Many years ago I found a book, or at least requested it from the Bath library because it was too expensive to buy. It was the top book written by Alistair Whittle. Just the sort of title I would lust over;). In it I found fascinating facts about Silbury Hill and the plants that were discovered under the hill on the land surface. I copied them out into a blog. But yesterday on looking for the book I found that it had been copied onto the web for free. And it gladdened my heart to see useful information on the net.
Steve Marshall's book is just as interesting, Avebury comes alive again for me as he methodically rounds up the many, many prehistoric sites and gives easy writing on them. One of the things I had been interested in was the Palisaded Enclosures not too far from West Kennet Long barrow. Trump could have learnt a thing or two from these 20 foot tall oak trunks placed almost touching each other, with pig bones (an offering maybe) in the holes they were placed in. There is no signs of course of the timber only the skim of evidence in the soil. But they were massive long walls, there curvature probably meaning defensive and yet a meeting place for the building of Avebury, which would need a lot of labour.
Durrington Neolithic settlement near to Stonehenge may have had a similar function. The function being the construction of a religious centre. Though the many pig bones on site at the Palisaded Enclosures could be put down to feasting or long stay as people came in from the surrounding areas to build.
A not so good photo of Marshall's photo of the plants that were there 5000 years ago not so different from the plants we see today and so reassuring in their ordinariness.
It's good to celebrate the things we still have rather than mourn the (many) things that are now extinct.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice that those plants are still around. Gives me hope that somehow we will survive all of the craziness going on.
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