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Natural or Induced?
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tiompan
tiompan
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Re: Natural or Induced? Pickering to Wheeldale
Aug 28, 2012, 12:28
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Sanctuary wrote:
tiompan wrote:

TSC ,Not unlike digital technlogy it's moving fast . Just as RC dating transformed out understanding this stuff will do the same . We already are capable of talking in generations from DNA e.g. it wasn't the "ancestors "deposited in WKLB , it was the parents or if not , people a generation older than builders .Next step is discovering where they and their ancestors came from and how they were related .


That's the bit I'm really keen on knowning, how they were related particularly in family terms. If the WKLB was only used for a very short space of time after its initial build, rather than the 1000 years or so that it was around before being sealed up, then it 'suggests' just a family use, but is that realistic? It seems odd to me that a 'family only' tomb should be left open for so long after the last burial.


Piggot mentions that the secondary infill overlay a blocking stone in the SW chamber and some collapsed walling suggesting that there was some sort of closure after the primary deposits . The familial story will be interesting although unlikelty to match Cladh Hallan where one of the skeletons was a composite of others with none of the components sharing the same mother ,(the father we don't know about) .


For those who haven't read it this is EH's WKLB advice for Teachers! Great photo on opening page though.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/publications/avebury-teachers-kit/information_sheet_for_west_kennet_longbarrow.pdf

10 to 30 years of use does seem unrealistic to me George as we're only talking one lifespan in the Neolithic.


We don't know when the monument was built as there are no dates from the old ground surface ,the ditches or constructional features .The date of build is thus taken as being from just prior to the primary deposits . The evidence is that the primary depositions ocurred 3670- 3635 bc with the last internments in this phase taking place 3640-3240 bc .There was a hiatus when there were no depositions , a blocking stone had and walling had fallen and the seondary deposits were ound above them . At other contemporary long barrows that have been accurately dated we find something similar Ascott under Wychwood was in use for 3- 5 generations and possibly much less ,Hazleton was in use for primary burials for 2-3 generations ,with lsecondary use in the later Neolithic. The RC revolution upset many preconceptions "how could barbarians buid Stonehenge " etc . Similarly the DNA revolution " my Aryan/celtic genes didn't come from Africa/Anatolia " .Do we ignore the evidence in favour of what we would like to believe or imagine to be the "sensible " interpretation ?
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