A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge

Re:A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge by dboreham on Friday August 16, 2024 @01:33PM (#41268470)

The rock formation identified is at the surface throughout the Orkney Islands. The River Avon seems to be at least close to navigable by a barge carrying a 5m long stone, requiring less than a mile of transport across land to Stonehenge. So it doesn't seem to require extremely implausible means to get it there. As to why -- perhaps the Stonehenge civilization came from Orkney originally, bringing their sacred stone with them? Or perhaps Orkney was a sort of Rivendell back then -- it's easier to defend as an isolated island group. You might go get a big stone from the monks there to establish the authenticity of your satellite colony.

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Re:A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge by qingcharles on Friday August 16, 2024 @02:24PM (#41268956)

I wonder what the Avon looked like back then?

The waters down the west coast can be a little hairy. I asked Claude to analyze the paper and speculate a route and it thought the east coast route, then up the Thames and down the Avon was more likely?

"Modern oceanographic knowledge tells us that the Irish Sea can be challenging due to strong currents, frequent storms, and numerous shoals and sandbanks. These conditions were likely present in Neolithic times as well." (Claude)

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Re:A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge by addaon on Friday August 16, 2024 @08:42PM (#41271549)

> (Claude)

That certainly is a sequence of words consistent with the rules of English grammar. Can you explain what you think it contributes to the conversation? Are you suggesting it’s more likely to be semantically valid than other such sequences of words?

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Re:A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge by termy on Saturday August 17, 2024 @04:53AM (#41272891)

Interesting thanks :)

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Re:A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge by defrost on Saturday August 17, 2024 @05:00AM (#41272921)

> I asked Claude to analyze the paper and speculate a route and it

utterly failed to mention glacial erratics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_erratic

https://www.cyark.org/projects/okotoks-erratic/overview

Mind you, so did every other HN commentator and it's something that rarely comes up when forums speculate on the transport of stones in the UK for ancient monuments.

It's easier to stack up the "weird non local" stones dropped at the end of a valley after a glacial retreat than it is to transit them ~1,000 km without a crane and a truck.

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Re:A Scottish Provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge by nuc1e0n on Saturday August 17, 2024 @07:15AM (#41273615)

The ring of Brodgar is in the area where this stone came from. There is also evidence of stone circles underwater near to it from before sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age. If your religious sites were getting inundated I imagine you'd try to move the most important part of them as far away from the area as possible and to higher suitable ground. So Stonehenge may exist as a consequence of ancient climate change :). The river Avon at Amesbury had population centres in Neolithic times. The Old Sarum hill fort near Salisbury for example.

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