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The Sarsen Route to Stonehenge
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Pilgrim
Pilgrim
597 posts

Re: The Sarsen Route to Stonehenge
Jul 30, 2020, 12:59
nigelswift wrote:
The current news story pinpointing the origin of the sarsens at West Woods near Marlborough https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jul/29/archaeologists-discover-source-stonehenge-giant-sarsen-stones?fbclid=IwAR1J6OJWDmtmeVA9Nk72bT0V1YjICjlQmhk80i1kNDEPTKijzEmT8E3JJuk is a bit familiar - I thought that was pretty much known (haven't the holes some of them were lifted from said to have been found?) although it now seems to have been proved chemically.

There are also some headlines about the route to Stonehenge having been discovered. In the latter days of the Stonehengineers, one of my colleagues (name escapes - age, dammit) did a study of this and came up with 3 possibilities. Not sure if it's still on the internet but Tim Daw's IS: https://www.academia.edu/2444967/Map_of_the_sarsen_route_to_Stonehenge_-_The_Origin_Of_The_Stonehenge_Sarsens

In connection with the Stonehengineers' work, I walked some of the area and concluded the slope up to the Salisbury Plain would have been a terrible barrier - except at a single place where there was a natural, gentler zig-zag route up the slope where it might have been possible to drag the stones. Again, I don't remember where it was, dammit. Does anyone know where it might have been? (Redhorn Hill someone has just suggested to me. It does ring a bell).


Hello
Gosh. An age (non-Stone) it’s been. All ways around, having come fifth after venturing forth. Long have I travelled, fuelled by knowledge and ignorance (in varying ratios).

Anyway, yes: it was I that drew (painted) the map, complete with its contrary contour colouration, for it to be inverted by (?)Steve(?) who went to Cyprus, I think. I’m grateful to Goffik for sending it to me in an email several years ago, and from which I was able to post it on my Facebook page last night. And thanks to Mike for flagging this thread up.

The “first route“ of Atkinson - from Avebury via the Devizes road and Bishops Cannings - always struck me as suspect. An unnecessary dogleg, and little worth. This was proved (to my satisfaction, anyway) by the combined efforts of green-teed lovelies and camp followers, for the Foamhenge prog back in 2005.

Atkinson’s route, and the more-or-less-straightline (echoing to the stunted squawks of attendant corvids) via Marden in the Vale Of Pewsey) both required a heave up Redhorn Hill (https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/osmaps/51.302555431303546,-1.9180774097310689,12/pin) - which I believe is the same angle of slope that we rowed a concrete block up for the afore-mentioned Foamhenge programme). I did wonder if the sarsen in the river at Marden was a sign of failure on that route.

There has - to my knowledge - always been a potential for these stones not to have come from the Grey Wethers/Fyfield Down area, but rather to have come from the Lockeridge/West Wood ‘stash’. I’ve seen it mentioned in several articles over the timespan if my intrigue with prehistory. To have it confirmed is a good thing. I was always wondering why no one had done some kind of equivalent analysis of the sarsen to see where it came from.

You may see from my map that I postulate that “the third route“ (the easternmost of the three) goes quite quickly southward - coming over the hill and into the valley at Huish (or thereabouts), and following the course of the Avon southwards. I put the route thus, because I was trying to figure out a “least effort” scenario that maybe utilised the Avon as an aid (or at least the valley as a flatter track) and would lend some additional meaning - as a reception point and delivery route for these sarsens - to the role of the Avenue that ran between Stonehenge and the Avon’s West Bank.

Anyway, thanks again.

Love, Light, and Peace

Pilgrim

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