tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post5085782908172420023..comments2023-10-19T04:59:08.088-07:00Comments on science buzz: It's time to get real about Stonehenge - Britain's premier 'SKY BURIAL' sitesciencebodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-56162562197937371832018-02-13T22:22:30.220-08:002018-02-13T22:22:30.220-08:00Tester
1. Copy and paste of image address only (v...Tester<br /><br />1. Copy and paste of image address only (view of A303 from Stonehenge)<br /><br />https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T8afFs4Vk20/WoK7-vlDM4I/AAAAAAAAGEY/93mFqEeBmXU8P33pLQfeLv89JR1vc7CrACLcBGAs/s320/DSC03357.JPG<br /><br />(Have tried using the img tag in HTML, but sadly not accepted).sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-10842503081415301742016-06-23T10:42:04.692-07:002016-06-23T10:42:04.692-07:00Google has a feedback facility, of which this blog...Google has a feedback facility, of which this blogger availed himself 2 days ago to send the following complaint:<br /><br /><b> COMPLAINT</b><br /><br /><i>I have recently proposed a new theory for Stonehenge, almost but not quite entirely my own, one I consider groundbreaking, as set out on both my generalist sciencebuzz site, created 2009, and my specialist Stonehenge site, created 2012.<br /><br />http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/its-time-to-get-real-about-stonehenge.html<br /><br />https://sussingstonehenge.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/might-the-standing-stones-of-stonehenge-and-avebury-have-been-purpose-built-for-sky-burial-providing-a-secure-perch-for-crows-or-maybe-seagulls-to-roost-or-nest/<br /><br />Yet neither of these postings appears in the first 20 pages of returns under a non-specialist entry level search for (stonehenge).<br /><br />I had been thinking that the time had come to produce a short summary, one that might be picked up by the media. But what's the point if I'm not picked up (or purposely excluded) by the major search engine? Wise saying: "If you're not on Google, you might as well not exist".<br /><br />I'll wait a day or two to see if one or other of my postings/sites appear, as has happened when I've lodged similar protests in the past re other topics and interests, notably Shroud of Turin. If they don't I'll be forced to tell my few regular visitors that I've been blacklisted by Google, for reasons best known to itself, and there's no point in continuing to blog.</i><br /><br /><b>Colin Berry (PhD)</b><br />(retired scientist).<br /><br />21 June 2016<br /><br />Have just checked all 20 pages of a (stonehenge) search on google.uk. The listings are 90% of more commercial tat. None of my postings on Stonehenge appear anywhere on an Any Time search. This posting appeared briefly on a Past Month search, from which it disappeared at the end of the month (today) but has so far failed to appear on Past Year or Any Time.I'll continue to check, but am not optimistic of seeing my ideas disseminated via the thoroughly corrupted Google so-called "search engine" which given the extent of post-algorithmic 'curation' is now little more than a fine-tuned commercial trade directory.<br /><br />While this state of affairs continues, there is no point in me posting anything further on Stonehenge and/or other Neolithic sites. Google is indifferent to, and indeed contemptuous of personal blogs, indeed of the world of ideas in general, regardless of the credentials of those who pen them. Google should be prevented from describing itself as a "search engine", that term implying absence of commercially-influenced human intervention by its 53,000+ army of employees (see wiki).<br /><br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-32666534553621426792016-06-05T00:04:03.603-07:002016-06-05T00:04:03.603-07:00Google continues to ignore/censor/blacklist my sci...Google continues to ignore/censor/blacklist my sciencebuzz and Wordpress postings under a simple (stonehenge) search, but I'm on the case, having two independent lines of evidence from this topic and my Shroud of Turin interest that it "post-curates" the initial algorithnic output, or in my case stonehenges them , i.e. post-cremates then buries out of sight. I'm on the case, Google, and you, or rather one of your 53,000 e-commerce promoting scrutineers in Mountain Ash has slipped up badly (details later).sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-67780586054917618672016-06-05T00:03:30.369-07:002016-06-05T00:03:30.369-07:00Am now in email contact with Prof. Tim Thompson. H...Am now in email contact with Prof. Tim Thompson. Have promised to send a dossier by Tuesday (2 days time) settting out my reasons for thinking that Stonehenge was purpose-built for sky burial, the lintels being bird perches, the Altar Stone being s bird table.<br /><br />Have just spotted Sarah Knapton's article in today's Sunday Telegraph, which is basically a press release on behalf of Prof. Mike Parker-Pearson, not noted for being publicity-shy.<br /><br />http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/06/05/original-stonehenge-was-dismantled-in-wales-and-moved-to-wiltshi/<br /><br />At least I now know his grounds for thinking that it was pre-cremated remains that were brought to Stonehenge, and Mike is now talking about 500,000 bone fragments from hundereds of people, not the 50,000 from 60 individuals previously given. That's assuming he's been correctly quoted (the Knapton account is of variable quality, being totally mistaken for example in thinking that the sarsen stones were "quarried" locally when of course the description "littered around the landscape" would be more accurate.<br /><br />The evidence for imported cremations? It's based we're told on the variable composition of pyre material. Different pyres, different sources of timber (presumably) meaning cremations at the non-local sites of those different timbers.<br /><br />I have another explanation, already mooted. When somebody within a few score miles of Stonehnege died, their body would be handed over to the Neolithic equivalent of funeral directors. It would be transported to Stonehenge for sky burial. The funeral crew would take with them the kindling and timber needed for end-stage cremation of the excarnated, partially skeletonized remains. Those cremated remains, plus accompanying pyre material, i.e. charcoal, ashes etc would either be interred <i>in situ</i>, or if requested, be returned to the relatives.<br /><br />There's more, much more one could say in the light of the super-abundance of ctremated remains now beong reported. It knocks on the head the idea that "burial" at Stonhenge was only for a tiny priviliged elite, and I say it supports my thesis that Stonehenge operated on an industrial scale, as one might expect of a site that had been purpose built at great cost in time and effort to diapose of the dead in a manner that seemed proper and fitting to the Neolithic mindset, anxious that the spirit should have an easy escape from mortal remains to the afterlife, something deemed uncertain if resorting to simple one-stage burial or cremation. Sky burial, probably with end-stage cremation, was seen as ticking all the right boxes.<br /><br />I have also communicated the gist of my theory to some old, sorry, long-standing blogging associates, refugees many moons ago from the imploding my.telegraph site, which is finally being closed down in the coming week.<br /><br />https://charioteers.org/<br /><br />Meanwhile the Telegraph still fails to provide a replacement comments facility on its new-look format, making it impossible to respond to the Knapton article or anything else for that matter (like the EU referendum debate which I and others suspect is no coincidence). No email address is given for SarahK either.<br /><br />This blogger has two subscriptions for paywall papers - the Telegraph (online only) and more recently, the Times (print, delivered through the door AND online). One of them will probably be cancelled shortly - no prizes for guessing which, unless it quickly gets its act (back) together. The chronically troll-infested my.telegraph will be no loss.<br /><br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-76194748127779750502016-05-29T01:47:16.447-07:002016-05-29T01:47:16.447-07:00Hooray. I've just discovered that there's ...Hooray. I've just discovered that there's an expert on cremated bone right here in the UK - Professor Tim Thompson of Teesside University - and I have his email address!<br /><br />https://www.tees.ac.uk/schools/sse/staff_profile_details.cfm?staffprofileid=U0023133<br /><br />There will be an email waiting for him when he gets to work on Tuesday (tomorrow being a public holiday).<br /><br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-1298897044767236732016-05-28T22:57:20.858-07:002016-05-28T22:57:20.858-07:00So how might one distinguish between bones from a ...So how might one distinguish between bones from a whole body cremation, as compared with those from cremating excarnated remains?<br /><br />Answer? Not easy, and indeed there may be no method that is entirely conclusive.<br /><br />But here's a suggestion. It is not unusual to read of there being charcoal present as well as bone. What is the physical nature and/or botanical origin of that charcoal? If it's the carbonized remnants of twiggy, easy to ignite wood, needed only for a short duration fire, I'd say the accompanying bone was probably from an excarnated skeleton. If it's chunky charcoal, the remnants from burning sizeable logs from a long-duration fire, then the accompanying bone was likely to have come from whole body cremation.<br /><br />This blogger predicts twiggy, not chunky charcoal.sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-49226233649850669802016-05-28T22:22:39.309-07:002016-05-28T22:22:39.309-07:00Have just added the following in RED at the start ...Have just added the following in RED at the start of the posting (well, straight after the Summary, and before the Introduction):<br /><br /><i>Late insertion: before reading this posting, one which makes a major claim that standing stone sites were for the most part sites for SKY BURIAL, I would advise my readers to do the following search: (circle standing stones cremated bones)<br /><br />(Screen shot of first page of search returns)<br /><br />Note how, entry after entry, there's a reference to "cremated bone" at the base of one or more of the standing stones. Note how the reader - you - are left to assume that is the bone from cremated whole bodies. Kindly do not make that assumption. Instead, assume as I have done, that it's the bones from bodies that have first been defleshed ("excarnated") by scavenger birds (crows, gulls etc) encouraged to use those standing stones as perches. No, it's not pleasant to contemplate, but that's no excuse for totally misreading one's own nation's history, and for myopic archaeologists to bang on endlessly about "ritual landscapes", "megalithic symbolism" etc etc if, in point of fact, circles of standing stones were simply excarnation sites, with cremation performed as end-stage sterilization.</i><br /><br /><br />The problem this blogger faces now is getting the world to sit up and take notice that there's an alternative narrative where Stonehenge and the other stone circles are concerned, one that the UK's archaeology establishment (and certainly tourist industry) is not keen for you to know.<br /><br />Yes, there's a mountain still to be climbed, simply inserting the 'sky burial was the routine means for disposing of the dead' narrative into the public consciousness. It's not hard to see why. Nobody wants to think about so seemingly bestial a way of treating the dead. But I doubt if that's how our Neolithic ancestors would have viewed sky burial, Indeed. they might have got quite indignant, and come back with "OK, suppose you tell me what you consider to be a more acceptable alternatives" and proceeded to ask pointed questions about the fate of an entrapped soul in a body that was committed to the ground, or immediately exposed to fire.<br /><br />Nope, it's not proving easy to rewrite the narrative on Stonehenge etc, given there's the sensibility barrier that has first to be overcome with some, one I understand fully. What's less understandable is the manner in which for many who should know better, sense has been replaced by what is palpable nonsense. What nonsense it is to talk endlessly about the Neolithic "ritual landscape" in so many isolated, hilly, boggy locations up and down the country, hundreds of them with stone circles, many of somewhat crude construction, many with deposits of cremated bone - invariably assumed to derive from whole body cremation without a single shred of supporting evidence or even a pause for thought. When will the penny drop for them, as it has for this blogger - they were all sites for SKY BURIAL, drafting in indigenous scavenger bird species - crows, gulls etc - in place of the vultures deployed in more distant parts of the world.<br /><br />SKY BURIAL, aka excarnation, aka avian-facilitated skeletonization was the ACCEPTED NORM. But it wasn't enough to simply leave a body on a hilltop. The site had to be "furnished" in a way that would initially attract foraging birds on the wing, and then offer them security a comfortable place to perch,and, probably, the prospect of serial nutrition to make the journey worthwhile. espcially for gulls lured in from the coast.<br /><br /><br /><br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-85571856347139737952016-05-28T06:09:31.612-07:002016-05-28T06:09:31.612-07:00Apologies for omitting to include the central &quo...Apologies for omitting to include the central "feeding table" in the final template diagram with the stone circle. It's what one would expect to be a stone or even megalith that lies flat on the ground. Read then what wiki has to say about Stonehenge's "altar stone", and note the totally unsupported assumption that the stone had been in an upright configuration before toppling over:<br /><br /><b>Altar Stone (Stonehenge)</b><br />From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia<br /><br /><i>The Altar Stone is a central megalith at Stonehenge in England, dating to Stonehenge phase 3i, around 2600 BC. It is made of a purplish-green micaceous sandstone and is thought to have originated from outcrops of the Senni formation of the Old Red Sandstone in Wales, though this is currently in debate.[1] Stone 80 (Altar Stone) was most recently excavated in the 1950s, but no written records of the excavation survive. Stone 55 (a sarsen megalith) lies on top of Stone 80 perpendicular, thought to have fallen across it. The Altar Stone weighs approximately six tons and would have stood nearly two metres tall. It is sometimes classed as a bluestone, because it does not have a local provenance. Now recumbent, it is thought to have originally stood as a single large monolith.<br /><br />Its name probably comes from a comment by Inigo Jones who wrote: "...whether it might be an Altar or no I leave to the judgment of others’.</i>sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-50928740874716226822016-05-28T01:41:42.856-07:002016-05-28T01:41:42.856-07:00Here's a comment submitted yesterday to (new P...Here's a comment submitted yesterday to (new PhD) Kathryn Meyers Emery's "Bones Don't Lie" site (she describes herself as a mortuary archaeologist):<br /><br />https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/<br /><br /><br /><b>Colin Berry</b> May 27, 2016 at 9:57 am <br />Your comment is awaiting moderation. <br /><br /><b>Hello Kathryn<br />Wish I’d discovered your blog sooner, you being a cremation expert and archaeologist an’all.<br /><br />Might you be able to assist, or at any rate offer an opinion, on a point I made yesterday on Brian John’s Stonehenge/Ice Age blog?<br /><br />Here’s what I wrote:<br /> <br />sciencebod said…</b><br /><br /><i>There’s a possible handle on “purpose” with all those cremated bones, some 50,000 fragments we’re told from at least 60 people, both sexes, excavated back in the 20s, and then stowed for safe keeping in one of the Aubrey holes/pits. What’s the betting that if you picked an archaeologist at random from Yellow Pages, or should that be Yellowed Pages, and asked how those bones were generated they’d tell you that WHOLE bodies were cremated either on site (or at numerous remote take-away locations of Britain according to Mike P-P – according to a brief chat I had with him on Monday at Gordon Square – and thus ‘brought in from outside’).<br /><br />But that’s an assumption, and I’m willing to bet an untested one, namely that there was whole body cremation. I’ll make a prediction: if there ever becomes a way of distinguishing between bones from a whole body cremation as distinct from bones from an excarnated skeleton, it will be the latter that will be shown by analysis. That then offers a rationale for those igneous bluestones. They were preferred as ‘sky burial’ bird perches initially being easy to keep clean (important when the low tops were at human eye level or lower). But once the technology had evolved that allowed for transport and raising of taller sarsen monoliths, with the lintels way above eye level, then there was no longer so pressing a need for non-porous stone. The bluestones then became largely surplus to requirements, but still functional, so were relocated to make first a makeshift cobbled-together circle then a horseshoe, each at a less conspicuous position INSIDE its respective sarsen counterparts, barely qualifying as megalithic, more funereal-looking headstone.</i><br />26 May 2016 at 12:44 <br /><br /><b>Is it, or would it, be possible to distinguish between cremated bones from an excarnated as distinct from whole body, either from the bones themselves or maybe from any accompanying ash or charcoal?</b><br /><br />(Most links removed).sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-46645782433829657312016-05-26T02:15:32.667-07:002016-05-26T02:15:32.667-07:00Afterthought:
Afterthought: the weakest point mec...Afterthought:<br /><br />Afterthought: the weakest point mechanically would be at the two points where the timber pole, i.e. yoke, meet the block. Even with the wrap-around binding or netting taking much of the strain, there would be a risk, some might say probability, of the timber bowing, indeed snapping.<br /><br />There's a solution, and I have Il Duce Benito Mussolini to thank for providing the answer. It was he who coined the term 'fascism', and that was derived from 'fasces', ie. multiple thin whippy canes of timber which, when bound together with string or rope, create something that is hugely stronger. So, one would reinforce one's central timber pole with lots of those thin canes, especially around those vulnerable points where the pole meets the stone.<br /><br />Thank you Benito. You can go now. RIP.sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-37597864819668610302016-05-26T02:14:27.235-07:002016-05-26T02:14:27.235-07:00This blogger placed a comment on Brian John's ...This blogger placed a comment on Brian John's site this morning regarding mode of bluestone transport, reiterating preference for lifting/carrying clear of ground or even timber sledways.<br /><br />https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/whatever-happened-to-great-stone-lift.html<br /><br /> But there's been an aftherthought:<br /><br />First the comment:<br /><br /><b>Link to English Heritage site, with photo of a bluestone with highly smoothed-off longitudinal groove:</b><br /><br />http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/history/description/<br /><br />The caption reads:<br /><br />"One of the bluestones at Stonehenge, which shows clear signs of being shaped to fit together with other stones".<br /><br />Compare with the caption to the same bluestone in Julian C. Richard's EH-commissioned tourist guide which shows a greater degree of open-mindedness:<br /><br />"An elegantly grooved stone in the bluestone horseshoe, possibly intended to be jointed to a similar stone with a corresponding tongue".<br /><br />Yup, I'm with you there JCR (not to be confused btw with York University's Julian N.Richards) and until such a time as a complementary tongued bluestone is found, or even a fragment thereof with remnnants of a tongue, then the T-in-G idea has to be seen as untested hypothesis, i.e. pseudoscience, and heaven knows there's enough of that as it is. I'd go further and take this opportunity to say shame on EH for its all-too-typical top-down premptive strike, one that tries to impose its own narrative, blocking out those of us attempting to seek new angles that attempt to RESOLVE mysteries instead of using them as a cash machine.<br /><br />Someone went to a lot of trouble to make and smooth off that groove, and it should be the signal surely to recognize that there's an awful lot we still don't know about Stonehenge, as the banner credo of this site makes clear. Some might say we've scarcely started, thanks to all the set-in-stone "received wisdom" being dumped upon us (and scrupulous avoidance of the E word as regards the purpose of Stonehenge, or even the more euphemistic 'sky burial', despite the easy-to spot-Seahenge ground plan).<br /><br />One possibility is that the groove was designed for transport, intending later to remove or somehow conceal from view. Might it have been a locating slot for a hardwood timber pole, to serve as yoke, the latter attached firmly by binding round with lots of rope or netting, the latter taking some of the strain off the yoke. Admittedly a single yoke would need some impossibly strong shoulders for transport, but it might have been a primary one, with lots more attached at right angles left and right, some at least well clear of the stone, such that space is created for 50 or more shoulders, their owners well spaced, not tripping over each others' feet.<br /><br />There must clearly have been some innovative transport know-how that one can only guesss at, simply to explain the transport of the much bigger sarsens, albeit over much shorter distances. Dare on suggest that distance was considered no object, once you had the means to insert scores of carriers per monolith through 'enlarging' the effective size of the stone, admittedly some extra weight too, though modest, in a way that provided an extending framework of shoulder yokes?<br /><br />End of original comment.<br /><br />Afterthought: next comment (having exceeded the 4,096 allowed characters).<br /><br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-43194067490890380432016-05-26T00:46:54.185-07:002016-05-26T00:46:54.185-07:00PS: I rechecked Google Search this morning under t...PS: I rechecked Google Search this morning under the single term (stonehenge). <br /><br />There are 17 pages of returns in all, most filled with ephemera and ads for hotels, tour operators and the like. My posting is still nowhere to be seen, despite having been communicated to some 4 other sites (Brian John, Neolithic Portal etc) that 'linkage' being allegedly the means by which one acquires visibility on the web via Google and other search engines. Yes, the posting appeared initially under "Past Hour" and then "Past 24 hours", but then disappearewd as soon as the 24 hours were exceeded. It's on the system however, as can be seen by searching (stonehenge sky burial). It's clearly been curated out, probably by a human pair of eyes, probably in California. The general searcher is not being allowed to see my seditious views re the real purpose of Stonehenge (maybe most if not all Neolithic and Bronze Age stone circles as well)sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-55945015124437673762016-05-26T00:36:57.784-07:002016-05-26T00:36:57.784-07:00This comment of mine has just appeared on the Time...This comment of mine has just appeared on the Times (paywall). It's under today's article by Ed Lucas (Economist)entitled <b>"We all suffer if Google doesn't clean up its act"</b><br /><br /><i>It doesn't stop with tax dodging. This science blogger ("sciencebod") has strong grounds for suspecting that the returns one sees on a Google search have not been generated solely by a pre-programmed algorithm. I believe Google is quickly 'curating' those algorithm-generated returns, turfing out those it considers off-message, either to itself or those to whom it caters - notably e- commerce providers and customers, present or potential. Curating can be done surreptitiously without folk realizing, until an insider blows the whistle, as happened recently in the case of Facebook, said to be filtering out right-of-centre political sentiment or in my case some off-the-wall ideas re Stonehenge which I firmly believe to have been purpose-built for 'sky burial', or as I prefer to say, AFS (avian-facilitated skeletonization).<br /><br /><br />How do I know? Basically by seeing one's own postings appear briefly under "Past Hour" listings, and then disappearing before progressing to Past 24 hours or Past Week, with a visit from HQ in Mountain Ash appearing meanwhile on one's sitemeter, no doubt eyeballing the precise line one has taken on current controversies, ones that risk upsetting 'the trade'.<br /><br /><br />Please will a Google (or ex-Google) insider step forward, and blow the whistle, spill the beans whatever. That organization (parent company Alphabet being allegedly the richest in the word) is still trading on a "whiter-than-white, not just here for the profits" image that is frankly laughable, nay craw-sticking.</i>sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-81238805503944765832016-05-25T10:57:38.941-07:002016-05-25T10:57:38.941-07:00Extract from an article in the Guardian (Feb 2016)...<b>Extract from an article in the Guardian (Feb 2016) entitled "How Alphabet (ed. essentially Google) became the largest company in the world":</b><br /><br /><br />"But the other facet of Google’s success came from something that was only realised once it had already achieved that dominance: there is nowhere more valuable to advertise than on a search results page.<br /><br />By definition, if you search for something, you are interested in finding out about it. That makes you more valuable to advertisers than almost any other pair of eyeballs. Yes, advertisers want to win over people who have never even considered their product but more than that, they want to generate sales. If you search, for “holidays” or “laptops” or “penis enlargement” or “fake Facebook friends” – and Google doesn’t judge – then you demonstrate yourself more likely than anyone else to be on the cusp of opening your wallet and paying.<br /><br />So advertisers are willing to hand over huge amounts of money to appear on the search results page: the most expensive keywords, on searches for things such as lawyers and health insurance, can cost up to $50 per individual click.<br /><br />The realisation of the value of search is what led Google to so aggressively safeguard the key experience."<br /><br /><br />Why surreptitioulsy curate what appears and what doesn't (as we know Facebook curates, thanks to an insider turned whistleblower)?<br /><br />Go figure, as they say.<br /><br />Maintaining the "mystery" of Stonehenge is hugely important to a large number of vested interests. The mystery of Stonehenge should have finally ended t back in 1998, with the discovery of Seahenge, at least as regards purpoose. Its construction, the origin of the bluestones etc, the transport of sarsens and bluestones could have remained THE continuing mystery.<br /><br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-42832630599304642362016-05-25T08:09:23.656-07:002016-05-25T08:09:23.656-07:00But frictional forces can be considerable, and nee...<b><br />But frictional forces can be considerable, and need some additional input of technology, or chemistry, to reduce. Keeping everything well lubricated with oil or even water may help, but there's really no substitute for having a series of closely-spaced metal rollers on individual axles, with ballbearings and lubricant as per airport security check-in. Friction then works in one's favour, giving sufficient grip that allows the rollers to rotate, and making it easy to get the block - or holiday suitcase - gliding along effortlessly.<br /><br /> But I say the imagined Neolithic means for reducing friction, while OK for a short demo in a London square, would not have made longer tows a practical proposition, even with scores of fit blokes.<br /><br /><br /> Let's look briefly at the alternative - lifting and manually transporting clear of the ground. Straightaway one has eliminated friction (except that needed between footwear and ground to maintain a firm foothold and forward propulsion). Yes, there's the initial lifting work against gravity, calculated as the product of mass x g x height, but that's shared out equally between everyone. Then there's the work needed to overcome inertia and get the mass moving (which as flagged up already applies when hauling anyway). But let's not forget the laws of motion: once the object is moving, then in the absenc of friction it will tend to STAY MOVING, inertia in a different guise, dynamic not static, and actually then needs work to bring it back to a halt, so the inertial work is a minor factor.<br /><br /> The major factor when lifting AND carrying is biomechanics. The human body is not rigid, it has joints, the ones at the knees being crucial, tending to fold and crumple when attempting to carry too large a large weight. The greater the initial displacement from the vertical, the greater the mechanical advantage of the leverage at the joint tending to make it fold. The main input of work is that required to contract muscles in the thigh especially that keep the leg straight. Look at the thighs of a weight lifter! Those biomechanical forces are not readily calculated, but we are back to numbers: get a sufficient number of folk to share the weight out equally, and there's a corresponding linear reduction in the amount of muscular biomechanical work need to keep the legs straight. The biomechanical strain doubles briefly on each knee joint, obviously, when walking, i.e, transporting due to there being intermittently just one foot at a time on the ground, but again, the numbers and random strides making helps keep that to a reasonable minimum.<br /><br /> Overall, I reckon that the effort and work against gravity, inertia and biomechanics is likely to be no greater when lifting and carrying than hauling, and has the overriding advantage (surely) of there being no friction to worry about, and being better able to negotiate rough terrain by judicious twists and turns in the chosen trajectory.</b><br /><br />Tell me Andy - do you ever do anything except snipe in your oh so superior know-all manner?<br /><br />I shall have no hesitation in blocking you from my site Andy if you continue in this fashion. I am a serious scientist, trying to get across a serious ORIGINAL message...So less of the aggro please...sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-13506361950824831692016-05-25T08:06:33.771-07:002016-05-25T08:06:33.771-07:00Damned cheek? Why? This blogger places far more co...Damned cheek? Why? This blogger places far more comments on other people's sites than he gets on his own, and has frequently observed how that can have an immediate effect on raising that site in the rankings, especially when it's an older posting.<br /><br />I was thinking earlier today on putting up a new posting, reporting on my visit to the UCL/Gordon Square block-towing project two days ago, initially billed as block-lifting (would I have gone if it had been correctly billed in advance? Probably not - see below). But what's the point of posting if one only appears under the "Past hour" or if one's lucky, "past 24 hours" only to be curated out?<br /><br />There's not, and I fail to see there's any imposition if I then place my content on others' sites, provided it's relevant to the posting.<br /><br />So this morning I placed my views re the Gordon Square performance on Brian John's Stonehenge and Ice Age site, just as soon as he posted a SECOND time on that particular topic. <br /><br />https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/whatever-happened-to-great-stone-lift.html<br /><br />Here's what I said - solid content from start to finish. No apologies necessary.<br /><br />25 May 2016 at 09:57 <br />sciencebod said...<br /><br /> <b> I've been holding off doing my own crit' on the Gordon Square project, Brian, while I dredge up A-Level physics done well over half a century ago, knowing deep down in my guts that the approach taken was deeply misguided.<br /><br /> Thoughts crystallized over breakfast this morning, so I may do a posting later in the day, including some of my own photographs from Gordon Square of the initial efforts, which tell a very different story from the press releases and self-congratulatory headlines.(Admittedly I didn't stay right to the end, so missed the "spectacular" turns of speed).<br /><br /> Lifting and carrying or dragging? Yes, at first sight one might think it's easier the second way, letting terra firma (or not so firma in some places en route from A to B, whether 140 miles or 140 yards) support the weight and take most of the strain.<br /><br /> That's highly simplistic needless to say. If the block stays in contact with either the ground, or with impromptu log tracks, or even a sycamore sled on log tracks, one is having to overcome the force of friction as well as overcoming the initial inertia to get the block moving (while admittedly there's no lifting work against gravity).</b><br /><br />(Continued onto next comment)<br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-19960889124993214132016-05-25T06:08:38.584-07:002016-05-25T06:08:38.584-07:00> So this blogger has to place links on other p...> So this blogger has to place links on other people's sites to stand any chance of being noticed<br /><br />It's lovely to see how much you value us as a resource there Colin. (Some would call it damned cheek!)<br /><br />If you seriously think someone from Google has any interest in suppressing search results about Stonehenge then - well I'd better not say it but I think it's nonsense.<br /><br />That's all really.<br />Andy BAndy Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02744741707464873271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4111782305190930044.post-66002018028802407022016-05-24T23:00:44.411-07:002016-05-24T23:00:44.411-07:00Once again, this blogger has found himself "c...Once again, this blogger has found himself "curated" off a search under (stonehenge) pure and simple, no qualifiers. Interestingly, this posting made it onto "Past hour" and "Past 24 hours" listings, which is better than the last posting, which never made it onto "Past 24 hours), but when the time came for it to move to "Past week" it was wiped, and has not reappeared since. <br /><br />https://www.google.co.uk/#q=stonehenge&safe=active&tbs=qdr:w<br /><br />Switching off "safe search" makes no difference.<br /><br />Two closely spaced visits to the posting were made from Mountain Ash, LA at local time (1am in the morning approx) which shows those curators, probably human, <br />work around the clock, deciding whose postings will be visible to the general searcher, and whose will remain out of sight, off the radar screen, read CENSORED.<br /><br />So this blogger has to place links on other people's sites to stand any chance of being noticed, even in the blogosphere, where some folk may use "alerts" to flag up new postings under their subject interest, but who won't see mine unless they look sharp.<br /><br />What I'm seeing makes a nonsense of the common perception that listings are determined purely by a robotic crawler and algorithm, one we're informed (correction, misinformed) is programmed to take account ONLY of a multitude of objective quality criteria, e.g. reciprocated links to other sites etc. This intrusion of the "curator", aka blackball, is a hideous development. I have been making those links, but still fail to appear under the post-24hrs, past week listing. <br /><br />Powers that be (Westminster, EU councils) please take note. We are all being taken for a ride by the richest and now greediest company in the world. proclaiming itself as always to be whiter than white.It's in fact a machine to skim advertising commissions and royalties off other people's creative content. In short, it's a PARASITE, and one moreover with a global reach, repatriating profits in short order, swelling its coffers by obscene amounts each day, able to employ 5000 staff at its HQ, of whom one suspects a goodly number are those profit-protecting "curators" with a contempt for the world of ideas.<br /><br />sciencebodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12051016731274875332noreply@blogger.com