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Stone shifting - was it just about effort?
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BrigantesNation
1733 posts

Re: Anything for an easy life!
Jan 20, 2004, 09:46
It is my view that the Celts may have refused to adopt written language on religious grounds. They certainly had access to it for hundreds of years.

Many of our decisions, even today are founded on moral principles rather than common sense or the most efficient view. Sometimes these decisions can mean that excellent inventions never get adopted.

God, determinism seems to dominate every discussion I have these days, bloody OU.

Bottom line - moving stones more efficiently= new technology - evidence from the past with regards to adoption of new technology = the rate of adoption is rarely driven by the benefits of the technology and mostly is the result of a complex interplay between the technology and socially accepted norms. In this case as best as we can tell this was a highly ritualistic process which would tend to suggest a firm reluctance to adopt new techniques on grounds of pure efficiency.

This of course is not an argument against any particular method of moving a stone, more an arguement against the likelyhood of this method changing once it was an established part of the ritual.

that being said, it is a possible conject that the first stones to be erected were smaller, the larger ones coming along as the numbers involved with ceremonies increased and it is therefore likely that the technique adopted would have been the one appropraite for the smaller stones.

Then again I may be talking crap!
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Re: Anything for an easy life! (FourWinds)		 Replies:
Re: Anything for an easy life! (GordonP)
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