National Geographic - Stonehenge Decoded

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National Geographic - Stonehenge Decoded

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Stonehenge stood as giant tombstones to the dead for centuries—perhaps marking the cemetery of a ruling prehistoric dynasty—new radiocarbon dating suggests (2). The site appears to have been intended as a cemetery from the very start, around 5,000 years ago—centuries before the giant sandstone blocks were erected—the new study says. New analysis of ancient human remains show that people were buried at the southern England site from about 3000 B.C. until after the first large stones were raised around 2500 B.C. "This is really exciting, because it shows that Stonehenge, from its beginning to its zenith, is being used as a place to physically put the remains of the dead," said Mike Parker Pearson of England's University of Sheffield. "It's something that we just didn't appreciate until now." Parker Pearson heads the Stonehenge Riverside Project, a seven-year archaeological investigation of the Stonehenge area, supported by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Only those with no prior interest in Stonehenge can find this documentary (1) in any way revealing. Completely lacking in hard evidence and made with more then the usual measure of scientific license, for the rest of us (and I'm sure more than one archeologist would agree) this simply is one man's self-indulgence. The discovery of a settlement at Durrington Walls would suggest use of Stonehenge for ceremonial purposes but that does not mean the people living at Durrington had any more to do with the construction of Stonehenge than do the people of modern day West Amesbury. To the best of my knowledge there have been no radiocarbon datable remains found within the perimeter of the site in recent years, so any new radiocarbon dating must be from the areas exacavated around Durrington and the Cursus. It should also be noted that, unless there is proof of a person dying in situ, a skeleton can only be considered a structured deposit, i.e. confirmation of activity after the date of death and not the date of construction. There is no way of knowing for sure that the Sarsen stones came from Marlborough and certainly nothing to say how they were moved, prepared or erected. Neither is there any way of knowing the beliefs of a people for which there is no historical record. For example, on what does Parker-Pearson base his analysis of events following the crushing of a worker? As Parker-Pearson confesses at the start of the documentary, his theory hangs on the words of a native from Madagascar who, on seeing Stonehenge for the first time, stated, "This is all for the ancestors". Perhaps that's true of his island whose inhabitants still erect stones to their dead, after all, we still place headstones for own, but Stonehenge is Westminster Catherdral by comparison. I really don't know why National Geographic found it necessary to air (fund) this documentary when they could have achived as much with a Donald Sutherland narration of the movie 10,000BC.

(1) http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/stonehenge-decoded-3372/Overview

(2) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080529-stonehenge-cemetery.html