David Raven
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Re: "standing stone fences"
Jun 04, 2004, 23:23
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Aye, I take it this ain't what you mean?
They look just like fences of stones tho :-) 'made from either close fitting upright slabs or standing stones with noticeable gaps in between them'...
I'll post a pic (to be deleted if it's irrelevant!)
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fitzcoraldo
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Re: "standing stone fences"
Jun 05, 2004, 01:25
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I guess we're saying that just because a field boundary utilises large stones it doesn't mean that it's prehistoric.
I suppose that if suitable materials are lying around then its far easier to use them than build a dry stone wall.
The only sure proof is excavation.
Doesn't mean that they're not lovely to look at though.
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BrigantesNation
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Re: "standing stone fences"
Jun 05, 2004, 01:54
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Yeah you did. I really must show you this proto field I know, it's a really weird place.
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StoneLifter
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Re: "standing stone fences"
Jun 05, 2004, 07:54
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Get over this field boundary stuff. The site you link to was surveyed by Thom. It is on page 149 of his 'Megalithic Sites In Britain'. He extrapolates two declinations from this stone row, both solar alignments to the east. One of the alignments is marked by a cairn of stones on an intervening hill. The test of whether a line containing stones is prehistoric, in the sense we would use it, is whether it contains a 'significant stellar alignment'. The absolute proof would be a photograph of that alignment happening.
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FourWinds
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Re: "standing stone fences"
Jun 05, 2004, 09:06
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>> Get over this field boundary stuff. The site you link to was surveyed by Thom.
Hang on ... excavation report said ... "May be the remains of a field boundary"
Having a dig about is usually more reliable than simply surveying a site. What the report possibly missed is - May have been reused in a field boundary.
>> The test of whether a line containing stones is prehistoric, in the sense we would use it,
>> is whether it contains a 'significant stellar alignment'.
'THE' test? The one and only? Not really. I could show you several modern fences that have Equinox or Solstice alignments. A 'significant stellar alignment' would be just one very good indicator.
Sometimes a row of stones is just a row of stones ....
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FourWinds
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Oh and ...
Jun 05, 2004, 09:08
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Not all prehistoric rows have 'significant stellar alignments', so that relying on that test would actually lose you a few genuine ones whilst encompassing some that are spurious.
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StoneLifter
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Re: Oh and ...
Jun 05, 2004, 09:30
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I went to look at Slaggyford stone row III with the county archaeologists last week and one of them liked it and the other considered it an ancient field boundary. I measured the azimuths both north and south, later in the day and have just yesterday worked out the declinations. They are to the winter solstice sunrise and to the summer solstice sunset. The view to the summer sunset is blocked by a stone wall but there is a notch on the horizon to the south (it has Alston's TV transmitter above). The photograph of the sun rising from that notch must be the proof that those little stones are a prehistoric stone row ...
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FourWinds
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Probably
Jun 05, 2004, 10:27
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I don't know that it's 'proof', but it would certainly be very, very strong evidence.
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nigelswift
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Re: Probably
Jun 05, 2004, 11:47
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"The test of whether a line containing stones is prehistoric, in the sense we would use it, is whether it contains a 'significant stellar alignment'. The absolute proof would be a photograph of that alignment happening."
The sun rising in a notch, or an alignment on a sacred hill, I like those and am more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in the Chance/Deliberate assessment, since there's only one notch or only one Sacred Hill, so the term Likely seems a very appropriate one to use.
But purely stellar, non-landform related alignments, they're different, as there's always an irritating voice in the back of my mind saying how many stars are there, how many do we think might have been thought significant (and how would we know) and how accurate must the alignment be to qualify as possibly deliberate. Sometimes, it says take the number of possibly significant stars and plot for each one it's positions on each of the possibly significant days of the year, add a 5% margin of error, and there's not a spot in the sky that you could regard as insignificant.
The only way round this, it seems to me, is boring statistical analysis to see if there's a locational or monument class tendency to a particular alignment. I don't see how a photograph of a single particular alignment happening gets us any further forward than a photograph of my garden fence....
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wideford
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Re: Probably
Jun 05, 2004, 12:28
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Added to which is the fact that many stars are known to have changed brightness since early observations, including a few major ones. Astronomical fact, before anyone queries this.
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