STONEHENGE DECODED? | The Prehistory Guys find out.

[@DanDavisHistory]

It's interesting work for sure, thanks for the video guys.

[@yensid4294]

They've found the actual quarry site in Wales where the blue stones were quarried from & later found that the blue stones had been erected in Wales & later relocated to Stonehenge which is interesting.

[@jimmyviaductophilelawley5587]

Hi Michael. Can I just thank you for the speed and accuracy you answered my question. You always take the time and effort to explain things on a one-to-one level and I appreciate that. Thankyou.

[@Michael_Bott]

Thank you Jimmy, appreciated. Actually, Ive since found I left something out; in 1920 they also found time to straighten stones 29,30,1 and 2 of the sarsen circle at the north east!

[@susandickerso7675]

Just found your programming & while I have to admit all the numbers are boggling my mind,I'll also have to admit being distracted by Ruperts grin.....the undergrads must love you! If you're ever in New Mexico stop & visit an old lady & make my day!

[@amberliseleger900]

I agree 😁

[@2gtomkins]

I wouldn't dismiss the utility of having a fixed calendar to guide planting, at least in temperate climates. In ancient times farmers had to work with grain seeds that needed as small as a 2:1 ratio of seeds harvested to seeds planted. You needed to reserve half your harvest to plant for next year. Losing your seed corn to a frost could be avoided by having a fixed solstice date to count from, to be used in conjunction with observed temperatures that year to decide when it was safe to plant. Without the firm solstice date, guided only by temperatures, you might often wait so late that you would lose valuable growing time to avoid the catastrophe of losing seed corn to a freeze, after a deceptively early string of warm days led you astray. Temperatures alone often would lead you astray, which is why farmers used to love their Farmers' Almanacs, at least here in the US, books which gave out all sorts of other heuristics to .guide planting, none of them, I'm sure, as solid and useful as Stonehenge, that monument to hardnosed British devotion to order and method.

[@rcrawford42]

Here in the US we have a wood henge in Cahokia, the largest pre-Columbian settlement in the country. There are also a few other incontrovertible solar-aligned constructs, like at Sunwatch Village in Ohio. The cultures that built them were farming, so they needed to know when the solstice occurred as the earliest time for planting. It appears to be a common concern for temperate zone farming cultures.

[@2gtomkins]

@@rcrawford42 Sure, knowing the date is a common concern for temperate zone farmers because if your only data is how warm it is today and for the past few days, you will not infrequently be fooled into planting before the last freeze of the season. Yes, as is pointed out in the video, "farmers know when to plant". But that's because for thousands of years, they have known the date. If they don't have knowledge of the date to add to how the weather has been behaving lately, they don't know when to plant.

[@caroletomlinson5480]

The three 10-day weeks is scary! Fewer weekends was my thought.

[@sunscream4525]

The horseshoe does add up to six, if you include the gap. I was thinking you could run, say, clockwise from the gap from the winter solstice, and when you get to the gap again it's approaching the summer solstice.

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

Ah - that's true! I wonder if that could work? Thanks. M.

[@jaspermolenaar1218]

The concept of ‘zero’ or counting nothing as something seems only to have developed much later..

[@sunscream4525]

@@jaspermolenaar1218 Not necessarily a zero. Imagine you wanted to add the year to the calendar. It's conceivable that a wooden, wicker or similar structure could be placed in the gap to symbolise it. Once the year is over, it is replaced with a new one and burned or dismantled.

[@jaspermolenaar1218]

That’s a clever idea..

[@polyoptika4382]

I read comments before posting, I figured someone must have caught that detail.

[@kellymurphy7444]

Yay! Thanks guys. We are always happy to see new content from the Prehistory guys! 🥳🥳

[@zelly8163]

Thanks again for an interesting discussion. Love the idea of someone waking up every morning to move the stone ball atop the intel as, so to speak, to wind up Stonehenge for another day.

[@halley8890]

Thanks for sharing this...time to have Tim Darvill on again:) Happy to be a patreon supporter:)

[@nickbrough8335]

The questions that you have to ask (and I'm sure there's more) include: What's special about Stonehenge compared to all the other stone circles. If it's a calendar system, then are all Stone circles the same ? If they aren't, then why not ? If we can only "prove" that a small % of stone circles are for calendar purposes then does that not suggest that the original purpose of Stone Henge (or Stone circles in totality) was entirely different and ? therefore cultural. How does this fit with the Woodhenge/Winter feasting procession theory. Is it complementary or does that only work at a different time period in the neolithic/bronze age ? An alignment to winter/summer solstice may well have cultural significance and be present widely, but two point alignments aren't very persuasive evidence on their own. Are we interpreting this theory as a 365 day calendar because we want it to be present (ie because its a "nice" and "clever" theory...) If the solstice is important from annual calendar/farming purposes, it is necessary to have days and months based Calendar. If we have months in the system is it also necessary to have days as well. It makes sense e that if it is an annual. monthly, 365.25 day Calendar, then we must also hypothesise a reason why the builders/operator would have needed that level of data for a particular reason. Have we any idea what that might be ? The existence of calendars elsewhere at the same timer period isnt evidence of anything that we are a pretty intelligent species. If the feasting and evidence that people were travelling across the UK that is present at WoodHenge stacks up, then not only would you need a detailed calendars at Stonehenge, but throughout the UK. Whilst monumental scale has a purpose, would it not be an equal or better use of Resources to make a smaller scale calendars using on the similar basis (eg wood not stone) and to design a monumental structures for different purpose ? As with many (all ?) these hypotheses, they're fascinating but mostly unprovable as we cant know what the people were thinking. The best we may be able to do is to look at what's left of current day Stone Age or near Stone Age societies and make comparisons with they they hold sacred or special. On that basis, would we not expect some existing current day evidence for this sort of custom and Calendars ?

[@sdrtcacgnrjrc]

I was going to attempt to answer some of these questions but many of your questions are very unclear due to autocorrect, or whatever.

[@nickbrough8335]

@@sdrtcacgnrjrc I've made some edits to improve clarity. Some mistakes are mine, but others are YT auto-incorrect.

[@sdrtcacgnrjrc]

@@nickbrough8335 auto-incorrect, I like that :-) I don't have clear answers here, but some thoughts: the winter solstice would have been a very important date for everyone. Knowing the days are eventually going to get longer -- it's still important today, especially as you move north. I've read that Knowth (passage grave), in Ireland, already marked the winter solstice by 3300 BC. Which came first, this capability or the calendar? Let's say they figured out how to mark the solstice first, it was then 'just' a case of counting the days till the next one. Within a few years they would have noticed that that round number didn't work, and then figured out the leap years. I don't think stone circles were calendars, but I'm no expert here -- but if they did often mark the solstice, that was enough really -- people could count the years themselves, roughly or accurately, and then confirm the soltice day with their local stone circle.

[@nickbrough8335]

@@sdrtcacgnrjrc Weather is an issue clearly, especially around here in the UK & Ireland. The mid-Summer/Mid-winter alignment is fairly common place, so clearly meant something culturally and I expect the longest and shortest day are part of that meaning. Solar alignment in Tombs is particularly suggestive, although the exact meaning can be birth (rebirth), death or something else. Absent the weather, spotting either solstice coming isnt that difficult based on the sunset/sunrise location on the horizon; a local marker stone(s) from an observation point would certainly help to distinguish that. With enough time, I suspect it would also become fairly obvious from the position of the sun and stars how close it was to either mid summer or winter some weeks before hand as well. As you suggest deriving a calendar with (12) months and 365 days become entirely feasible with time and measurements. Did they need to though ? Perhaps given the weather. One telling argument is that the WoodHenge data suggest that people gathered from all over the UK (not sure about Ireland or the more remote areas) which does seem to require a fair degree of accuracy to avoid turning up late (early isn't that much of a problem). However, no other Stone circle is quite as intricate as Stone Henge and others have many more than 30 stones in a circle. Does this mean many different calendars or is the idea of Stone Henge being designed as a Calendar is wishful thinking. As it's circular and there is a mid-summer alignment with the heel stone (why no marker stone for mid-winter ?, although the late stage Trilithon seems to serve the same purpose at sunset) I would have thought that it would be easy to assume a calendar when none was designed because of the basic geometry.

[@dianesmigelski5804]

This was my first time listening. I found your show very informative and enjoyable to listen to. Looking forward to other episodes. 👍

[@JadeMelany]

Very timely. I’m studying at the moment and my assignment is about Stonehenge. look fwd to hearing your thoughts on this before I hand in my archaeology assignment in with my thoughts about it. Lol.

[@knittingknut]

Professor Lynne Kelly ( The Memory Code) writes that it could very well have been used as a physical memory palace. It may have had many functions incorporating a calendar , oral tradition myths, and much more of the important group knowledge that people handed down from one generation to the next. She postulates that each stone is different and as people walked around it, they could recite ( sing or chant) the knowledge that was attached to each stone.

[@JadeMelany]

@@knittingknut I love this idea!

[@knittingknut]

@@JadeMelany read her book or watch some of her you tube videos. Her theories are fascinating. I hope it helps you with your studies.

[@JadeMelany]

@@knittingknut I certainly will Thanks for the heads up.

[@thomasfisk2467]

I'll admit I tend to instinctively think of state applications, but it's important everyone knows when tax is due. And if your calendar isn't accurate it ends up drifting until the men with big sticks are demanding payment that hasn't been harvested yet.

[@jonkayl9416]

Awesome Video cast. More Please.

[@RSLtreecare]

Very interesting. It's always nice to login and catch up with you. What I'm fascinated by, is how these People devised these structures without the tools we have to day.

[@ghostofkadesh9041]

Always nice work 🙂👍

[@ChristophersMum]

Thank you Guys...another very interesting video...at least the Egyptians left some hieroglyphics!! 🌷💕😁✨🖖

[@susanhepburn6040]

Thank you very much.

[@genericfemale1093]

Charles Kos has an interesting theory of a doggerland origin for the ancient Egyptian mythological structure, based on language similarities. Sometimes he can come up with some crazy ideas imho, but the video he made on that topic was quite compelling.

[@BlueBaron3339]

Caught the audio of this over on the Patreon page and entered into a friendly exchange with another Patron over whether acid or mushrooms were best at creating a religious experience. She passed on the 'shrooms. 😂 🤣 Okay, seriously this is a wonderful and sensible interpretation of that much pondered monument.

[@westwater73]

No difference to me psychogenic/hallucinogenic both do both

[@BlueBaron3339]

@@westwater73 Actually the exchange had very little to do with hallucinogens but you're right! 😄

[@worldcapers]

'Knowledge is power!' 💣☀️🌙💫

[@glasgavlen]

I have a stubborn idea that it was about linking the cycles of earth & sky, a way of anchoring sky cycles to earth cycles to keep everything in order & stable, steady, predictable. Both practical as a calendar & symbolic as well, very much a sacred space to celebrate those interaction points too, holiday gatherings. That's my 2 cents. Sure do look forward to seeing it in person one day soon!

[@ransakreject5221]

Nah, it’s just the skeleton of a building. It had a roof going across. A second story basically

[@michaelmiller609]

As always, excellent discussion and I cannot wait until the full interview. Did you ever read the Mysteries and Rites of the British Druids by Edward Davies (1809)? He puts forth a theory about Egyptian and ancient Britain religions including the calendar. It is probably regarded as quackery, or unscientific today, but when written it was a serious work. It really seems to parallel much of your hypothesis.

[@louisbaldwin7097]

makes sense, only rather than contact between Britain and eygpt ( the Egyptian calendar of that date didnt do leap years ) , could it be the calendar system used by the early Anatolian farmers and refined locally?

[@jennycoffey1443]

our camp on Norris was a privately owned point. the awsome nature of a gigantic bath seemingly of stalagmite manipulation and drain to a smaller sink on the side that was channeled out of the cave; LIFE IS EVERYWHERE YA LOOK!

[@maggiemaloney8599]

Wonderful!

[@NatsAstrea]

Do you think the folks who built Stonehenge, and maybe Woodhenge as well, first made a model, the way architects do today?

[@mkrmkr3805]

I like that suggestion NatsAstrea. How else would the chiefs convey their ideas and vision to the workforce ? It could even be to scale, after all they obviously had a good grasp of mathematics.

[@andrefasset3266]

I would imagine they did ... in fact, there are dozens of stone circles all around England, and I imagine the development was like anything else, take for example the development of the car ... have fun imagining it !

[@judyhawkins6584]

It seems to me that the most reliable conclusion would be that people were just as curious back then as we are now, wanting to know and record the farthest reaches we can get to. Given that we also have pretty reliable observations from the genetic data that people were moving around, it sees more likely than not that there was communication across long distances about this kind of difficult to get at stuff. To what degree there was "practical" use for the knowledge is probably unknowable, but given the very human thing of making up stories and coming up with clever justifications for doing something compelling even if not immediately practical, it does seem clear that a bunch of people pulled off some very clever engineering and science. One of the ideas I kind of like was that moving those stones could have been a kind of competitive sport, something that young men with too much energy and not enough else to do could get sent off to do, and "make their name at", but that's pure speculation. I like making up stories. Another story might be that people with a lot of knowledge were curious about differences in the rising and setting times and positions on the horizon of astronomical bodies in different parts of the world, thus the stones of Calanais and the story about black men coming there to set up the stones. It's very much too bad that they didn't have writing, I'm doomed to unresolved curiousity about what conclusions they might have drawn about the roundness of the earth.

[@andreannegarant6346]

You guys are adorable!

[@vulpesinculta3238]

My own pet theory is that Stonehenge functioned as a very early market cross. It marked a place where markets and secular and religious gatherings were held. The more prestigious the stone circle, the more merchants, believers, tourists and whatnot would come to visit, thus adding to the power of whoever controlled the place.

[@sislertx]

Me.too!!!!. Also a place to meet future mates...exchange medicines...ect..and im not surprised they moved the stones in an ice age...just slide them along...

[@douginorlando6260]

Trade fair days has got to be the main event. It must have included every little village no matter how small. Everyone would have someone there to do buying selling and more. Everyone would be looking forward to it all year, not just to sell/trade their products they worked countless hours to produce … the social connections developed would add to the anticipation/importance for everyone

[@judyhawkins6584]

It does seem like a moveable stone for marking things off would be rather more likely to get moved entirely off the site altogether, especially given the sizes of the really big rocks that are missing as well. I'm imagining a daily rolling-of-the-marker-stone, maybe even twice daily, for sunrise and sunset, and sightings to get it just right, and estimates made on days with too many clouds for actual sunrise or sunset sightings. The most interesting observation here, though, is the observation we can make of ancient people observing the heavens and the passage of the years, day by day, and that there must have been a long, long history of people making these observations, for them to get the placement of the stones so precise that we can still see the correlation. And then, too, that they cared so much about marking down their observations, that they would bring stones from so far away; regardless of whatever other functions Stonehenge may or may not have been used for. You've got another video about a stone that fell down, somewhere in now France, and how people stopped for a while putting up such huge stones. That makes me wonder if part of the motivation for moving stones such long distances was observing that some types of rock didn't fall down, so if you wanted to have a big monumental construction, you'd better use stone that you're pretty sure won't fall down even if there is an earthquake. Which, of course, leads me to the question of, Why the particular place of Stonehenge? like, was it already a crossroads of trade and social gathering? it would seem likely, as a parallel to the observation you guys often make about how successful settlements just get bigger, and stay in the same place, and build over and often erase what went before, until someone wants to build a car park, for instance. Or a giant astronomical clock.

[@andrewwhelan7311]

Hugh Evans, author of The Origin of the Zodiac asks the question, what was Stone Henge called by the ancient indigenous Briton's ? Because it is far older than the English language. The name given to the structure in the ancient tongue of the Cymru is a, 'does what it says on the tin', moment. The old name describes exactly what the stones were used for. Check out Hugh's work on u tube and see for yourself.

[@feelthewyrd]

whenever an official archaeologist claims something that has been put forward for decades by "oiks", "new agers" and "pseudo scholars" ..... it becomes a radical new theory and 'nailed it' explanation.

[@yoursotruly]

This is embarrassing, if you live a hundred miles away or even ten, how do you know what day it is? We each have a printed calendar in our house (I'm old) and it matches everyone else's calendar so we are on the same page all year even if we never see each other. Without printing, nobody had an individual calendar and no town had a Stonehenge so nobody knew what day it was there unless they could look at the moon cycle and use math to calculate what the central calendar looks like, this is a backward system that leaves everybody in the dark. You're talking about a structure that demonstrates what these priests already knew about the sun's movements and it could impress visitors by showing them, written in stone, that they could predict the movements of the sun with pinpoint precision, they invited people to see the sun poised atop one of their pyramids just as they said it would. They would say, come on the day after the full moon on a certain month and they will command the sun to perch on the lintel, WOW! Now, why do priests or merchants get folks together, to study science? Naw, they had something to sell or religious donations to collect, it was part market and part magic show but it was a calendar only in the sense that it showed that they knew what day it was and could put on a show, the moon was the calendar that common folks could see. Dividing up the months differently than the moon is absurd, the words are the same, there is no 30 day month in nature, a month is a moon is a month. Who said, "I'll defy the moon and make everyone confused!" Even the zodiac had thirteen constellations before the religious numerology surrounding twelve took hold. I'm probably totally off base but I've heard the moon ignored as a calendar all my life and it was the only calendar for millennia, before civilization and even by pre-humans. It is used to this day and not just by primitive tribes, it is on our printed calendars, we still schedule events by it, I'm on a mission to save the moon calendar!

[@The1Helleri]

It doesn't have to give everyone the ability to know the date every day in order to be useful. One has to imagine that any given settlement would have at least one person whose job it was to keep count. Now what happens if that person thinks they may have lost count by a day or so over the course of a few months? Or if they've forgotten whether or not the year they're currently in is one in which they need to add a day. Well they could simply talk to one they know who has more recently visited the standard and compare their count to that persons count in order to synchronize. Stonehenge could have simply been a standard. You simply of a contingent of people who live near it and check in on what the readings say daily then disseminate that information through travelers and trade to keep everyone in sync. Certainly there were people whose job it was to travel 100's of miles/kilometers a year for trade between settlements. Well if they just add stopping by the place to their itinerary for each trip. They could easily keep count themselves for a few days or weeks out from having last been by it in order to pass that information along to each settlement they visit along their regular route. Those settlements in turn could pass the information along to other settlements that are off-route. The moon is also fairly easy to read. A lot easier than the sun at least. One can look up and see that it's a thumbnail-moon, half-moon, full-moon, or new-moon. That's good enough to be accurate within 1-3 days as to the date. When that's taken with corrective synchronizing information the whole system probably worked fairly well. The average person under such a system could easily know how many days away they were from a first/second planting or first/second harvest (contrary to what they say, farmers don't simply know these things. If they did there would have never been a need for such a thing as farmers almanac or planting information on the back of seed packets). Perhaps the time to some looked forward to festivities. Really all the basic stuff they'd need to know for getting along.

[@WickedFelina]

I like you! You think like me! This makes NO sense. The 5 day represented by the trilithons is the dumbest of all. If each Sarsen represents ONE of 30, then the 10 TEN trilitons cannot represent 5 days! Who points out which month is 28 days for 3 yrs, and 29 for the 4th? The 4 stones scattered about the henge could be separating classes as to who gets to file into the carnival attraction to see the sun in the center of the ring? If you just go by the moon, why move these stones over 125 miles, cut, smooth, lift for what? Unless some powerful ruling class, the Hitler family of their day insisted that they have the only calendar and it's the sun. Ladies and their Ladies Days, know squat!

[@kariannecrysler640]

Two slender stones removed gives us 28, that could coincide with the moon phases. Making a possible 13 month year, 4,7 day weeks each. Or solstice and equinox days were “holy” and separate calendar markers from month’s rather than included in.

[@kentjohnson8223]

I had to laugh at your use of the term "Calendrical" You make it sound like a procedure in the doctors office, whereby you have to bend over while the doc snaps on a pair of rubber gloves ...who ever said that the Brits don't have a sense of humor. Love your site!

[@LiveFreeOrDie2A]

All I think of is Stonehenge I think about it when I dream, The biggest henge that I have ever seen. *What's the purpose of Stonehenge?* A giant granite birthday cake Or a prison far too easy to escape? Stonehenge! Stonehenge! Lots of stones in a row! They were 25 tons each stone, my friend But amazingly they got them all down in the sand. And they moved it, And they dragged it, And they rolled it 46 miles from Wales! *What's the deal with Stonehenge?* You should have left a tiny hint When you made this fucking labyrinth of stone! *Who the fuck builds a Stonehenge?* Two Stone Age guys wondering what to do Who just said: "Dude, let's build a henge or two!"

[@GlassEyedDetectives]

STOP PRESS!!...Stonehenge was a pet mammoth pen!...only joking, great show chaps.

[@Archangelm127]

As long as you're being sensible and scientific, witter about Stonehenge all you like. ;)

[@b.griffin317]

I would tend to discount the "independent development" hypothesis of 30+5 day year as the Romans developed a completely different system (distributing the 5 epagnominal days throughout the 12 months instead of into a separate short-month) and they were far closer and more obviously influenced by Egypt. Therefore an independent culture could develop any number of possible calendars so if they choose 30+5 it is unlikely a coincidence.

[@jaspermolenaar1218]

The extra 5 days could still have been dustributed in any way throughout the year to make up 365 days..

[@b.griffin317]

@@jaspermolenaar1218 Indeed, that is my point. Since there are so many ways to distribute the 5 days it is suspicious of non-coincidence that it is the same method as the Egyptian calendar.

[@jaspermolenaar1218]

But we don’t know that it would have been the same distribution as in the Egyptian calendar.. Could be any other, so who knows..

[@b.griffin317]

@@jaspermolenaar1218 Egyptian calendar is 10-day weeks, 3 week months, 12 months plus 5 "extra" days at the end of the year. Same as is being proposed here.

[@mjinba07]

Just because an independent culture can develop a different calendar doesn't mean they're more likely to. Human behavior isn't a dice roll. Astronomical observation, relevance to farming, materials use, construction techniques, are all endogenous to human behavior. And there are only so many possibilities for a well designed calendar.

[@jennycoffey1443]

I grew up watr skiing on Norris Lake in tenn. a place Close to being named Lenore ,I think holds pipes in a museum from what that are refered to by the other indians as a race going extinnct . an interesting "lost," small wall with peleo Hebrew inscribed were refer to as an egyptian clan or tribe. this due to that dimensional puple blue dye, But that beauti in the reconstruction of color on the clay empirical soldiers begs me to wonder and believe in process of tou and settle. the wall would seem to me as that Hitite panorama. Lots of Admiration boys!

[@janetmackinnon3411]

Tnank you

[@Ariesgrant]

I spoke with Timothy Darville about his calculations. They're inaccurate but they were hypothesized rationally

[@TTeamFan]

Not to rain on the party, guys but an astronomer and archaeoastronomer named Gerald Hawkins published a book about this very theory - he even called it "Stonehenge Decoded" - back in the 1960's. Back then, it was thought "unconvincing and slipshod" among the mainstream archaeology critics, but in essence Tim Darvill's work seems to follow very closely along the lines the Hawkins laid out 60 years ago, so maybe modern archaeology is a bit more ready to accept such an outre premise these days.

[@ChristophersMum]

😁👍🖖✨

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

The objection you raise is dealt with in the first paragraph of the introduction to the paper. There‘a never been a problem in archaeological circles about astronomical explanations in principle - they’ve just (like all other hypotheses) got to clear a pretty high bar. Hence we do actually have Clive Ruggles!

[@2gtomkins]

Intercalary days, right?

[@douginorlando6260]

using astronomy numbers, if the Stonehenge stones are counted as 365.25 days (one day per stone with 12 rotations and 5,25 days thrown in for the inner lintels)... And since a complete lunar cycle is seen every 29.530588 days, then every year there are 12.3685 months per year which equates to an extra 11.06 stones. 11.06 is nearly the whole number 11, as if Stonehenge was designed to allow counting astronomy related intervals with calendar numbers (not fractions of numbers). But it would have been more compelling if the overlap was 10 instead of 11 (to match the 10 day week). in order to evenly space the 5 added days in the 12*30 count, they would be spaced every 72 days. This could be days 2*30+12, 4*30+24, 7*30+6, 9*30+18, 12*30. I wonder if they would somehow track months day by day by watching the 30 stone counter versus lunar cycle shift 1 day every 2 counter rotations. (59.06 days per 2 lunar cycles). Perhaps 59 stones in two lunar cycles plus the 11.06 adds up to 70 stones which does fit with the 10 day week.

[@douginorlando6260]

Since they spent so much effort to make the lintels all level, it makes me wonder if the reason was because a wooden structure was built on top of the lintels.

[@crispinakemp456]

The 12 months (6 x 2) are recorded at the 2 Solstices

[@bigbadthesailor5173]

there isn't much of a contradiction between the different functions: the midwinter festival - securely fixed each year - could also be a day on which all the farmers synchronised their day-counts

[@scottingram580]

Hi can I ask a question please, wouldn't it of been the easiest way for the stones to be moved from the Welsh mountains to Stonehenge to slide them on the hard harsh winter ice?

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

Hi @scottingram580, That is one of the theories and it is an undeniable possibility. I think it's more likely to have been a bonus though, making whatever method they used easier rather than being the normal way of doing things. The main reasons being that the climate was slightly warmer in the Neolithic so frozen ground was never a certainty. Add to that, early morning frosts melt with the sun so under the weight of heavy stones, it may have been just as likely to get stuck in the wet soils. Then there's the issue of whether you would have saved your hard work for the winter - maybe. There is a growing body of evidence for the use of cattle as traction. Ankle bones of cattle coming from numerous excavations show the sort of wear associated with consistently pulling more than their own body weight, the most recent I am aware of being found near Dublin. So quite possibly a mixture of methods:). All best, Rupert

[@rebelyell2741]

My question is. Why was it so important for them to count the years accurately?was it, is it for counting down to something?

[@coreyjudd4676]

27:20 - Clarkson would be proud!!

[@rcrawford42]

Curious how this paper's release coincides with the British Museum's Stonehenge exhibit.

[@b.griffin317]

the 30 = 3*10=month and 30*12+5=year is the egyptian sothic year BTW.

[@jimmyviaductophilelawley5587]

Hi guys...isn't modern stonehenge a bit of a newgrange? A modern reconstruction all hidden concrete and re-erected (and maybe even repositioned?) Stones?

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

The concrete at Newgrange isn't hidden. Moreover, the structure as it's been restored would not hold up without it. It couldn't have been that shape when built. The concrete at Stonehenge on the other hand, you wouldn't know about unless you'd been told. There has been no repositioning (Why would there be?). Most work done has been for safety reasons. Stones 6 & 7 were deemed unsafe and were straightened up in 1919/20. The lintel was also replaced. The trilithon that had collapsed in 1797 was re-erected in 1958. Stone 23 fell over in 1963 and re-erected 1964. Stones 27, 28, 53 and 54 were straightened at the same time. And that's it. The photos from 1920 and the 50's and 60's make it seem that lots more work has been done because of the elaborate and heavy nature of plant and equipment needed to undertake such dangerous tasks. Also, many pics from different angles make it seem like much more has been done. Apart from restoring the monument to being less of a ruin than it otherwise might be, there have been no fundamental alterations and what we see is as good a representation of how the stones maybe were a few hundred years ago as we can get. Michael

[@jimmyviaductophilelawley5587]

@@ThePrehistoryGuys thanks Michael

[@joedaly4277]

Closed Captioning changed sarsen to assassins. Makes for a very different monument.

[@Willy_Tepes]

To decode stonehenge and the other monuments you have to realize that they were all by the water. The sea level was 90 meters and the absence of any monuments below this altitude should have been noticed ages ago.

[@rosehale7682]

Hi if I wanted to contact the Prehistory guys with some questions via email or something, which is the best way to go about it?

[@benzof5475]

Surely such a large structure isn't required for this purpose?

[@oldmanfromscenetwentyfour8164]

It took him a while didn't it? The rest of the planet has known this for at least 200 years. Well better late than never.

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

I don’t understand. Who knew this 200 years ago? M.

[@oldmanfromscenetwentyfour8164]

@@ThePrehistoryGuys Give or take a few years ... Historians, Astronomers as well as various Pagan groups were well award of at least the Equinox alignments as well as Eclipse events. Deeper details were certainly realized, noted and written about over the years.

[@markdisher2614]

Has anyone read Gerald S Hawkins' book called Stonehenge Decoded? His seems to be an entirely plausible explanation of the site's arrangement of stones and holes. Am I wrong in mentioning it? Was Professor Hawkins wrong?

[@Look4HistoryGuy]

Stonehenge was originally designed to have a large mound of many layers of smaller rocks & earth over & around the centre megaliths to the circumference of the outer ditch, the ditch would have had large megalithic blocks placed in it side by side called kerbstones to hold it all together, similar construction as found at Newgrange in Ireland. Stonehenge was never completed for whatever reason however the two structures served the same purpose although built at different times & that was as very, robust, shelters or for lack of a better word 'bomb shelters'! Bombs in the way of celestial bombardment & the after effects like devastating over pressure shock waves that would flatten any other structure, tree's etc. Newgrange is still a very good place to take cover 5,000+ years later if a nuclear bomb went off as the domed shape & the way it has been built would dissipate the blast wave over & around the structure. These & other so called passage tombs & long barrows were built as bunkers by our ancient ancestors for survival against meteor blasts, radiation & other cataclysms

[@kevinreillydenmylne]

epigonal = Adjective Relating to, or characteristic of, a prehistoric culture of coastal Peru and Chile Near or surrounding the gonads (in the embryos of some fish) Alternative spelling of epigonic ha ha ha ha ha

[@faramund9865]

The sun is what powers the clock, the shadows of the stones are the pointers. Other stones are the markers. You don't need to move anything.

[@ReverendHowl]

People say "horse shoe" but horses weren't shod back then. Does it look like a cup or bowl? (Maybe to 'catch' the sun?)

[@rcrawford42]

Points the wrong way to catch the sun.

[@ketchupcommander]

yes but it happeed a year after you uploaded this and it was a researcher from Scotland that cracked it.

[@F4xP4s]

Who?

[@ruthcherry3177]

😎🤓👏👏👏

[@ewanbauld607]

The three things I take away from Stonehenge are... clearly the structure was built around the Sun (our nearest star of course). The second is just how well advanced and intelligent the ancient society was (they just didn't have Alan Turing, plastics etc lol) the third is this the most relevant of all how mathematics played its role kzbin.info/www/bejne/ql6ufICPepWmarM

[@lazenbytim]

OMG, Graham Hancock will be loving thsi revelation.

[@grahammorgan1403]

The moon has to be included in the structures math

[@richardmellish2371]

I would be interested to watch this but can't be bothered to put up with the "music". It's bad enough (because so loud) at the start before anyone is speaking but just too distracting when someone is speaking. A topic has to be extremely interesting for me to bother watching despite the distraction.

[@1Polglen]

? What music?

[@RichardMellish]

@@1Polglen Dunno what happened here. I thought I was commenting on a different video. This one does have SOME annoying music, from about 00:04 to about 00:28, but maybe that's all on this one.

[@grahamparr3933]

No!

[@the_mystery_of_stonehenge]

Nice try. But totally and obviously false. You pander to people because they have a degree and ignore a genius who sees through it. I have also diagnosed the Phaistos Disk and Karahan Tepe. I can take Rupert and Bott into the field and demonstrate exactly how Stonehenge was utilized. You can accept the facts and still be a successful youtube channel. Become an even greater one.

[@aneolithicuniverse]

How many generations to find out about the 365 plus 1/4? It is possible to find this out in just four years using technology available in the Neolithic (but they'd have to have been really clever to work out how to do that). Also you would use sticks and sight to equinox sunrise/set. That'd probably take just a couple of decades (long reason why). Interesting ideas from Tim.