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tiompan

5758 posts

Re: Trefael..more may and maybe's

Dec 07, 2010, 19:41

George Nash wrote:

Hi Roy,
The report should be ready soon and will send you over a PDF copy. Concerning your colleague’s scepticism, a prominent barrow cemetery does stand around 2.5 km to the north but they don't have to be in direct view with Trefael. It could be the case that during the Bronze Age, Trefael and other standing stones (associated with the barrows/cairns) interacted with each other and only the nearest standing stone to the barrow cemetery was intervisible (see Children & Nash 2001 [research in Breconshire]). I will say that your mate Tiompan is a tad curt with his responses. When dealing with archaeology, there are number of approaches one can make. The first and most useful is the report which is usually very flat, banal but informative. However, we are dealing with people but many archaeologists still focus on artefacts. In prehistory, ‘if we don’t have a go’, the subject is dehumanised flat and...guess what...banal. To play safe, I will still use 'maybe'. Like I said earlier, you should have been there. We will be probably excavating/investigating here in June/July 2011 and you are of course welcome to come along and have a look. GHN

I was not sceptical about the cemetery I asked if that was the same one that is on Coflein and is unsighted from the stone . I am however sceptical about “A ritual marker to guide communities through the landscape” for many reasons , some of which have been noted .The concept of “sacred landscape “ is hardly one with strict parameters and of course a limited number of monuments even if unsighted from each other could fit the bill , after all we make the rules . For some ,their patch of earth /country/planet /universe is sacred . If the landscape around the Trefael stone is “sacred “ then anywhere with prehistoric or historic monuments for that matter within a couple of miles of each other is also sacred (we don't know that the capstone would have been considered like other standings stones with markings in the BA ,that's another maybe ).The problem then is how shall we redefine the “sacred landscapes “ of Kilmartin , Stonehenge ,Avebury , Loch of Harray etc . which are clearly of a different category . True , archaeology/anthropology is about people as is literary fiction but it's all too easy to make up stories about monuments and sometimes archaeology comes up with facts that are much more interesting than fiction .

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Re: Trefael..more may and maybe's (George Nash)

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Trefael..more may and maybe's – Sanctuary, Dec 03, 2010, 10:24


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