The Stonehenge Enigma (Prehistoric Britain Book 1)

by Langdon, Robert John

  At this stage of the monument’s construction, I believe Stonehenge finally turned from being a monument to the moon, for curing the sick and excarnating the dead, to being a shrine to life and sunrise, which was in the Bronze Age and thereafter, taken over by a new civilisation of druids and tribal warriors.

  Proof of Hypothesis No. 25

  Excavations undertaken between 1988 and 1990 in the ‘elbow’ part of the Avenue, show that 14 large post holes were positioned at an angle that would meet the predicted shoreline of my hypothesis during the Neolithic Period.

  Chapter 11 - Snails can tell us an old story

  In this chapter, we look at a method that archaeologists use in trying to understanding how past communities lived amongst the monuments they built. One method used allows us to understand what kind of landscape they inhabited. The rolling landscape, vegetation and farming patterns we see today are largely a product of the modern agriculture, although much of it has its heritage in our ancestors’ landscape of six to ten thousand years ago. This landscape is not the one that our prehistoric ancestors would remotely recognise. Only the general shape of the landscape remains unchanged – the rivers, climate, vegetation, wild animals, and patterns of land use have all been completely transformed by our dry climate and industrialisation.

  Archaeologists have recently used the discovery of small snails in the excavation soils in an attempt to understand the prehistoric conditions, and possible uses, of the land surrounding archaeological sites. Scientists believe that if we can understand the species and number of these creatures found within the soil samples excavated, we may have a clearer indication of the environment our ancestors inhabited.

  Mollusca

  If we look at the site at W58 Amesbury(Coneybury Henge), archaeologists (in this case Roy Entwistle for the ‘The Stonehenge Environs Project’) traditionally interpret the evidence gained by identifying individual mollusc species as indicating that taller vegetation must have been present nearby at the time of construction - as the C. tridentatum snail inhabits only grasslands.

  Unfortunately, when you look at the numbers, the assumption just does not ‘add up’, for that breed of snail numbers only 204 of the total of 1145 snails found in that sample. Some open-field snails, like C. Tridentatum, also seem to love shaded habitats such as deep forest litter and primeval woodland, according to Dr Roy Anderson’s report (Species Inventory of Northern Ireland, 1996). Consequently, the only thing we know for sure is that snails like dark wet places, so they can be found under logs; but if there is a lack of trees, they favour rocks.

  This information can be reinterpreted as the tendency for snails to like rocks which is good news for us, as we can now show with a great degree of certainty when the Monolith stones (if any) were erected, because there seems to be a massive increase in the total snail numbers at a soil depth at a depth of 1.2m to 1.3m. What needs to be kept in mind is that the Mollusca are aquatic animals and can only survive in wet habitats, with certain plants. The more damp, the better for the humble snail; it does not thrive on dry, barren land. I believe that the increase in snail numbers in the past not only shows the type of vegetation in the past but, more importantly, the climate and soil conditions - in particular, the amount of water in the environment.

  The snail counts for Coneybury Henge also show that the ditch was at one stage much wetter, at 1.0 m – 1.6 m excavation depth. There are 2,200% more snails present in the ditch than today, which shows either:

  • The flora had overgrown the site

  • The stones (a snail’s perfect home) were present at the site

  • The ground was wet and boggy, after filling with water and then silting up

  Moreover, it is shown that at 1.8 m to 2.8 m depth there were no snails at all – this could only happen if either the landscape turned into a desert, or the ditch filled with water so that the only soil floating to the bottom of the ditch was water silt. When you realise that from 1.8 m to 2.2 m the ditch was filled with silt from water, the sequence suddenly makes perfect sense:

  • A depth of 3 metres or more correlates to the end of the Ice Age, when snails lived in small numbers on tundra (treeless plains) and sparse grassland.

  • At 2.8 m to 1.8 m, a ditch was built and water filled the ditch – a few snails falling into the water would account for the small numbers found.

  • At 1.8 m to 0.8 m, the ditch dried up and became a marsh surrounded with stones, a perfect environment for our aquatic snail to live and breed within.

  • At 0.8 m to 0.4 m, the stones of the henge were removed and the ditch became a grassy dip in the ground.

  The most amazing thing about this site can be seen in the cross-section of Coneybury Henge. It clearly shows why this site was chosen as a henge, and why the ditch filled with water. During the Mesolithic Period, water would have been present on two sides of the site. In fact, the henge sat on a peninsula that overlooked Stonehenge, separated from it by a vast waterway over 100m wide. Moreover, if you look at the Stonehenge site in comparison, you will see that Coneybury Henge is just 3 metres higher. This height difference could be for one of two possible reasons:

  • The groundwater table on this side of the river may be 2 metres higher, which is quite possible as chalk contains strata that can allow this.

  • The site was built prior to Stonehenge, when the waters were even higher – which makes it a greater shame that farmers have ploughed it into complete extinction with the possible losses of its history for all time.

  This evidence in itself is quite compelling but, interestingly, like the Stonehenge ditch, Coneybury Henge’s ditch contained dark material showing that water was present when the ditch was constructed. If we look at a soil report for the same ditch where the snail survey was completed, Helen Keeley found ‘a turf line’ of soil between 2.78 cm and 2.81 cm composed of humic (organic) materials.

  So, is this the same dark material Hawley found at Stonehenge?

  I believe so; in fact, within this layer Keeley also found the largest deposit of calcium carbonate in the entire sample. Calcium carbonate is a common substance, present in rocks and many other objects all over the world; it is the main ingredient of the shells of aquatic organisms and snails. Calcium carbonate producing creatures such as corals, algae, and microorganisms usually live in shallow water environments; because they need sunlight in order to make calcium carbonate.

  It was also found throughout the rest of the sample, but in much smaller amounts. The greatest amount was left at the bottom – clear evidence that shortly after the time of its construction, Coneybury Henge ditch was full of water, just like Stonehenge. In conclusion, we have now shown that Mollusca data can be very useful to indicate; when the flood waters started at the site, when the stone monuments were erected, when the groundwater table dropped on the site when the forest clearances started so that the site could be accessed by land.

  Proof of Hypothesis No. 26

  The lack of Mollusca and the finding of calcium carbonate, at certain levels in the ditch of Coneybury Henge prove that the moat surrounding the monument was full of water due to the high water table predicted during the Mesolithic Period by my hypothesis.

  Chapter 12 – Barrows – Long and Round

  A tumulus (plural tumuli) the word tumulus is Latin for ‘mound’ or ‘small hill’, from the PIE root *teuh- with extended zero grade *tum-, ‘to bulge, swell’ also found in tumor, thumb, thigh and thousand - A mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn. A long barrow is a long tumulus, usually for numbers of burials. The method of inhumation may involve a dolmen, a cyst, a mortuary enclosure, a mortuary house or a chamber tomb.

  Not overly clear, is it!

  It’s a grave, although the Latin word does not mean grave, but a ‘small hill’. That’s a big difference; t
hey also can be long or round, stone or earth, etc. When we look at the traditional archaeological definition of tumuli, we are offered:

  • Bank barrow

  • Bell barrow

  • Bowl barrow

  • D-shaped barrow, round barrow - with a purposely flat edge at one side often defined by stone slabs

  • Fancy barrow - generic term for any Bronze Age barrows more elaborate than a simple hemispherical shape.

  • Long barrow

  • Oval barrow - a Neolithic long barrow consisting of an elliptical, rather than rectangular or trapezoidal, mound.

  • Platform barrow - the least common of the recognised types of round barrow, consisting of a flat, wide circular mound, which may be surrounded by a ditch. They occur widely across Southern England with a marked concentration in East and West Sussex.

  • Pond barrow - a barrow consisting of a shallow circular depression, surrounded by a bank running around the rim of the depression.

  • Ring barrow - a bank which encircles a number of burials.

  • Round barrow - a circular feature created by the Bronze Age peoples of Britain and also the later Romans, Vikings, and Saxons. Divided into subclasses such as saucer and bell barrow. The Six Hills are a rare Roman example.

  • Saucer barrow - circular Bronze Age barrow featuring a low, wide mound surrounded by a ditch, which may be accompanied by an external bank.

  • Square barrow - burial site, usually of Iron Age date, consisting of a small, square, ditched enclosure surrounding a central burial, which may also have been covered by a mound

  I make those 13 different types of barrow!

  If the archaeologists are right, and barrows are just grave plots, they could be any shape. But do we really believe each had a different function or the same purpose in various forms? The truth is that there are (in my view) just five categories of barrow:

  • Long Barrow - the biggest and earliest form used for burials

  • Round Barrows – big and round used as markers

  • Pond Barrows – wells for water extraction

  • Disturbed barrows – Round/Long/Pond Barrows that have degraded over 5,000 years by the elements and man’s attempts to destroy or excavate them

  • Copy barrows – imitation Barrows from a later date, mimicking their ancestors.

  Barrow Altitude

  We have taken a sample of 50 prehistoric sites around and including Stonehenge, to look at the topology of the area and their location. Our findings clearly show that the traditional belief that prehistoric man made his burial and ceremonial structures on top of hills is wholly incorrect. In fact, in our survey, only 8% of sites are on top of a hill.

  On average, sites are located 83% of the way up a hill.

  Distribution Map of the 50 barrow/sites around Stonehenge

  This includes our most ancient site, Stonehenge; we are led to believe that our ancestors brought the bluestones all the way from Wales - some 250 miles - only to stop 50 metres short of the top of the hill because they were….. tired? Or some other obscure unknown ceremonial or astronomical reason.

  As we have seen from previous chapters, Long Barrows were created for the bones of the dead after an excarnation – this is when a body is left uncovered and exposed to the elements for birds to pick the skeleton clean. It is believed that the bones were brought on a boat to their final resting place, as all barrows were built in close proximity to a river.

  I believe that without a rise in groundwater levels, this process would have been totally illogical and in some cases impossible, looking at the locations of these sites. As an example, if we look at the nearest Long Barrows to Stonehenge, we find two next to each other at a crossroads called simply ‘the Long Barrow Crossroads’. We have seen in a previous chapter on earthworks, these objects had canals built for them. But if we are ‘incorrect’ and the experts are right then the most likely routes for funeral processions would be from the rivers on either side of the site at their current level. Unfortunately, for these archaeologists, these are all over 3 km away from the Long Barrows.

  Moreover, some of these routes pass higher ground on their way to the Long Barrows, ‘begging the question’, why would you not build a barrow there?

  Routes to the Long Barrow Crossroads at Stonehenge from the existing water courses

  Long Barrow 'walkway' using the BLUE route

  Long Barrow 'processional walkway' using the GREEN route

  Long Barrow 'processional walkway' using the PINK route

  Long Barrow 'processional walkway' using the RED route

  Other routes do eventually reach the top of the hill upon which the Long Barrows are built, but then have to come down again because (as we have shown) the barrows themselves are partway down the slope. Consequently, we are asked by archaeologists to believe that our ancestors took their funerals up and down hills, covering 3 km to bury their dead, when higher sites were available along the processional routes.

  My hypothesis makes perfect sense of the locations of these ancient monuments, by understanding where they stood when they were first built – on the shorelines of vast prehistoric waterways. For our survey also shows that these barrows were not constructed at random heights. In the Stonehenge sample of 50 sites, the lowest burial was at 89 m OD (above current sea level), the highest at 115 m OD.

  If you were going to go to all the effort of constructing a Long Barrow - which would have taken many months, if not years, working with just stone axes and antler picks - then you can imagine that you might either build it at the top of a hill to provide the dead with a highly visible monument, or simply avoid all the extra work of carrying things up the slope by burying them at the bottom of the hill. The only logical reason you would construct your barrow at the mid-point of a hillside would be that there was another overriding factor to consider. This reason can only be that you can’t build a barrow under water, and the groundwater at that time lay between 75 – 90 metres OD.

  The variation in this figure is due to the groundwater tables falling from the Mesolithic (high) to the Neolithic (low), after which barrows were no longer built for their original purpose (although Bronze and Iron Age people may have copied their ancestral rituals – but that is not the case in this area).

  Proof of Hypothesis No. 27

  The 50 barrows that surround Stonehenge are all built over 75 m above sea level, but below the tops of the hills upon which they are constructed. Statistically, this would only happen if something prevented building below that level – and that something was water.

  Long Barrows

  The first thing we should note about Long Barrows is that they are unique to Northern Europe, unlike Round Barrows, which are found all over the world. Archaeologists agree that the Long Barrow is the oldest monument to exist in our landscape (there is even some carbon dating evidence from Carnac in France that dates St Michael’s tumuli (a Long Barrow) to be in existence at least by 6850BCE - which has been dismissed as an anomaly). This belief originates from the fact that the structure is very elaborate and includes megaliths, as seen at Avebury as well as carbon dating of the bones found inside. Moreover, they are also aware that there are bones from many dead people collected together in the chambers of these types of burial mounds, rather than in individual graves, or cremations that were seen at a later date.

  West Kennet Long Barrow - showing the moats

  The number and condition of these bones show us that they were disarticulated, with only the larger bones and skulls being brought to the sites after death, probably after the bones had been de-fleshed. The reason we are interested in these objects is twofold. We believe their shape and design are of great importance. Firstly, the mounds are long and thin, with the entrance at the end of the mound.

  The entire Long Barrow mound originally had a ditch dug completely around its exterior, which starts to relate it to an object used by our ancestors after the great flood.

  To understand why they would construct a
ditch, we must again look at these monuments in the light of our new discovery of waterways at the time of construction. During the prehistoric period, Long Barrows like West Kennet was on a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water. This groundwater now gives us a clue as to why the ditches that surrounded the monument were dug, for the bottom of the ditches would have been below the groundwater table at this location.

  Proof of Hypothesis No. 28