Traces of Ancient Village Found Near Stonehenge

Thank you for that...

fascinating, but it does frustrate me that archaeologists often have so little common practical sense.

Why would people living in the houses fill them so full of discarded bones, pottery and flint? They weren't big houses and the inference is that people were living and sleeping in them. The Neolithic people used every scrap of everything so why did they leave such a litter? Partying? But someone would clean up such a bounty unless there were other motives. Sigh! More stories forming!

Heheh, I just deleted an email from the SCA mailing list for my Kingdom about it with the exact same title Serious deja vu

Not that I don't find it interesting. It's fascinating but I need the inbox space

Now...what is this Sarum you speak of? Sounds intriguing...

pdr said:

fascinating, but it does frustrate me that archaeologists often have so little common practical sense.

Why would people living in the houses fill them so full of discarded bones, pottery and flint? They weren't big houses and the inference is that people were living and sleeping in them. The Neolithic people used every scrap of everything so why did they leave such a litter? Partying? But someone would clean up such a bounty unless there were other motives. Sigh! More stories forming!

Click to expand...

The archaeologists in question are pretty damn good--you're dissing people I know personally. We're talking Barry Cunliffe, for crying out loud, among others, like Sarah Champion, who was lead staff archaeologist for the Orkneys dig.

I also assume that you're basing your judgment entirely on the news paper articles, which don't really go into a lot of detail, and that's a little unfair.

Part of the standard structure of these houses, found in Orkney as well, is a midden trench inside the walls, and, because just as in medieval houses, the floors were covered with rushes or sand, then that was swept into the trench, and, eventually removed to an outer midden, often when the house was rebuilt or enlarged or sometimes, seasonally.

Much of the refuse is from the central fire pits--which were used for decades.

After the houses were no longer lived in, and walls were removed and reused, stuff got stirred by the environment and more stuff was dumped, some of it obviously ritualized, often in cthonic pits--they've found La Tene style bronze pins, for instance, that were ritually damaged.

And yeah, they're not big houses but they're designed for communal living and the bed frames are designed for more than two people. Given the so called Stone Henge Archer, it's increasingly looking like this was in fact a ritual center for a very large number of peoples, from a very disparate geographic area.

Sarum is one fictional work about Stonehenge; Pillar of the Sky
by Ceceila Holland is another that is excellent, at least IMHO.

I look forward to learning what Cunliffe makes of the village. I trust his opinion and know he isn't swayed by what others say, nor does he romance his research. Strictly hard facts from a knowledgeable man.

It is very possible that some of the houses were used by those who built Stonehenge. DNA testing on skeletons found next to Stonehenge was compared to people who live in an area on the west coast of Britain, the same area where the bluestone came from. It is thought those people accompanied the bluestone and stayed to help build the monument.

Ah me!

Sigh!

Actually the article says Mike Parker Pearson and Sheffield University are the people doing the Durrington Walls digs.

What would have been helpful to a discussion for interested non-specialists would have been you supplying some references, Medievalist, and stating your case and inviting comments for others with differing views. I don't think that metaphorically jumping up and down and screaming at me that I have been rude to your friends is a good way to conduct a discussion and would certainly scare the interested but nervous away!

Nor was I arguing about this:

...looking like this was in fact a ritual center for a very large number of peoples, from a very disparate geographic area.

There is strong evidence from Thornborough and other places where henges and circles exist that there was ceremonial community use and that means communal living in places only for short periods of time.

What I would like to point out though is there are many reasons that so much refuse was found in those houses.

Thank you for the details of the midden trench and fire pits. I've seen them and again I would argue from practical points of view about your statement of certain aspects of midden trench use.

And my point is still valid. From a practical point of view, in a small inside living area with many people living there, you don't throw things on the floor where everyone had to walk across it and did so in bare feet or wearing little more than we would regard as sock-thin coverings.

The idea of the jolly parties and chucking the half eaten bones on the floor around you isn't practical. There are many other ways, some of which you mentioned, that those things could have accumulated in the those particular houses.

As for my statement about archaeologists not being practical thinkers with practical common sense. Well, there have been some notable examples haven't there? From Piltdown man, all those cannibal hominid discoveries and the classic case of salt fish, archaeologists have been caught out theorising first without applying practical considerations.

I remember this very point being brought up about a Saxon site. There was a house which had a cow's skull in the middle of the floor - which obviously would have been a pain to walk round. The answer was that, after the house had ceased to be lived in, it was used as a convenient rubbish pit.

And, be fair, pdr, the Piltdown man case was a very long time ago.

Well, yes...

but the Piltdown episode was the same thing. A jumping to conclusions because the experts in question wanted it to be a human skull. Biologists did, at the time, point out that parts of the skull were almost definitely ape and it looked like a construct.

It's this holier than thou, 'I am the great expert', business which is so annoying. The 'cannibal' hominids were a classic case of that. There were local people, experienced hunters and bush people, all saying that the teeth marks weren't human, but the archeologists knew better!!!

Primitive does not mean stupid. The problem for all of us, including archeologists, is that looking back from where we are standing with our modern technology it is easy to view things with a modern overview. So those Durrington Wall houses are primitive huts. But they weren't.
If the whole concept is true, and it seems sensible to me that great henges and cirsus and avenues and circles were indeed very important to the people who put in such time and effort to make them and must have involved large numbers of people, then those houses would have been the best around. And would have been treated with some respect.

Yes, of course the rubbish would get moved around over time and I'll agree the houses went from special buildings to rubbish dumps over a period of time, but our 'experts' need to do a bit of practical experimenting before laying down the law.

I have to thank everyone on this thread, by the way - because my interest was aroused, I went off and found a marvellous site called The Modern Antiquarian, which has a discussion thread contributed to by diggers on the Durrington Walls/Stonehenge sites, as well as lots of other goodies about British Archaeology.

Thanks for the tip, Evaine. I've just joined.

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/home/

Thank you for that...

although the information I found is only the BBC news again. But I'm not very good on the internet so I'll have to find a moment to search slowly and carefully.

I think that may be part of the situation with this. We tend to read and react without really paying much attention to (a) where we get our information or (b) how we get said information and also relying primarily on one source.

No matter what the topic, no story is told from only one source. (Hmmm... Something I might want to rethink while working on my wip.)

Let's remember that here, too, OK?