Older than the Stones?
Inconceivable!
Scientists using the latest in modern boffinry to peel back the layers of time report that they have made important new discoveries at Stonehenge, hinting that the site was already a very ancient centre of ritual when the stones were erected more than 5,000 years ago. In particular, archaeologists are excited by the discovery …
Why would you need a centralised abattoir and why would you spend years dragging rocks across the countryside and then bashing them into shape with other smaller rocks to make one.
It's obviously a religious undertaking just like the pyramids, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, the Colossus of Rhodes etc.
But, has anyone every wondered why ancient man would have bothered to make a Summer solstice based Sun powered calender / computer /observatory / temple /abbatoir in the UK? With our weather, the chances are they never got to see if it worked.
Now if they'd invented a rain powered version .....
You can't really apply modern standards to the behavior and beliefs of primitive superstitious people so long ago.
Just because we can't imagine spending millions of man-hours on erecting a pointless circular construction that had no real use except for a single ceremony doesn't mean that these people thought the same.
On the other hand - it could just have been the -3 millennium dome
This horseshoe of pits was obviously a prehistoric public lavatory. You can't ask hundreds of people to the virgin-slaying and expect them to hold it in for days. And no-one wants the majesty of the occasion ruined by the sight of people crapping in the surrounding fields.
Stupid so-called "scientists".
"Piecing together the tales which Norrys collected for me, and supplementing them with the accounts of several savants who had studied the ruins, I deduced that Exham Priory stood on the site of a prehistoric temple; a Druidical or ante-Druidical thing which must have been contemporary with Stonehenge. That indescribable rites had been celebrated there, few doubted; and there were unpleasant tales of the transference of these rites into the Cybele worship which the Romans had introduced. Inscriptions still visible in the sub-cellar bore such unmistakable letters as “DIV . . . OPS . . . MAGNA. MAT . . . “ sign of the Magna Mater whose dark worship was once vainly forbidden to Roman citizens. Anchester had been the camp of the third Augustan legion, as many remains attest, and it was said that the temple of Cybele was splendid and thronged with worshippers who performed nameless ceremonies at the bidding of a Phrygian priest."
One interesting hypothesis at the moment is that there were lots of wooden platforms for sky burials at that time (see Time Team). Since sky burial is actually the preferred method of exposing the body (e.g. in Tibet) and that the ancients had pan-world religions, it is quite clear that offerings to the gods of Shangri-La were important. However as pointed out, wood rots quickly in the dry English summers; so the ancients decided to build the platforms in stone.
Lugging such brutish lumps of rock across the countryside is obviously not for the faint-hearted; as a result a lot of workers found themselves passing on as offerings to their production process.
In pre-islamic countries, many conical dry stone towers were built for a burial ritual. The body would pass into the tower, and the priests would walk up the stairs, to lay the body out for sky burial. There are still ruins of these towers around, but the good old sea faring Picts and early Scots got to hear about it; and decided to build themselves Brochs as it was significantly easier than lumping great boulders and menhirs around (Oberlix was only in France you know) . Hence the Brits got Stone Henge; and the scots got more magnificent towers.
It just goes to show - that sometimes a good story has hidden truths!
..that the site was used for ceremonial purposes though the expense of construction was so high (in human life terms) it is likely that there was some ceremonial function.
Now (I am relying on wetware here so the usual caution issued) I remember a book, no title or author is remembered, the author had worked out exactly what Stonehenge is about. He pointed out that there are minor henges in the area and Woodhenge, a major henge, nearby which are thought to have been observatories. There is evidence of pits for a previous wooden henge on the Stonehenge site and a ring of pits surrounding the stones which may have been used as a counter to predict lunar eclipses.
Another thing to consider is that what you see is a Victorian "restoration" including concrete bedding under the stones. If they thought it was a temple that is the way is was put back; they thought the heelstone was used as an alter and left it the way it was found but it may well have also been a standing stone. I think it was in the 1960s that a new capstone was put up to replace a missing stone. If you look at it like that it is clear the primary purpose is observation and prediction not religion.
So you see the recent "discoveries" are not entirely new but do support earlier work. As for the ceremonial parade, supposition, pure supposition.
..."Stonehenge Decoded" Hawkins, 1965? Originally published as a paper in Nature?
It fell out of favour with the archeologists, perhaps because it wasn't wasn't written by one of them. Other interesting analytical work was done by Thom on geometric construction, together with the statistical identification of a common unit of measurement the megalithic yard.
Looking at, e.g., Cities, John Reader, he shows that 5,000 years ago we were not so different, then there are the various economic histories.
Given the amount of technical skill, societal organisation, deferred usefulness and opportunity cost required to build the bloody thing, it's difficult to imagine it's only an early example of a Victorian folly or indeed a prequel to the millennium dome...