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thesweetcheat wrote: Hi Roy
I hoped you'd stop by on this one. That's excellent news, thanks for confirming. Does the report mention the shallow post holes issue? If I remember rightly this was identified again when the first three stones were put back up as a reason not to do more, so presumably someone has re-interpreted?
Re the size, it's not so much the size as the order that feels unsatisfying somehow, but it's a purely personal response to visiting the site. I've been to plenty of sites with varying sized stones (including my favourite of all at Boskednan) and there's usually some sense that the stones are graded - just about every RSC has graded stones - or at least that putting the big stones at particular points is deliberate (for example at Avebury). Here it seemed more random, although I haven't got any knowledge of celestial alignments etc that might provide an explanation. Mind you, the simplest explanation might just be sloppiness! After all, the plan is not very circular (the NW arc is almost straight) and they didn't dig proper holes, so maybe they just didn't know what they were doing :)
tsc
Yes, although I don't have the field report at the moment (I will retrieve it this coming week) I do recall the shallow sockets being mentioned. It is worth remembering that the peat depth wasn't so great back in the day so maybe it wasn't seen as such a big deal at the time. George St Gray didn't do himself any favours by poorly backfilling a few stones in 1905, unlike what James and David Attwell the contractor carried out. I may be wrong but I believe the original depth was retained so that that the height of the ring stones were as they were meant to be, but the big difference was the quality of the backfill. Granite packing was used to trig each stone at its base and then layers of compounded rab (growen) together with more granite blocks. The growen when compounded is like concrete and a great filler between the granite blocks. A slight mounding was formed at ground level to enable water to run away from the stones.
The added plus of course is that the Highland cattle that used to roam freely and play havoc with the stones along with other stock are now denied access.
It's purely my own thoughts, but I sometimes wonder if the stones in the Neolithic meant anything to them at all, other that just marking out an area to carry out whatever it was they did in them or used them for! It seems to be completely different in the BA, especially when you see dressed stones at regular heights and more 'stubby'. The 'purpose' seems to be completely different then.
The positioning of the Stripples is interesting as it is just enough to one side of Hawks Tor to observe Rough Tor. Of course it also observes Brown Willy and Garrow Tor, but 'most' of the circles favour being in site of Rough Tor and have an iconic tri-stone in their setting.
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