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“brand new panoramic plate” erected by “Cornish Heritage” now totally obliterates the ancient stone that is associated with the barrow on the summit of Caste an Dinas.

To see the stone as it was...
themodernantiquarian.com/image.php?image_id=15532

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/norfolk/2994828.stm

A cluster of rare flint tools unearthed at Norwich City’s football ground could date back 12,000.
Archaeologists have found flint artefacts on the site of a new stand at the club’s Carrow Road ground.

Experts believe the tools could be from the Upper Palaeolithic era.

Archaeologists have found a sand island surrounded by peat which extends under the riverside ground.

David Adams, project manager from Norfolk Archaeological Unit, said the clusters of flint tools found in this area were left by Mesolithic people from around 10,000 years ago, but experts said they could be 12,000 years old, from 10,000 BC.

The tools were left by nomadic hunter-gatherers who would have used them to catch prey in the river valley such as reindeer when this glacial period was cold and harsh.

Mr Adams said the discoveries were rare, adding: “It’s a very exciting find. It’s older than we were hoping to find.

“Within Norfolk it is certainly very important and will probably be of national interest.”

The archaeologists stressed their six-week dig would be finishing two weeks ahead of schedule.

dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030224/stonehenge.html

Discovery News

Stonehenge Up Close

Feb. 28, 2003 —The design of Stonehenge, the 4,800-year-old monument in southwestern England, was based on female sexual anatomy, according to a paper in the current Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

The theory could explain why the ancients constructed Stonehenge and similar monuments throughout the United Kingdom.

Anthony Perks, a professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Colombia in Vancouver, and a doctor at the university’s Women’s Hospital, first thought of Stonehenge’s connection to women after noticing how some of the stones were smooth, while others were left rough.

“It must have taken enormous effort to smooth the stones,” Perks, co-author of the journal paper, told Discovery News.

Thinking how estrogen causes a woman’s skin to be smoother than a man’s, the observation led Perks to further analyze the monument in anatomical terms.

He noticed how the inner stone trilithons were arranged in a more elliptical, or egg-shaped, pattern than a true circle. Comparing the layout with the shape of female sexual organs showed surprising parallels.

Perks believes the labia majora could be represented by the outer stone circle and possibly the outer mound, with the inner circle serving as the labia minora, the altar stone as the clitoris and the empty geometric center outlined by bluestones representing the birth canal.

In support of the theory, the body of a sacrificial child was found buried at the center of the circles at nearby Woodhenge, suggesting both monuments followed similar layouts. Perks even speculates a child’s body might lie buried at the center of Stonehenge.

Unlike other mounds in the U.K., very few burials are located around Stonehenge.

“I believe it was meant to be a place of life, not death,” said Perks, who thinks Stonehenge overall represents an Earth Mother goddess.

He explained that both western Neolithic cultures and the early Celts believed in such a goddess. Hundreds of figurines representing the idea of an Earth Mother, he said, have been found in Europe. They were created at a time when mortality at birth was high, suggesting Stonehenge could have been used for fertility ceremonies, which may have linked human birth to the birth of plants and animals upon which the people depended.

John David North, professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, outlines another theory in his book “Stonehenge: A New Interpretation of Prehistoric Man and the Cosmos.” North believes the stones in the monument have precise alignments to stars in the cosmos and that Stonehenge served as an astronomical observatory and a celestial map.

While Perks acknowledges the celestial link, he views it in a different light.

“At Stonehenge you see an arc of sky together with Earth on that open Salisbury Plain,” Perks said. “It is as though Father Sun is meeting Earth Mother in an equal way at a place looking towards the future.”

edp24.co.uk/content/News/story.asp?datetime=11+Feb+2003+20%

A new exhibition charting the incredible story of Norfolk’s Seahenge is set to hit the road this summer.

Archaeologists are putting together a travelling exhibition, focussing on the Iron Age monument’s discovery and its controversial removal from the beach at Holme, near Hunstanton.

Brian Ayers, Norfolk’s archaeology and environment officer, said it would be launched in Holme in May or June.

“It will be a mobile display we can take to other locations in North West Norfolk,” he added.

“It will be talking about the history of the excavation and what this has told us about the technology of that time.”

The timber circle, which was uncovered by the tides in early 1999, was hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries for decades.

But there were angry protests over the decision to remove the 4000-year-old relic from the beach.

The 55 timber posts which made up the circle and its central tree stump are currently being conserved at Flag Fen, near Peterborough.

When the preservation process is complete, in two years’ time, archaeologists hope it will be put on display somewhere along the stretch of coastline where it was found.

Axe marks gave new insights into the tools used during the period. Electronic scans showed 38 different axe heads were used to shape the timbers – at a time when metal technology had only just arrived on our shores.

The marks – believed to be the earliest tool marks found in Britain – show the society that inhabited the wild North West Norfolk coastline was far more advanced than was previously thought.

Cornish newspaper “The Cornish Guardian” reported on 30 January 2003

A major archaeological project has been set in motion on Bodmin Moor ... over 150 years after the event which triggered it.

In 1837, workmen searching for stone to use in building unearthed the 3,000 year-old Rillaton Cup, which proved to be one of Cornwall’s most spectacular historic finds.

The solid gold object, standing just 8cm high, was found in a burial cairn near Minions. Underlining its significance, the cup was recently voted one of Britain’s top ten treasures by experts at the British Museum.

Interest in it was re-ignited by the discovery of a similar cup at Ringlemere in Kent a year ago.

Now the Cornwall Archaeological Unit, English Heritage and the British Museum are planning the first-ever comprehensive study of the site.

Jacky Nowakowski, a senior achaeologist with the Cornish unit, said the project was still being developed but had already created a lot of interest and excitement.

“What we want to do is study the whole of the landscape,” she said. “There are a lot of upstanding prehistoric remains in that area and the key thing we want to look at is the significance of the Rillaton barrow in relation to that landscape and how it has developed over time.”

The first phase of the project, which could start this summer, would involve an assessment of the landscape around Rillaton to identify potential excavation sites.

The next two years would see extensive fieldwork followed by a further two years of analysis resulting in the publication of findings.

One of the key sites, said Ms Nowakowski, was likely to be Stowe’s Hill, on which the naturally-formed Cheeswring stands.

“There are two neolothic enclosures, one smaller which is defined by stonework which is still visible, and one larger which contains the remains of roundhouses,” she said.

“What we hope to do is find dating evidence from those sites and try to understand the development of the area over the next 1,000 years in which we built the Hurlers ceremonial monument and the Rillaton burial monument.”

In a television programme aired on New Year’s Day, the cup was named as the tenth most important discovery ever made in Britain.

Made from a single piece of beaten gold, it was discovered by workmen in a stone-lined vault along with human remains, a sword, bronze dagger, glass beads and flint arrowheads.

It is thought the round-bottomed cup – a symbol of huge wealth and power – may have been made for a tribal chief or leader and then buried with them in the specially constructed barrow.

The online version of this article can be found at....
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