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tjj
tjj
3606 posts

Re: Wells 'n' shit
Feb 04, 2017, 15:07
tiompan wrote:
thesweetcheat wrote:



The number of stone circles built in close proximity to rocky outcrops can't be coincidental, for example.



Couldn't that be explained , and verified , by them being source of the material ?


Took Steve Marshall's book 'Exploring Avebury" down from the shelf and re-read his chapter on Avebury's Waterscape. Sure he won't mind me reproducing the opening passage here. I think relevant.

"Water is vital to life. For any settlement of people a reliable supply of clean drinking water is essential; a farming community must also have water to sustain crops and livestock. But to the Avebury people, water seems also to have had ritual or religious importance, since so many of their monuments were sited near rivers and springs.
Comparing Avebury to other henge monuments in Britain reveals that a strikingly common factor is their proximity to moving water, and particularly to a confluence of rivers – often where one river flowing south joins with another flowing east. This maybe coincidence; it may also be that south-west Britain’s natural eastward tilt produces a general movement of water in that direction. Yet there are many prehistoric sites in other parts of Britain that also indicate a preference for east and south. The reason for this may be in the sky.
The sun and moon both rise in the east, reach their highest point in the southern sky and set in the west. This phenomenon has been explained in folklore as the sun, moon or both, ‘dying’ in the west, passing through an ‘underworld’ to the north and being ‘reborn’ in the east. North is associated in many cultures with darkness and death. Longbarrows, the earliest of Neolithic burial monuments, are usually aligned with an entrance that faces the sunrise, suggesting a belief in reincarnation."
Taken from "Exploring Avebury -The Essential Guide" by Steve Marshall
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