Stonehenge Tunnel = £1,600,000,000 (yes, that's right)

[Vorpal]

All that road-building does is generate traffic. Please don't.

What about Norway, the Promised Land, building tunnels under the sea for a few thousand inhabitants?

The Promised Land? I don't know, but I don't think they need to build tunnels under the sea, either

I like the ferries.

The city where I live has some tunnels underneath. I like that those are there because it means that the town centre has relatively little traffic. It's nice for cycling and walking. But most of the people who drive through those tunnels could cycle or use public transport. And I don't like that aspect of it.

[Cyril Haearn]

All that road-building does is generate traffic. Please don't.

What about Norway, the Promised Land, building tunnels under the sea for a few thousand inhabitants?

The Promised Land? I don't know, but I don't think they need to build tunnels under the sea, either

I like the ferries.

The city where I live has some tunnels underneath. I like that those are there because it means that the town centre has relatively little traffic. It's nice for cycling and walking. But most of the people who drive through those tunnels could cycle or use public transport. And I don't like that aspect of it.

There are ferries in Hamburg and Kiel too, the best or only way from A to B
Are there protests against tunnel building up there? Is Norway short of usable space for building and agriculture?

[PRL]

The stones came from Wales of course
Cymru am byth!

The smaller stones did. The big sarsens were found closer. Uniquely the stones were shaped and jointed together so yes Stonehenge is very important.

[Cyril Haearn]

The stones came from Wales of course
Cymru am byth!

The smaller stones did. The big sarsens were found closer. Uniquely the stones were shaped and jointed together so yes Stonehenge is very important.

Unique? Can that be proved?
Are they shaped and joined like in carpentry?

It really is fascinating to realise how much we do not know, can never know for sure. I went to a talk about mediaeval toilets, people threw old tools and the like into them where they were very well preserved

How may one reach Stonehenge by train?

[Vorpal]

Are there protests against tunnel building up there?

There are sometimes objections, but I'm not aware of protests. There was a protest over removal of a general traffic lane to create a bus lane near where I live. I thought it was a great idea. There are lots of well used bus services, but travel time reliability cna be an issue at peak times. I'm sure if we had a bus lane instead of a general travel lane, more people would use the buses.

Is Norway short of usable space for building and agriculture?

Yes. Those pesky hills get in the way.

[Si]

]
What are the new discoveries, how could they rewrite our understanding?

Looking forward to a report from your 'jolly'

afraid i'm not allowed to say until its been published......such is the way of these things. Surfice to say other recent work has, for instance, rewritten the dating of the various phases, and demonstrated that people were a lot more mobile than we previously thought, having much greater networks of contact with people in other areas.

Are they shaped and joined like in carpentry?

yep, they used woodworking joints to fix the lintels to the uprights.

[ChrisButch]

What about Norway, the Promised Land, building tunnels under the sea for a few thousand inhabitants?

Not only road tunnels, incidentally. The latest piece of Norwegian terraforming grandiloquence (easy enough when you have the world's largest sovereign wealth fund to play with) is a plan to drive a tunnel for ocean-going
ships through a peninsular which inconveniently sticks out West into the North Atlantic , frequently delaying North-South shipping because of adverse weather and tidal conditions.

[Tangled Metal]

Surfice to say other recent work has, for instance, rewritten the dating of the various phases, and demonstrated that people were a lot more mobile than we previously thought, having much greater networks of contact with people in other areas.

Forgive me if this isn't relevant but I read years ago that early society's here were part of a wider European network. I'm fairly sure neolithic man was part of a wider network.

I'm not sure about the timings but up in the orkneys IIRC there have been found important sites that drew peoples up from Southern England or further afield. I'll see if I can find the national geographic article I read about it in.

Even stone axes quarried from great langdales have been found in ceremonial burials I read in Eastern europe.

So how new is this idea of networks?

[Cyril Haearn]

Stone axe heads from Penmaenmawr were found at many distant places in the "UK"

[Si]

Surfice to say other recent work has, for instance, rewritten the dating of the various phases, and demonstrated that people were a lot more mobile than we previously thought, having much greater networks of contact with people in other areas.

Forgive me if this isn't relevant but I read years ago that early society's here were part of a wider European network. I'm fairly sure neolithic man was part of a wider network.

I'm not sure about the timings but up in the orkneys IIRC there have been found important sites that drew peoples up from Southern England or further afield. I'll see if I can find the national geographic article I read about it in.

Even stone axes quarried from great langdales have been found in ceremonial burials I read in Eastern europe.

So how new is this idea of networks?

material cutlure != people

Its long been known that such things as stone axes were moved over great distances but this may have been due to wide exchange networks........for instance there's loads of far eastern stuff in my house but ive never been to china and as far as i know noone from china has ever been to my house. We have evidence of the odd bronze age european near stonehenge but again, nothing to say if this was an exception or a rule. If we think about societies that didnt have roads or wheels or riding horses then we might thinkitmore probable that people, for the most part, stayed local and just exchanged exotic items with neighbours. Stable isotope analysis is now leading us to question this assumption.

Oh, and if you watched that documentory about the ness of brodgar being the prototype for stonehenge etc, please take it with a pinch ofsalt!

[Cyril Haearn]

I find archaeology very interesting but what is it good for, can you briefly summarise?
Diolch yn fawr iawn

[Si]

I find archaeology very interesting but what is it good for, can you briefly summarise?
Diolch yn fawr iawn

Cultural wellbeing.

[Tangled Metal]

I don't see brodgar as being a prototype for any other place. That far back I doubt you can explain what linkages there were with any degree of certainty.

However there are cases of bodies found in locations far from where they grew up. IIRC they have means of identifying locations bodies are likely to have lived in from testing teeth. Is it strontium isotopes or am I confusing different tests here? IIRC there's a significant body found in the Stonehenge landscape that came from far afield. I'm certain similar cases (albeit not as prominent as the Stonehenge one) have been identified.

Of course you're the expert so if I'm wrong you'll know. I'm only thing off a past interest in archaeology and the books I've half read about it. IIRC one coffee table book I got given from a prominent Prof in archeology has information on spread of people and ideas plus networks from that distant time.

[Vorpal]

I find archaeology very interesting but what is it good for, can you briefly summarise?
Diolch yn fawr iawn

Archaeology is often the only way to find out about people of the past. Most of human development occurred before the written record. Even when there are written records, we often lack details to put them in context, such as social structure, or the physical organisation of places and buildings.

[Si]

You are probably thinking of the Amesbury Archer who was from the area around the Alps. Thought to be possibly an influential metal worker......thus may have signified movement of just a few special people rather than a larger number of the population.

In terms of movement of architectual ideas, we certainly have some evidence of that, for instance the Scotish timber halls. But there was a documentary on recently that tried to convince us that the structure at the ness of brodgar wasthe capital of the neolithic world, inspired stonehenge, etc......i.e. The tv makers needed to come up with a stunning story to sell their program, never mind the facts. I fear that we might have something similar at larkhill with the new causewayed enclosure


And if you want to see the impact archaeology can have...have a search around the internet to find some discussion of. Cheddar gorge man........the alt-righters are having kittens

Btw, "whats this got to do with cycling?".