Stonehenge

[magpie]

I recently watched a programme about the way in which historians think thatStonehenge was built and discovered that the stone was quarried 40 miles away and transported by rollers to Salisbury plain. Given that the area was heavily forested at the time, how did they get the labour to do it?

[xyzzyplugh]

I 'm sure a theory goes that some of the journey was covered by river.. and I guess the labour would have been driven by repression and godfear/worship.

[Obo]

One of the circles of Stonhenge (I think the inner small one) uses a particular blue stone (Dolerite - some of which are thought to weigh up to 4 tonnes!) which can only be found in the Preseli mountains of West Wales, which means that they had to be transported well over 200 miles by sea, river and land. I seem to remember some historians trying to recreate the journey recently using the methods they thought available at the time, but the stone went overboard somewhere in the Bristol channel!

[rogersaurus]

According to Eddie Izzard the druids got help in transporting the stones by convincing the Welsh that they were only taking them round the corner. When the Welsh realised how far they had gone they commented "One hundred miles, in this day and age? I don't know where I live now".

[happyducky]

Theoritically, you'd prosume that they'd clear a path through the woodland to make things easier for themselves. I wish I believed in extra terrestrials because I'd blame them, but I don't. It is extremely good isn't how they did it? Like the pyramids.

[quattro]

Obo was right some educated people tried to recreate the journey from Preseli to Salisbury They did'nt get very far and I seem to remember them loading a stone onto a boat and seing it plummet to the bottom of the river ,still they had a Lottery Grant so who's laughing now.