Time Team Special: Journey to Stonehenge

[daibhidc]

That was quite interesting. Unfortunately, I started out being mildly sceptical of the theory taking up most of the programme (that Durrington Henge was the site of funerary rites, and the river took the ashes to Stonehenge, which was the Hall of the Dead), and got steadily more so as it went on, frequently snapping "That's not evidence!" at the screen[1]. By the end I was actually willing the dating evidence to say Durrington was built centuries after Stonehenge, just to shut him up, but it didn't.

Anyway, amongst the things there was evidence for, at some point people were shooting pigs[2] with arrows for a big feast, and the henge is aligned with the midwinter sunrise. So it's not too great a leap to assume that the big pork dinner was a midwinter celebration (whether or not it also involved casting ashes on the Avon).

So Sir Pterry should be happy; the ancient origins of Hogswatchnight are apparently genuine...

[1]His main point seemed to be that there was a path from Stonehenge to the river, and a path (which turned out to be the first neolithic road discovered in Europe) from Durrington Henge to the river, and that neolithic people believed rivers were important. To me, that last would explain them being connected by the river without them necessarily being connected in a symbolic sense. The Tate Modern and Buck House both have paths leading to the London Underground, but what does that prove?

[2]I think we're talking about more-or-less domesticated pigs, rather than wild boar, so "hunting" them suggests some kind of ceremonial enactment. Tony suggested it sounded like a sort of neolithic Olympic event.

Comments

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

From the sound of that, Francis Pryor was involved. He can't see a puddle without calling it a sacred space.