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| Energyman: "Well yes, and if you take it a step further, the horizontal lintels of Stonehenge would offer a superb 'sky burial' platform away from ground feeders". My reply: hearty approval... |
Next posting? Seahenge - surely the clincher where Stonehenge is concerned. They probably used the same avian species too - the seagull - for the purposes of AFS.
There will also be a flyer for my hunch that a certain Neolithic site in S.E.Turkey, reckoned to go back to 9000BC or earlier (!) and described as the "first temple" was in fact a site for AFS. That would explain all the T-shaped pillars (bird perches!!!) the carvings of assorted predatory and scavenger wildlife, vultures included.
Here's my comment placed this morning on the Megalithic Portal site:
Re: Signs of world’s first pictograph found in Göbeklitepe (Score: 1)
by ColinBerry on Sunday, 08 May 2016
(User Info | Send a Message) Yes, it's an excarnation site. That was my first thought when seeing the layout with those "T-shaped pillars" read bird perches and concentric dry stone walls, reminiscent of that site in the Golan Heights investigated by Rami Arav. I can't for the life of me understand why it's being described as "the first temple" when there are vultures in the ornamental artwork!
Was Seahenge a temple?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/388988.stm
What that article omits to mention is that the gull probably served as a substitute on the Bronze Age Norfolk coast for the vulture, equally effective for AFS (avian-facilitated skeletonization), my prefered term for excarnation, provided one could attract a sufficient horde of frenzy-feeders (thus the multitude of timber posts to serve as perches).
The site in question "Göbeklitepe" bears a name that translates as "potbelly hill"!
Finally, there's a third site that is interesting this blogger right now, one that is causing some out-of-the-box thinking. It's the Ring of Brodgar and the nearby Ness of Brodgar with the stone walls. A commentator on the Megalithic Portal site had cited the Ring of Brodgar as evidence that Neolithic man could hew his way through solid rock with nothing except antler picks! (He omitted to mention that mauls - rounded stones- were used at least for shaping rock, like those monoliths at Stonehenge). Well, I have an entirely different explanation for how and why that ditch in the "solid sandstone" was created, and it did not involve cutting through solid rock. I can also account for why there's no accompanying bank of excavated "rubble", there being rubble and rubble. Not all rubbles were born equal! I may do a separate posting in the next week or two, setting out these totally new ideas (or so it would seem from googling) and ask Prof.Jane Downes and her colleagues at the Orkney Archaeology Institute to take a look and give a frank opinion. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
New update: Comment addressed to energyman on the Megalithic Portal thread:
ColinBerry
Joined:
03-05-2016
Posted 08-05-2016 at 17:08 See my current posting, energyman, with thanks, nay relief, that there are kindred spirits out there. willing as I am to 'go the extra mile', sorry kilometre, albeit at the risk of occasionally going in the wrong direction (nothing ventured, nothing gained).
(Link to this posting)
There's also a partial response there (OK, a tease) to Runemage re the Ring of Brodgar.
Nope, the ditch was not cut through "solid" rock. It was created by forceful delamination of stratified sandstone, deploying a patient, resourceful if somewhat slow combination of Mother Nature, read frost action, and gentle leverage. The compact uplifted small slabs then found a use nearby (thus no bank of rubble!).
You read it here first! More later.
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