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Stone Shifting 3
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Steve Gray
Steve Gray
931 posts

Re: Last Try
Sep 05, 2003, 00:20
Nigel, one of your recurring themes has been that the archaeological establishment already accepts that large numbers of people would have been involved in the construction of Stonehenge. You suggested that we are using the "small numbers" factor as a means of justifying our method. I think that perhaps the reverse is true; the establishment has based its "large numbers" thinking on the fact that they haven't been able to see a way of doing it with a small team.

I have done a little web-research and it would seem that the population at the time consisted mainly of small agricultural settlements. There are so many neolithic sites around Britain that:

1. When a particular community wanted to erect a megalithic structure, then a large workforce was assembled from many surrounding communities, rather like Amish barn building. However, this would involve many man-hours because you not only have to build your own, but you have to help everyone for miles around to build theirs. It's also likely to give rise to resentment: "Hey come on, be fair now! You Salisbury guys only helped us erect a single monolith, and now you expect us to build a whole blinkin' circle".
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2. An elite priesthood or aristocracy existed (with like-minded factions all over Britain) who were able to conscript whomever they wanted to build these structures.
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3. A community was capable of building its own megalithic structure.

Take your pick. Gordon's method certainly allows for this latter option, which none of the other theories do. Mind you, there are counter examples, like Silbury Hill. I'd like to see anyone put up a replica of that in 24 hours!
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