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Stonehenge a Giant Calendar? Um. NO.

Gord_in_Toronto

Penultimate Amazing
Gord_in_Toronto
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Jul 22, 2006
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In a recent article in the magazine Antiquity, it was proposed that the stones at Stonehenge represent a calendar year of 365.25 days—that is, a calendar identical in duration to the Julian calendar.

However:

The 'Stonehenge calendar' shown to be a modern construct

In the present article, the authors argue that this proposal is unsubstantiated, being based as it is on a combination of numerology, astronomical error and unsupported analogy.
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"Paging Graham Hancock. Graham Hancock to the lobby phone, please."
 
Stonehenge seems to be a place of meeting and celebration of its builders, nothing more. It’s awe inspiring enough without it being a big calendar. And collaboration with with Old Kingdom Egyptians, while not impossible (I think the seafaring capabilities of Neolithic people is greatly underestimated) seems entirely unnecessary. I mean, the builders worked out how to transport monoliths from Wales, so going to Egypt to ask how to tweak Stonehenge is stretching it for mine.
 
lionking said:
Stonehenge seems to be a place of meeting and celebration of its builders, nothing more. It’s awe inspiring enough without it being a big calendar. And collaboration with with Old Kingdom Egyptians, while not impossible (I think the seafaring capabilities of Neolithic people is greatly underestimated) seems entirely unnecessary. I mean, the builders worked out how to transport monoliths from Wales, so going to Egypt to ask how to tweak Stonehenge is stretching it for mine.
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Certainly the Phoenicians traded with both Egypt (cedar and wine) and Britain (tin).
 
lionking said:
Stonehenge seems to be a place of meeting and celebration of its builders, nothing more. It’s awe inspiring enough without it being a big calendar. And collaboration with with Old Kingdom Egyptians, while not impossible (I think the seafaring capabilities of Neolithic people is greatly underestimated) seems entirely unnecessary. I mean, the builders worked out how to transport monoliths from Wales, so going to Egypt to ask how to tweak Stonehenge is stretching it for mine.
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It was a calendar, just not one for every day, but to highlight the solstices.

Because it is referenced to the position of the sun, I did struggle to see how it could work with any day-based calendar as it would get out of sync.
 
lionking said:
Stonehenge seems to be a place of meeting and celebration of its builders, nothing more. It’s awe inspiring enough without it being a big calendar. And collaboration with with Old Kingdom Egyptians, while not impossible (I think the seafaring capabilities of Neolithic people is greatly underestimated) seems entirely unnecessary. I mean, the builders worked out how to transport monoliths from Wales, so going to Egypt to ask how to tweak Stonehenge is stretching it for mine.
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You do not need a place like Stonehenge to have a meeting place. Maybe it was built as a tourist attraction? Add in religious meanings and a show of how wealthy the group was as well. Then that group would be well respected by all.

The reality is that we will never know for sure why it was built. We can only speculate.
 
rjh01 said:
You do not need a place like Stonehenge to have a meeting place. Maybe it was built as a tourist attraction? Add in religious meanings and a show of how wealthy the group was as well. Then that group would be well respected by all.

The reality is that we will never know for sure why it was built. We can only speculate.
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The solstice arrangements are clear

ETA, what the significance was, is a different matter, but *that* the solstices (especially the winter one) was significant in the design of Stonehenge (and Maeshowe and Newgrange to give other famous monuments) is clear.

And given the expenditure of work involved in these monument ls, that says that the winter solstice was also important to the builders.
 
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I am sure there are easier ways to work out when the longest and shortest days are than to build something huge. Like knowing that a certain star will rise at dawn or set at dusk will say solstice has arrived. Then when you have worked that out, keep a record of how many days have passed. When you get to 365 or 366 you will have another solstice.
 
rjh01 said:
I am sure there are easier ways to work out when the longest and shortest days are than to build something huge. Like knowing that a certain star will rise at dawn or set at dusk will say solstice has arrived. Then when you have worked that out, keep a record of how many days have passed. When you get to 365 or 366 you will have another solstice.
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So? No Star People required?
 
So... I recently read The Dawn of Everything where it was suggested that megalithic structures such as Stonehenge, Poverty Point and Gobleki Tepe were built seasonally, perhaps in times when there was surplus food around and people gathered. If that is the case, it seems less likely that it was a calendar, because people didn't gather there all year round.


then again, maybe aliens or Atlanteans????
 
angrysoba said:
So... I recently read The Dawn of Everything where it was suggested that megalithic structures such as Stonehenge, Poverty Point and Gobleki Tepe were built seasonally, perhaps in times when there was surplus food around and people gathered. If that is the case, it seems less likely that it was a calendar, because people didn't gather there all year round.


then again, maybe aliens or Atlanteans????
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So did I. In fact I’m reading it a second time. A very good and challenging book.
 
lionking said:
So did I. In fact I’m reading it a second time. A very good and challenging book.
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It's certainly interesting, but I did find that they over-egged certain conclusions and put a lot of emphasis on unreliable sources with a little too much argumentation to paper over cracks.

The parts that were the best for me were the surveys of the variety of Mesoamerican societies, and the idea that there wasn't such a clear-cut linear progression from bands to tribes to chiefdom to state (and being anarchists they believe there was never any need for a state anyway) or from hunter-gatherer to farmers etc... arguing that in fact societies often switched back and forth between various modes of organization.

These are interesting points and I think it is good that they present these points which apparently have been well-accepted in anthropology for a while, but they have also been accused of strawmanning some of their opponents such as Diamond, Pinker and Harari. That said, it's probably a good idea to read it more than once because it is really interesting, but also dense and sometimes difficult to delineate the various arguments being made in the book.
 
rjh01 said:
Your post makes no sense. Why build something complex when a simple tool can do the same job? I am not interested in stupid CTs.
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Why build the Eiffel Tower? Why build the CN Tower when a simple TV mast would do? Why build the Burge Khalifa when a few smaller towers would do? Why build the Great Pyramid when a small one would do?

It seems one consistent aspect of human culture is to try to build big things just to see if we can do it. To me Stonehenge fits that pattern precisely.
 
Blue Mountain said:
Why build the Eiffel Tower? Why build the CN Tower when a simple TV mast would do? Why build the Burge Khalifa when a few smaller towers would do? Why build the Great Pyramid when a small one would do?

It seems one consistent aspect of human culture is to try to build big things just to see if we can do it. To me Stonehenge fits that pattern precisely.
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Sure, I think most get this. Just sometimes though (not that often) humans construct something of overwhelming grandeur and consequence. Yes, there were henges before Stonehenge, and other pyramids before the Great Pyramid of Cheops, but monumental structures deserve great acknowledgement.

And yes we are agreeing.
 
rjh01 said:
Your post makes no sense. Why build something complex when a simple tool can do the same job? I am not interested in stupid CTs.
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Jim_MDP got the joke. For joke it was. It's too late for me to edit in more smilies. But anyway.


:alien009:
 
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Blue Mountain said:
Why build the Eiffel Tower? Why build the CN Tower when a simple TV mast would do? Why build the Burge Khalifa when a few smaller towers would do? Why build the Great Pyramid when a small one would do?

It seems one consistent aspect of human culture is to try to build big things just to see if we can do it. To me Stonehenge fits that pattern precisely.
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A charismatic leader with a Message from God and the need to show he has a bigger **** than the guy down the street is all it takes.
 
rjh01 said:
I am sure there are easier ways to work out when the longest and shortest days are than to build something huge. Like knowing that a certain star will rise at dawn or set at dusk will say solstice has arrived. Then when you have worked that out, keep a record of how many days have passed. When you get to 365 or 366 you will have another solstice.
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Why not both? Say there was a monument built to mark an annual meeting or gathering. They built it not only to mark the place, but also the time. That's not too much of a stretch.
 
arthwollipot said:
Why not both? Say there was a monument built to mark an annual meeting or gathering. They built it not only to mark the place, but also the time. That's not too much of a stretch.
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There is no need to have such an elaborate monument to mark a meeting place.

There are several reasons for building such a monument
1. Make work. If you have heaps of young unemployed people and lots of money then you get trouble. So give them work.
2. Show off to other tribes.
3. Religious reasons.
4. Tourist attraction.
 
You're missing the point. Any of those reasons could be combined with aligning the monument to mark the solstice, for any reason, particularly reason #3. There's no reason to believe that Stonehenge has only one purpose.
 
rjh01 said:
There is no need to have such an elaborate monument to mark a meeting place.

There are several reasons for building such a monument
1. Make work. If you have heaps of young unemployed people and lots of money then you get trouble. So give them work.2. Show off to other tribes.
3. Religious reasons.
4. Tourist attraction.
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What government implemented this?

Hint: There is no evidence that there was anyone governing the hunting and gathering Neolithic tribes that built Stonehenge. Nor that there was a single tribe involved.
 
lionking said:
What government implemented this?

Hint: There is no evidence that there was anyone governing the hunting and gathering Neolithic tribes that built Stonehenge. Nor that there was a single tribe involved.
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It takes a lot of organizing over several decades for Stonehenge to be built. Whoever did the organizing is whom I am talking about. This was not several tribes doing their own thing. The evidence is what was built. If there was no leadership the result would be a mess as one group would want to build one thing and another group would want something slightly different.
 
rjh01 said:
If there was no leadership the result would be a mess as one group would want to build one thing and another group would want something slightly different.
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Argument from incredulity.

I’m not an archeologist (although I studied it at university, particularly Neolithic cultures) but I have read a lot about the period from about 4000 BC to 2000 BC. Yes states existed in some parts of the world during this period, but not everywhere, and certainly not in England. Yet Stonehenge was built.

Stonehenge was not built over several decades, but many centuries. Before the first monoliths were erected, the area was a very important burial site for thousands of years. It’s not credible that a tribal leader suddenly decided to put up a monument and forced a bunch of itinerate hunters and gatherers to drag massive rocks from Wales. There was something about the site that motivated the builders to undertake the task over eons.

This is where the evidence leads. And I have no trouble accepting it.
 
The last time I read an article about alignments with solstices and constellations and such at Stonehenge, I thought, "what if the stones were for holding the roof up?"
 
lionking said:
Argument from incredulity.

I’m not an archeologist (although I studied it at university, particularly Neolithic cultures) but I have read a lot about the period from about 4000 BC to 2000 BC. Yes states existed in some parts of the world during this period, but not everywhere, and certainly not in England. Yet Stonehenge was built.

Stonehenge was not built over several decades, but many centuries. Before the first monoliths were erected, the area was a very important burial site for thousands of years. It’s not credible that a tribal leader suddenly decided to put up a monument and forced a bunch of itinerate hunters and gatherers to drag massive rocks from Wales. There was something about the site that motivated the builders to undertake the task over eons.

This is where the evidence leads. And I have no trouble accepting it.
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The whole world and world history are full of things that are "not credible". Many, many of which are far closer to us in time and of which we have a considerable amount of understanding. Religion (and its cousin nationalism) drives many of these; most, upon rational analysis, should be considered insane.

Given a revelation from God and off the masses will go; building huge cathedrals, killing whole groups of other humans, sacrificing their children and etc. Humans in large groups will do this willing. No coercion required. The power of mass man is huge.
 
Just read the article at WIKI.

This caught my attention:

At the Summer solstice an observer standing within the stone circle, looking northeast through the entrance, would see the Sun rise in the approximate direction of the Heel Stone,
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Why approximate?

If you are going to all this trouble for the astronomical significance , surely it would be more precise.

There are probably countless archeological relics that can be said to align approximately with calendar events.
 
Skeptical Greg said:
Just read the article at WIKI.

This caught my attention:



Why approximate?
If you are going to all this trouble for the astronomical significance , surely it would be more precise.
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I think you may be a little too skeptical. How accurate do you want it to be? As this site Introductory Astronomy: Stonehenge says: "in 2400 BC the Heel Stone was presumably more erect".

There are probably countless archeological relics that can be said to align approximately with calendar events.
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And, upon reasonable analysis, quite a few of them actually are. ;)

There's a whole bunch of them here: 11 ancient sites that are mysteriously aligned with the sun on the equinox, in photos
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
The whole world and world history are full of things that are "not credible". Many, many of which are far closer to us in time and of which we have a considerable amount of understanding. Religion (and its cousin nationalism) drives many of these; most, upon rational analysis, should be considered insane.

Given a revelation from God and off the masses will go; building huge cathedrals, killing whole groups of other humans, sacrificing their children and etc. Humans in large groups will do this willing. No coercion required. The power of mass man is huge.
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Oh sure I understand this. But I’m talking about Neolithic England. It is believed that most people then were not buried, and those who were had some importance. Rulers, chiefs and other leaders were buried usually with great finery. Yet there is no evidence of Stonehenge royalty. In fact the work camps uncovered at Stonehenge were seasonal, with workers travelling great distances to build the monument.

So what we have is hunters and gatherers setting up camp to work and then going home, most likely out of grand tradition. What we don’t have is evidence of government or chiefs.
 
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lionking said:
Stonehenge was not built over several decades, but many centuries. Before the first monoliths were erected, the area was a very important burial site for thousands of years. It’s not credible that a tribal leader suddenly decided to put up a monument and forced a bunch of itinerate hunters and gatherers to drag massive rocks from Wales. There was something about the site that motivated the builders to undertake the task over eons.
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A convergence of ley lines.
 
I skimmed through all the replies .. and didn't see the re-builds mentioned.,

Stonehenge as it is now was built in the 1920's and again in the 1950's.. some stones were removed, and the site graded and drained, the removed stones were put in the existing configuration, with cranes and other heavy equipment, and set in concrete footings.

As late as 1963 they were using cranes to replace a topper stone, it may not be the same as it was built?

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1a0W_1cP...onehenge-history-old-photographs+%2812%29.jpg
 
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Ron Swanson said:
I skimmed through all the replies .. and didn't see the re-builds mentioned.,

Stonehenge as it is now was built in the 1920's and again in the 1950's.. some stones were removed, and the site graded and drained, the removed stones were put in the existing configuration, with cranes and other heavy equipment, and set in concrete footings.

As late as 1963 they were using cranes to replace a topper stone, it may not be the same as it was built?

[qimg]https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1a0W_1cPP7M/YVX7PoueIZI/AAAAAAAAfpw/0mnsOzcuqy0NrFvkUnrPTTLqcqfzgwC1QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/stonehenge-history-old-photographs%2B%252812%2529.jpg[/qimg]
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After my time.

Here I am at Stonehenge in August 1847!

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=268&pictureid=9119

The Sun was in my eyes. Sorry.
 
rjh01 said:
It takes a lot of organizing over several decades for Stonehenge to be built. Whoever did the organizing is whom I am talking about. This was not several tribes doing their own thing. The evidence is what was built. If there was no leadership the result would be a mess as one group would want to build one thing and another group would want something slightly different.
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Not to rain on your parade or anything, but there is an American farmer who has demonstrated simple techniques that would allow a very small number of people to build Stonehenge. Getting the stones there would be difficult though. At the very least, I'd expect that to involve barges and canals.
 
Ron Swanson said:
I skimmed through all the replies .. and didn't see the re-builds mentioned.,

Stonehenge as it is now was built in the 1920's and again in the 1950's.. some stones were removed, and the site graded and drained, the removed stones were put in the existing configuration, with cranes and other heavy equipment, and set in concrete footings.

As late as 1963 they were using cranes to replace a topper stone, it may not be the same as it was built?

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1a0W_1cP...onehenge-history-old-photographs+%2812%29.jpg
Click to expand...

There are photos from the 1901 renovations as well: https://www.wiltshirelive.co.uk/news/history/gallery/newly-discovered-photos-show-stonehenge-7629905
 
lionking said:
Argument from incredulity.

I’m not an archeologist (although I studied it at university, particularly Neolithic cultures) but I have read a lot about the period from about 4000 BC to 2000 BC. Yes states existed in some parts of the world during this period, but not everywhere, and certainly not in England. Yet Stonehenge was built.

Stonehenge was not built over several decades, but many centuries. Before the first monoliths were erected, the area was a very important burial site for thousands of years. It’s not credible that a tribal leader suddenly decided to put up a monument and forced a bunch of itinerate hunters and gatherers to drag massive rocks from Wales. There was something about the site that motivated the builders to undertake the task over eons.

This is where the evidence leads. And I have no trouble accepting it.
Click to expand...

Does anybody know of any major constructions that were built without a leadership of any type? Things that turned into disasters do not count. Would love to know how it was done. There are always heaps of issues to be solved such as recruitment, ordering and design to name a few.
 
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