[NatureNS] Neolithic stone rings etd.

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Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:45:13 -0300
From: Eleanor Lindsay <kelindsay135@gmail.com>
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On a completely different aspect of this topic, I spent time in Orkney 
in the '70s during the early displays of the first discovery of ancient 
dwellings which became exposed at Skara Brae after a major storm tore 
masses of turf off the nearby shoreline, uncovering an entire 
prehistoric village of stone houses with connected walkways. It was not 
hard to understand why this site had been chosen as the nearby cliffs 
around the bay consisted of a type of rock that, to this day still 
appears to shelve off in long slim slabs; these slabs were evident in 
every house and what, for me, remains so memorable was their use for 
everyday needs which were identical to ours today - small horizontal 
slabs inserted at various levels in the walls to provide shelves and, 
most striking of all, rectangular bed frames on the ground consisting of 
narrow strips of the stone slabs for the sides, tall upright slabs for 
the head and slightly smaller ones for the foot of the bed - exactly how 
we still do it today!! And what I saw at that time is only a mere 
fraction of what has been discovered since then...
The other site there that made a deep impression was the standing stones 
circle at the Moor of Brodgar; seeing it there in its (at least at that 
time) splendidly isolated setting looking no different than the day it 
was completed made a very powerful impression that left poor beleaguered 
Stonehenge, with all the traffic whizzing by, way behind.

Orkney is a totally fascinating place to visit, not so much for its 
scenery, but for its spectacularly rich endowment of an amazing variety 
of prehistoric to second world war history.

Eleanor Lindsay



On 18/08/2014 9:07 PM, David & Alison Webster wrote:
> Hi Steve & All,
>    I think you are confusing theoretical logic with practical know how 
> and these northern folk had an impressive amount of know how.
>
>    For example, the walls of the  Knop of Howar  (occupied 3700 
> BC-1800 BC) are still standing. How many of our structures will still 
> be around  4000 years  from now ? They lived on islands so likely knew 
> how to build boats that could actually be steered ( able to go out, 
> turn around and come back) and which cost less than a king's ransom.
>
>    You don't need to be a Greek Philosopher to notice that the 6 
> points of an undamaged snowflake are of equal length, and would 
> therefore fit a circle of diameter equal to the distance between 
> opposite points. And you need only look at some of those prehistoric 
> cave paintings or ornamented spear throwers to realize how visually 
> gifted some of these early people were.
>
>    Ivory and bone needles, some so thin that horsehair was the 
> probable thread, date from 15,000 BP. It takes skill and a steady hand 
> to craft the necessary stone gravers and then carve and polish even a 
> relatively crude needle.
>
>    Over much of the last 10,000 years fires were made using a fire 
> drill or a fire plow. Try this some fine afternoon, as a test of 
> eye-hand coordination and physical stamina.
>
>    Based on current conditions around the world and examples from 
> recorded history and prehistory that I have noticed, I suspect that, 
> at least over the last 30,000 years, there has never been a shortage 
> of creative and inventive people, only a shortage of conditions in 
> which these qualities could be exercised without penalty.
>
> Yt, Dave Webster, Kentville
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Shaw" <srshaw@Dal.Ca>
> To: <naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
> Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 3:30 PM
> Subject: RE: [NatureNS] Neolithic stone rings etd.
>
>
>> Eureka, Dave, you have it, the hexagon inscribed within a circle!  I 
>> even used this for something a while ago, so can't see why I missed 
>> it here.
>>
>> However, this came from the Greeks ~2000+ years ago, not Neolithic 
>> folk (NF) 5-6000 years ago, so it amounts to proposing that the NFs 
>> must have discovered the inscribed hexagon arrangement independently 
>> themselves.   I don't think that even earnest contemplation of a 
>> regular hexagon like a bee's wax cell would suggest immediately to 
>> the observer that for a regular hexagon, radius R exactly equals side 
>> length L as a neat rule. On the other hand, if some enterprising NFs 
>> had a radius rope and two pins like you suggested and stepped around 
>> the perimeter of their initial circle accurately, at the 6th step 
>> they would have found themselves exactly back at the origin, so could 
>> plausibly have discovered the R=L rule that way and then passed it 
>> around by word of mouth to others.  Could this even have filtered 
>> down to the Greeks?
>> Steve
>> ________________________________________
>> From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] 
>> on behalf of David & Alison Webster [dwebster@glinx.com]
>> Sent: Monday, August 18, 2014 2:03 PM
>> To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
>> Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Neolithic stone rings etd.
>>
>> Hi Steve, Jane & All,
>>    The logical way to lay out a 12 post observatory is as follows.
>> 1) Find a relatively level area of open land with unobstructed 
>> horizons from ~NE  through S to ~NW.
>> 2) Prepare 7 relativey slim and untapered, smooth rossed posts; say 
>> 2" in diameter
>> 3) Select the center point and mark it with one of these posts.
>> 4) Select a radius for the circle, braid a loop in one end of the 
>> rawhide length that is large enough to just slip down over the posts 
>> as this will be used numerous times. A wooden yoke at the other end 
>> would increase precision.
>> 5)  Sight from the center post to the Pole Star and mark the position 
>> of the North and then the South posts using the radius strand. These 
>> act as a baseline and enable checking the length of the rawhide 
>> radius strand which if not well oiled and protected can shrink or 
>> stretch.
>> DIGRESSION:
>>    The hexagon must have been noticed even befor