Culture

The progress of humankind: Stonehenge benchmark

by YankeeJim | January 4, 2011 at 03:44 am

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http://www.stonehenge.co.uk/

How long did it take to build Stonehenge? If you Google search the question you will get some people answering it that may or may not be consistent with the official Stonehenge brochure.

Someone with a simple mind replied, “Three weeks.” To move one rock from Wales to the Stonehenge site in Southern England would take 200 strong men dragging it 150 miles. That might be accomplished in a couple of weeks, but think about the logistics of keeping 200 men watered and fed during the journey. Think about hauling the lumber planks necessary for rolling it along and the acquisition and repair activity along the way. The challenge was immense for people who were allegedly more simple-minded than the person answering “three weeks.”

A more knowledgeable person replied, “The Bank and ditch within which the stones are set was constructed c. 3000 BC. The construction of the stone monument we see today took place around 2,500 BC (‘Wiki’ is wrong with its dates here when it states 2200 BC). There was a slightly earlier bluestone array that stood for a while, undated as yet but probably not much earlier than the sarsen structure; the bluestones were then put back within the larger monument. The last activity on the site, the digging of the ‘Y and Z Holes’ took place around 1600 BC.”

For scholarly references, you can look it up, suffice it to say that it took thousands of years of development beginning thousands of years before Christ.

Humans had a sense of design and purpose whereby the function had to do with guidance for planting employing the solstice and seasons. It was a place to bury the dead, and a place for reverence and ritual.

As I walked around Stonehenge on New Years day 2011, I felt the vibes from ancient people. I was surrounded by their burial mounds in all directions, and I observed that modern beings made roadways to this place, passing by and giving pause to remember our long journey on an infinite continuum so long as we do not spoil it.