, David Furlong, Kate Masters, Peter Marshall, Nicholas Mann & many others. There are also field trips to Stoney Littleton & Stanton Drew on the Friday & Stonehenge & Avebury on the Monday.

megalithomania.co.uk

The Save Tara campaign has learned that the a slip road will pass
within
7metres of a souterrain at Lismullin in the Gabhra Valley, Co Meath
instead of the supposed 100metres. Protesters stopped construction work

and tree felling at the site of the souterrain this morning 22nd
February. The structure has not been excavated as it was not one of the

sites initially listed as being impacted by the motorway route.

This souterrain is just the latest in a line of new sites that are
coming to light in this area after the initial surveys had been carried

out. They include the ancient temple, a wood henge, that was declared a

National Monument in May 2007. The geophysical survey had failed to
identify the huge site. Soon afterwards a souterrain was discovered
close to the henge and during excavation a huge decorated stone was
uncovered bearing megalithic art that is very similar to that found at
Newgrange and Knowth (c.3000 B.C). This again showed the connection
between Tara and the Gabhra Valley as the nearest example of megalithic

art is to be found in the passage tomb of the Mound of the Hostages on
the summit of the Hill of Tara AND In terms of style this example also
bears a remarkable similarity to that found in this monument. The stone

had been split in ancient times to fit into the souterrain and the
remaining section may lie somewhere else in this archaeological
complex.

The ancient promontory fort of Rath Lugh watches over this entire area
and the M3 is planned to pass within 20metres of this site despite NRA
assurances that it would be 110metres away from it. Minister John
Gormley placed a Temporary Preservation Order on the Rath Lugh but this

will not prevent the road from passing dangerously close to the
foundations of the Rath that include an esker – an unstable geological
feature made up of sand and gravel.

Dr. Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin said: “This proves again, if proof were
needed, the rich archaeological heritage of the Gabhra Valley and that
this route should never have been chosen for the road. We call on
Minister Gormley to act now before another archaeological site is
destroyed. All these sites are part of the greater Tara landscape.
Another major mistake has been made in the location of this souterrain.

How many more mistakes have been made or will be made? ‘

Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin

savetara.com
Photographs of the souterrain, taken yesterday, here:
s168.photobucket.com/albums/u167/muireanntemair/Lismullin%2021%20Feb%202008/

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Ancient Mayan astronomers aligned their soaring temples with the stars and now modern archaeologists have found the ruins of hidden cities in the Guatemalan jungle by peering down from space.

archaeologists and NASA scientists began teaming up five years ago to search for clues about the mysterious collapse of the Mayan civilization that flourished in Central America and southern Mexico for 1,000 years.

The work is paying off, says archaeologist William Saturno, who recently discovered five sprawling sites with hundreds of buildings using a spy satellite that can see through clouds and forest to reveal differences in the vegetation below.

uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080221/tsc-uk-guatemala-maya-nasa-a337f0f_1.html

National Museums Scotland has connected finds in Argyll with early international-style Beakers of the type found around the lower Rhine; furthermore, these rare pots exhibit a strange hybrid of styles that suggest Irish and Yorkshire influences. Read the full article by Richard Moss.....