Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

I thought that last night, wet chalk is amazingly, their announcement that they were "natural" put the thought to bed for me, i must stop listening to "experts."

the problem is the sarsen used to make up bridge the isn't even enough for a large single stone.
The bridge support on the land side was only 2-3ft high and they ran out of sarsen to make a complete central support as it is packed out with flint nodules.
There was no stone on the riverside.
If there were four stones you would expect to see a lot more in the area.
I searched the riverbank in winter and couldn't find anymore.
Pete

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"or is this just another method of making the subject of archaeology inaccessible to all but the sanctified few."

Well,
during the 1920s it spread to Australia, France, Hungary, The Netherlands and Flanders, Poland, and the United States and to research on communicology (then called symbolism), education, music, and religion; and during the 1930s it spread to Czechoslovakia, Italy, Korea, and Yugoslavia and to research on architecture, literature, and theater. Right after World War II, phenomenology then spread to Portugal, Scandinavia, and South Africa, and also to research on ethnicity, film, gender, and politics; in the 1960s and 1970s it spread to Canada, China, and India and to dance, geography, law, and psychology; and, finally, in the 1980s and 1990s it spread to Great Britain and also to ecology, ethnology, medicine, and nursing. In view of its continual development and its spread into other disciplines as well as across the planet, phenomenology is arguably the most significant philosophical movement in the 20th century "

so no, it probably isn't just another method of making the subject of archaeology inaccessible to all but the sanctified few!
;)

I readily admit to it being a concept I had not heard of until today; but then there is absolutely nothing wrong with not knowing something and admitting that you didn't know.

The 'P' word, I would recommend buying Christopher Alexander's (architect) four books on the Order of Nature - pricey at £40 quid a time, for those who don't understand this lovely vague concept of phenomenology. I had to fork out for them for my sons computer course, so of course read them from cover to cover ;).

But Richard Bradley is good as well, (Tiompan scepticism here) " The Significance of Monuments"... and that was what immediately struck me watching SofS, Bradley's particular theory of 'dead houses' being left to rot amongst the 'living' houses in Denmark.

Now either you can take on board the concept of this, With the proposed theory of a 'death' zone and a 'living' zone at Stonehenge, or you can believe Darvill and Wainwright that Stonehenge is a place for healing.
Either way what really counts at the MPP excavation was all the stuff painstakingly uncovered in the hot sun by the students, etc, and the report that will come out several years hence as to the dating of the pottery, bones etc. It might come with a theory attached but at least it will have some backup.......