Stonehenge: Uniting communities across millennia | Harriet Guinn Jennings | TEDxClapham

Heritage prospects have provided the opportunity to build stronger communities and development in the local area. Using the Stonehenge landscape, Harriet discusses the impact of the community focused Blick Mead dig on the ideas surrounding the birth of this landscape, as well as the impact on the local community of Amesbury. Harriet Guinn Jennings is a researcher at the University of Buckingham exploring the significance of tree throw features in Mesolithic Britain. Her focus lies in Blick Mead an archaeological site situated within the Stonehenge Landscape. She is also a designer graduating from Central Saint Martins and has worked on a range of projects from Interior Design, Film and Theatre and currently also does conservation picture framing. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Tomb of the Otters, Orkney - symbols and sculpture?

The chambered tomb at Banks, Cleat, Orkney KW17 2RW is becoming known as the Tomb of the Otters due to the large amount of Otter scat found within the layered deposits of human remains dated between 3344BC and 3021BC

Still largely unexcavated but open for visits, highly recommended, it is intriguing especially in its differences to the neighbouring Tomb of The Eagles and other Orcadian tombs.

Two highlights for me:

Is this natural stone enhanced to represent an otter's head? It was found, I think, under the bones of young girl. That it might have been her keepsake is a touching idea.

There are many examples of scratched symbols on stones in the tomb, as it was never opened from its neolithic sealing they can be dated to that period. Are they related to the slightly similar carvings found at Cat's Brain, Cissbury etc.?

Click to enlarge.

Salisbury Plain Fires

Wiltshire is suffering from the smoke from the grass fires on Salisbury Plain - I thought it interesting to record the spread of the fires in real colour and in Infra Red, especially as it looks as though the latest fires started in the impact area, noticeable by the white chalk marks in all the pictures.

Pictures and updates from https://goo.gl/LWu7K6

Click pictures to embiggen

Stonehenge Stonehole Parchmarks 17, 18, 19, 20

These are the near vertical photographs of the parchmarks of the stoneholes taken on 24 July 2013

As to whether the holes ever held stones is unknown, 19 and 20 almost certainly did as what is taken to be stone 19 and thelintel 120 still survive in mutilated form.

Stones 17 and 18 are missing. My opinion is that the holes probably held stones as the parching appears exactly as for the other two holes which suggest the process of stone extraction, some sort of refilling and compaction was the same in all cases.

The shape of the holes is also suggestive that they were dug for specific stones rather than as simple marker holes to delineate the proposed circle.

I think it is hard to argue that the circle was not designed to be complete as so eloquently argued here:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/sep/01/stonehenge-was-circular-well-blow-me-down . Though I do think there is an argument, bolstered by recent DNA research, that the end of the civilisation that created these monuments occurred as Stonehenge was being finished so that the original stone concept  may never have been finished.   

One day a small excavation could answer the question.

17

18

19

20 (and Gowland pole mark)

Click to embiggen - full size and other views available to researchers.

Stonehenge Parchmarks 2018 - A Spotters Guide

A quick visit to the rocks on 8 July 2018 shows that parchmarks are showing well. This is  just a quick note to show what I was looking for.

From the path the ring of Y holes can be seen coming from the north to pass under neath the path, in the photo above the nearest light spot is one of the ring. The lighter patch nearer the stones is one of the ring of Z holes, halfway between them there is a ring of faint marks some of which may be another ring of unexcavated holes (kindly referred to by some as Daw Holes) 

Between the solitary Stone 16 and the nearer trilithon of stones 21 and 22 there are four light parch marks which indicate where stones 17-20 may have stood. For more about these see :

https://mikepitts.wordpress.com/2014/09/01/at-last-a-stonehenge-story-that-is-exactly-what-it-says/

and Parchmarks at Stonehenge, July 2013

Simon Banton, Mark Bowden, Tim Daw, Damian Grady and Sharon Soutar
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00050651 Published online: 26 August 2014

Halfway between the Z and Y holes there is a shallow a 10cm high bank which is where the "Daw holes" may be as seen in the recorded parchmarks.

Beyond the Aubrey Holes (originally called the X holes) on the inner side of the bank Simon Banton and I think there are regular slight depressions which parch, maybe the holes that  Aubrey actually saw.

The Z holes close to the stones show well as do those that show where excavations, propping poles and supporting concrete have disturbed the ground.

Click pictures to enlarge.

Remote Cropmark and Parchmark Hunting Tool

With loads of archaeological cropmarks potentially showing up at the moment a good way to check if fields are parched enough to show good detail is to use the Sentinel satellite data https://t.co/yt4XUzUz1y On Effects tab increase gain & gamma slightly + tick atmos correction pic.twitter.com/qLu4oFwznx

— Mark Walters (@MarkWalters_) July 6, 2018

Famed British Geologist Was Spectacularly Wrong About Stonehenge

In 1923, famed British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas published a seminal study on Stonehenge, claiming to have found the precise spots where prehistoric people had quarried the stones.

There was just one problem with his analysis: It was wrong. And it has taken geologists about 80 years to get it right, a new study finds.

"At best, he [Thomas] was forgetful and sloppy, but at worst he was being deceptive," said study co-researcher Rob Ixer, a geologist at the University of Leicester and an honorary senior research associate at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, in England.

In addition to debunking Thomas' influential work, the researchers announced an additional Stonehenge discovery: Prehistoric people likely didn't boat the stones though Bristol Channel on the way from where the stones were quarried, in western Wales, to where Stonehenge stands today, in Salisbury Plain.

Rather, ancient people probably used a so-called inland superhighway, although this finding has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, ...

More at https://www.livescience.com/63003-sloppy-stonehenge-study.html