baza
A 3D laser scan of the panel.
Robin Hood’s Ball Neolithic enclosure lies beyond this protective fence within the Salisbury Plain army training area. One of the banks can be seen traversing the photo in the middle distance.
View from the south of Castlesteads Iron Age promontory fort. (Photo taken during the Bury Show on the adjacent Burrs Country Park.)
The positions of some of the large post holes, marked out on the surface of the Waitrose supermarket carpark.
Excavations here in the 1980’s revealed 21 pits, each originally containing an oak post one metre in diameter. They appeared to form the south-western arc of a massive circle with a diameter of about 290 metres. Similar post holes have been discovered at three other sites within Dorchester, suggesting the enclosed area is larger and not forming a regular circle.
The Stoup standing stone stoops, possibly to take a drink from the stoup. (A stoup is a small basin for holy water.)
Part of the hillfort rampart, overlooking the grandstand at Goodwood Racecourse.
“Plans for a £67m visitor centre at Stonehenge have been turned down over worries about the environment.
Salisbury District Council said the decision to refuse the plan was exacerbated by government plans to review upgrades to the nearby A303.”
Full BBC story at:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wiltshire/4719555.stm
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Update: English Heitage to re-submit plans
“English Heritage is very surprised and disappointed by this decision......
We believe that the grounds for refusal are ones which can easily be addressed and will be discussing with Salisbury District Council when to re-submit the scheme.”
Press release:
english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/ConWebDoc.5437
The first view of Carve Hill round barrow as one turns the corner on the footpath – it’s big!
Although situated on the top of Whitelow Hill (I’d have thought there was a clue there), this large cairn was only re-discovered in 1960. Sadly, that seems indicative of the sorry state of affairs with regard to the recording of Lancashire’s prehistoric sites which seems to continue to this day.
The cairn was excavated between 1960 and 1962, finding eight cremation burials, four within urns, dating from the early to middle Bronze Age.
Although Whitelow cairn is more easily approached from the Bury Old Road to the east, I chose to walk up Whitelow Road from the north west.
Driving up the A56 from Bury, where I’d visited the museum to see the urns excavated from the cairn, at the traffic lights where the left turn takes you into Ramsbottom, I turned right into Whitelow Road, immediately parking up as the road is only suitable for off-road vehicles.
The road rises gently and skirts the southern side of Whitelow Hill, where I had to jump over a drystone wall to climb up to the cairn, which forms the top of the hill.
If it wasn’t for the copious amounts of stone which formed an outer wall, it wouldnt be possible to see where the hill ends and the cairn begins.
The view is only to the west because of higher ground on the other sides.
One filled-in entrance of over 250 Neolithic flint mines within Cissbury Ring
“Plans to build the largest onshore wind farm in Europe have been approved by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council).
An application by Lewis Wind Power for a 209 turbine wind farm in North Lewis, costing £400m, was passed by 19 votes to eight on Wednesday evening.
It was approved despite more than 4,000 objections.
The council also approved by 22 votes to 7 an application by Beinn Mhor Power for 130 turbines on the Eishken Estate.”
Full story:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4635897.stm
A small area of the ceiling of Church Hole Cave, showing an engraving/bas relief of a bird’s head thought to have been fashioned in the Upper Palaeolithic. It’s officially described as “a beautiful and unique depiction of a bird-head with a long curved bill”. I disagree. The more I look at it, the more I see a bird with a fish in its mouth.
Image credit: baza
The two remaining stones of what is presumed to have been a chambered long barrow, although no mound survives and there are no known records of one existing. Known as Two Gates burial chamber.
This photo shows the stone’s location relative to the Cow and Calf Hotel
You’re history: Jowell in threat to English Heritage
“Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, is threatening to dismantle English Heritage, the government quango which runs 400 of the country’s greatest historic sites, ranging from Stonehenge to Dover Castle.
The suggestion follows a series of bitter rows between the government and English Heritage, including one over its attempt to derail plans by John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, to demolish thousands of Victorian homes in northern England.”
timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1522988,00.html
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Update:
RESPONSE TO SUNDAY TIMES ARTICLE 13 MARCH, 2005
Members of the public may have seen a very misleading and untrue Sunday Times article suggesting that English Heritage is to be abolished or merged with other organisations. This is untrue and the Secretary of State Tessa Jowell has written to the Chairman refuting it and setting out the value Ministers place on English Heritage and the work we do.
english-heritage.org.uk/default.asp?wci=mainframe&URL1=default.asp%3FWCI%3DNodeContent%26WCE%3D4970
A Bronze Age round barrow later used as the base for a windmill. In 1873AD a passage was dug from the south and friable human remains were found near to the centre. A further investigation in 1922AD produced bone, flint and pottery sherds.
Pigs domesticated 'many times'
“Pigs were domesticated from wild boar independently at least seven times around the globe, a new study has said.”
“The team found that all domestic pigs in Europe are descended from European wild boar – and not Near Eastern boar – which means farmers travelling west from Turkey were not bringing significant numbers of pigs with them.”
Full story:
The surviving Latin text reads ‘CARAACI’ and ‘NEPVS’ = ‘kinsman of Caratacus’, and is thought to refer to a descendant of the famous rebel against the Romans in the 1st century AD.
The Caratacus Stone showing what survives of its inscription
This 1,200 feet long stone row runs east-west within private woodland near to the A39 west of Porlock. There is a permissive path to the nearby Culbone Stone which stands 130 feet south of the western end of the row, but there are signs requesting visitors not to stray from the path. There are thought to be twenty one stones remaining; I managed to find thirteen in the sometimes dense undergrowth of the wood. None of the stones stand more than three feet above the ground.
One of the larger of the twenty one (or thereabouts) stones remaining in the Culbone Hill Stone Row...
The Culbone Stone was re-discovered and re-erected in 1940AD, probably not in its original position. It has a similar shape to that of the stones in the nearby Culbone Hill Stone Row and is thought to have been taken from the row to be placed along a trackway leading down to Culbone church. The ring-cross was probably incised in the 6/7th centuries AD.
The southern face of The Culbone Stone showing the Christian graffito
Round barrow on an island in Llyn Brenig, visible from Boncyn Arian round barrow
Boncyn Arian round barrow as seen from the archaeological trail’s car park
This replica of a horse drawn on a piece of rib bone found in Robin Hood’s Cave depicts the only object of portable art portraying an animal from the Upper Palaeolithic yet to be found in Britain. It is on display at the Creswell Crags’ Visitor Centre. The original is in the British Museum, not on display at present.
(Update: In July 2009 I saw the original artefact in the new Visitor Centre at Creswell Crags, on loan from the B.M.)