Hmmmm, I think I posted a story about this location a week or two ago... Yep - found it: Virginia Site Reveals a Bit of Paleo-Indian Past, October 25, 2011.
From Native American Times online, nativetimes.com
10 November 2011 VAL VAN METER, The Winchester Star
BLUEMONT, Va. (AP) – Rock circles on a spit of mountain land along Spout Run may be the oldest above-ground Paleoindian site in North America, according to Alexandria archaeologist Jack Hranicky.
He will deliver an address about the site – which he dates to 10,000 B.C. – to the Society for American Archaeology next April in Memphis, Tenn.
The site could put Clarke County “on the Paleo map,” Hranicky said.
The set of concentric circles drew the attention of landowners Chris and Rene White as they were planning to create a medicine wheel on their 20 acres south of Va. 7 on Blue Ridge Mountain.
After talks with his spiritual elder in Utah, Chris, a descendant of the Cherokee people, and his wife, from the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina, decided to open their property to spiritual leaders of Native American peoples who have business in the Washington area.
The area including the rock circles was the location that drew Chris White in.
When he was building his house, White said, he would often walk by the creek to take a break.
There, “a still, small voice said, `This land is important.' I didn't know what it meant, but I took it to heart,” he said.
As White prepared to put his medicine wheel on the site, he realized that a circle of stones was there – actually, several concentric circles.
“From my experience as a contractor, I knew that was not natural,” he said. “I realized something was already here.”
Someone suggested that White contact Hranicky, who had studied five other Paleoindian sites in Virginia.
He said he saw the pattern in the rocks as soon as he arrived at the site, noting three concentric circles at the western edge, which he believes was a ceremonial area. The inner circle could outline a bonfire space, he said, while the outer ring may have been an area for participants in the ritual to sit or stand.
To the east, touching this area, is another circle that Hranicky calls the observatory.
Here, rocks on the edge of the circle align with features on Blue Ridge Mountain to the east.
From a center rock, over a boundary rock, a line would intersect the feature called Bears Den Rocks on the mountain. Standing on that center rock, looking toward Bears Den, a viewer can see the sun rise on the day of the summer solstice, Hranicky said.
To prove that point, White and his wife took pictures of the sunrise last June 21, he said.
To the right of this rock around the circle, another lines up to Eagle Rock on the Blue Ridge, and with sunrise at the fall equinox (around Sept. 22-23), he said.
Yet a third points to a saddle on the mountain where the sun makes its appearance at the winter solstice (around Dec. 21-22).
“These are true solar positions,” he said.
A dozen feet east of the summer solstice rock is a mound of boulders, piled up, which Hranicky designates as “the altar.”
Hranicky, 69, a registered professional archaeologist who taught anthropology at Northern Virginia community College and St. Johns High School College, has been working in the field of archaeology, for 40 years.
“I had to wait 70 years to find a site like this,” he said.
Dating the site took some digging.
Hranicky was convinced that it was a Paleoindian site, based on the configuration of the concentric circles, the solstice alignment and the altar he has seen at other such sites. But he wanted an artifact.
He picked a five-foot-square area to dig, carefully numbering every rock and setting it aside, to be replaced later.
The reason for that, Hranicky said, is that in the future better methods may be available for dating sites, and he wanted to disturb as little as possible.
His test pit turned up three artifacts. One was a thin blade of quartzite. The second was a small piece of jasper, a type of quartz rock and an important find, Hranicky said.
Jasper was prized by Paleoindians for making tools. It was hard and durable, but could still be worked by Stone Age methods. They traveled miles to find sites where jasper nodules protruded from native rock, and quarried the stone to make projectile points and tools.
The third artifact was the most important. It was a tiny piece of jasper, no bigger than the end of a thumb, but this rock had been worked, Hranicky said. It was a tool, a mini-scraper.
“You don't know how thrilled I was when we found that little bitty tool,” he said.
Jasper on the site ties what Hranicky believes was a ceremonial and heavenly observation site to another proven Paleoindian site just to the south of Clarke County in Warren County – the Thunderbird site.
William Gardiner of Catholic University excavated that site for several years. Indians camped on the east bank of the South Fork of the Shenandoah River and quarried jasper for tool making from bluffs on the west bank.
The Thunderbird site is dated to 10,000 B.C.
Hranicky's theory postulates that Paleoindians, searching for jasper for tool-making, followed the Shenandoah River from the Atlantic coastal areas some 12,000 years ago.
This coincides with the Younger Dryas period, when the climate turned abruptly colder and drier.
Jasper, Hranicky said, can't be “knapped” as easily in cold weather, so it would make sense for Indians traveling to find the stone to do so in the summer months.
An Indian “priest” would find it an advantage to know when summer offered the best work climate, marked by the summer solstice, and when the season was drawing to a close and cold weather was on the way (the fall equinox).
A leader who noticed how points on the mountain marked these calendar moments and could predict, with a rock “clock,” these dates, would be a “genius” to his tribe, Hranicky said.
Such times would be natural days for social celebrations of some type, he added. “They visited this place for a reason, like going to church.”
The visitors would have lived on the west bank of the river, a mile away, where it would be easier to find food, he suggested.
White noted that, to Native Americans, stones are considered “grandfathers.”
“If you see all these grandfathers, that makes it a place of wisdom.”
Water, he added, is a symbol of life. Spout Run, which ends in a sizeable waterfall at the Shenandoah River, would be both eye-catching and significant, while things that emerge from the underground, such as the springs that feed Spout Run, are a sign of rebirth.
All these characteristics could make the spot of the concentric circles significant to native people, White said.
Hranicky is applying to have the Whites' stone circles added to Virginia's list of archaeological sites.
“It will be recorded,” said state archaeologist Mike Barber.
Barber said several ceremonial observatories across North America are attributed to Paleoindians.
“Jack has recorded several of these types,” he said. “The real problem is proving what these things are. We haven't arrived at that level yet.”
Barber said he has received a preliminary report on the site from Hranicky, and is trying to schedule a time to visit it.
Is the Clarke County site an ancient solar observatory for early Americans?
Barber is cautious.
“I'm not to the point where I can say that this is one of them.”
–––
Information from: The Winchester Star, http://www.winchesterstar.co
Showing posts with label stone circles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stone circles. Show all posts
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Rock circles linked to ancient Indian site
Hmmmm, I think I posted a story about this location a week or two ago... Yep - found it: Virginia Site Reveals a Bit of Paleo-Indian Past, October 25, 2011.
From Native American Times online, nativetimes.com
10 November 2011
From Native American Times online, nativetimes.com
10 November 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Virginia Site Reveals a Bit of Paleo-Indian Past
A very important discovery and a well-written, engaging article. Is this the oldest yet medicine wheel uncovered in the United States?
From Clarke County Daily News, Virginia
From Clarke County Daily News, Virginia
Archaeologist Claims 12,000-Year-Old Solstice Site in Clarke County
By Edward Leonard on Oct 23 2011
Bear’s Den Rock has captured the attention of travelers in the northern Shenandoah Valley since colonial times and for thousands of years before by the indigenous people who hunted and fished in the region. Now, a local archaeologist believes that the prominent outcrop just south of Virginia’s Route 7 in Clarke County is a part of a larger 12,000 year old celestial calendar used by Native Americans to mark the changing of the seasons.
“Although archaeological sites have been discovered across the United States, there’s nothing like this above ground or this old in North America,” says Dr. Jack Hranicky about the site located just off Ebenezer Road. Hranicky, also known as “Dr. Jack” to friends and associates, is a Virginia Registered Professional Archaeologist (RPA) who has authored 32 books on North America’s prehistory and discovered at least half-a-dozen other Native American solstice sites.
“This preserved site has numerous properties that prove its use 12,000 years ago by Paleo-Indians and classifies it as a major ceremonial and calendar site on the Shenandoah River,” said Dr. Jack “I classify it as an ‘Horizon Observation Station’ which produced a Paleo-calendar for early Americans.”
The story behind the presumed celestial calendar’s recent discovery is, in many ways, as intriguing as its ancient origins.
According to Dr. Jack, 12,000 years ago Paleo-Indians traveled throughout the area known today as the Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont Plateau. Although the Piedmont area provided the early Americans with a nearly unlimited food supply, the first Americans still ventured north and west along the Shenandoah River into areas that include modern-day Clarke County.
“As the Paelo-Indians moved north along the river, Bear’s Den Rocks would have been a very prominent landmark for them,” says Dr. Jack. “They also would have been able to clearly see the site where we are standing right now.”
Dr. Jack is standing in the middle of several large, concentric stone rings – each ring inside a larger ring. The rings were discovered by Clarke County resident Chris White on property he purchased in 2000 located about two miles southwest of Bear’s Den on a lower bench of the Blue Ridge.
Not long after purchasing the property White began building a house on a beautiful rise overlooking his 20-acre parcel.
“When I would come to work on the house, often I would sit by the creek,” White recalled. “A quiet voice inside of me told me ‘This land is important.’”
Despite White’s good feelings about his property, he really had no idea that the land was anything more than just a beautiful spot in a bucolic setting. White’s understanding of just how special his property actually was began changing about two years ago.
Not long after White finished building his house he shifted his attention to longer term thoughts about whether his land could play a role as a Native American Church. For years, White said, he had dreamed of creating a retreat center where all types of people could come to meet and discuss issues that concern Native Americans. To complement his Oklevueha Native American Church of Virginia, White decided to establish the Sanctuary on the Trail, a faith-based neighborhood and community outreach-initiative where spiritual leaders across denominations could meet to create possibilities for communities, churches, and tribes on challenges and issues facing them in a modern world.
So, in 2010 White decided that a good first step toward implementing his Sanctuary on the Trail vision would be to construct on his property what, in Native American parlance, is known as a “medicine wheel.” White even had the perfect location picked for his medicine wheel; the beautiful glen just below his house next to Spout Run.
Medicine wheels, or sacred hoops, are constructed by laying stones in a particular pattern on the ground, often following the basic pattern of a stone center surrounded by an outer ring of stones with “spokes,”or lines of rocks radiating from the center. Originally, and still today, medicine wheels are constructed by certain indigenous peoples of North America for various reasons including astronomical, ritual, healing, and teaching purposes.
As White began clearing fallen trees and brush from his hoped-for medicine wheel site, something extraordinary began to unfold. As White removed debris, pre-existing circles of concentric rocks began to be revealed. As White continued to work, he soon noticed another circular rock pattern next to the first circle.
At first White didn’t know what to think. Could it be that the stone rings were nothing more than a natural anomaly created by some long forgotten rock slide or other random event? Yet certain features of the stone rings piqued White’s curiosity. For instance, why did it appear that larger stones were positioned at cardinal points within the ring? And why were there two rings positioned adjacent to each other?
White, who himself is of Native American heritage stemming from the Cherokee Nation, decided that a professional archaeologist might be able to give him a better idea of whether the rings had been formed naturally or were man-made.
White got in touch with Dr. Jack.
Like any scientist, Hranicky was skeptical at first, but was none-the-less intrigued by White’s find. After some preliminary investigation Dr. Jack decided that the site deserved additional archaeological investigation. With the assistance of Chris and Rene’ White, Hranicky conducted the first scientific excavation uncovering a small five by five foot area at the Spout Run Site that so far has produced jasper tools and other supporting artifacts dating back approximately 12,000 years before present.
“Finding jasper tools here is very important,” Hranicky said. “Jasper does not occur naturally in this area so its presence on this site is very important in establishing that Paleo-indians were once here.”
While the small pieces of jasper may be important from a science detective’s point of view, the more extraordinary feature from a layman’s perspective is that the ancient solstice calendar appears to still accurately mark the changing of the seasons today just as it must have done more than twelve millenia ago.
According to White and Hranicky, a person standing in the center of the stone rings is able to focus their line-of-sight with one of several large stone markers placed at precise positions in the ring’s outer-most perimeter. The stone perimeter points can then be aligned with prominent landmarks further from the circle – for example Bear’s Den Rocks nearly two miles away.
Based on the stone alignments, Hranicky says, a viewer standing in the middle of the circle will observe the Sun rise directly over Bear’s Den Rocks on the Summer Solstice – the Sun’s furthest apparent northern position. [See diagram, below, from article.]
Harnicky claims that a similar Winter Solstice alignment coincides between a stone pillar in the circle and another prominent geologic feature high above on the ridge. Not far from the stone ring is a pile of stones that Hranicky believes may have once served as an altar based on its alignment with other features of the site.
Although on a recent Autumn day Bear’s Den rocks are obscured by the thick leaves and trees, Dr. Jack says that when the stone ring and altar were built some 12,000 years ago there were no trees on the mountain thus giving the Paleo-indians a clear line of sight from the center of the circle to the stone altar and continuing further up the mountain to Bear’s Den Rocks.
According to Dr. Jack, the stone calendar site was probably built not only as a place to hold ceremonies and observe solar positions, but also as a location for jasper tool-making. However, the primary value to the ancient tribes surely would have been in its importance to their survival in predicting the changing seasons.
“The site investigation included mapping and exploring resources around the site and confirms that Paleo-indian priests carried out ceremonies here using the angle of the sun, concentric rings and a stone altar that stands about five-feet tall,” Hranicky said. Hranicky is in the process of registering the site as a state-recognized prehistoric site with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and as a National Historic Landmark with the U.S. Department of Interior.
Hranicky and the Whites have coined the name “Spout Run” for the prehistoric site after Spout Run stream that winds through the property before making its way further down the mountain and into the Shenandoah River.
Hranicky who believes that Clarke County’s Spout Run Site is the oldest above-ground Paleo-indian ceremonial site in North America, will be presenting his research on October 22 during the Annual Meeting of the West Virginia Archaeological Society in Charleston, West Virginia.
“This prehistoric site located in Northern Virginia is of unique national significance and offers a glimpse into a highly developed culture living in Virginia over 12,000 years ago,” Hranicky said. “The site has above-ground concentric rings, jasper tools, Summer/Fall focus and calendar using the summer solstice as a start for the year.
“Jasper is a cryptocrystalline stone in geology known to be a preferred mineral to fashion tools by Paleo-indians during the Younger Dryers period, which occurred after the Earth returned very quickly into near glacial cold, dry and windy conditions. Dating also corresponds to the length of time that the Paleo-indians mined for jasper at the Thunderbird (Flint Run) Paleo-indian Complex in Warren County” Hranicky remarked.
Thunderbird is a jasper quarry excavated in 1974 by Catholic University’s late William Gardner. Gardner was among the first to uncover evidence that Paleo-indians used the Shenandoah River to reach jasper quarries there.
“Our goal is to seek donations and funds to help preserve the site for future generations,” said Spout Run owner Chris White. “Anyone interested in helping preserve this sacred site can contact White at the Native American Church of Virginia."
“As the Paelo-Indians moved north along the river, Bear’s Den Rocks would have been a very prominent landmark for them,” says Dr. Jack. “They also would have been able to clearly see the site where we are standing right now.”
Dr. Jack is standing in the middle of several large, concentric stone rings – each ring inside a larger ring. The rings were discovered by Clarke County resident Chris White on property he purchased in 2000 located about two miles southwest of Bear’s Den on a lower bench of the Blue Ridge.
Not long after purchasing the property White began building a house on a beautiful rise overlooking his 20-acre parcel.
“When I would come to work on the house, often I would sit by the creek,” White recalled. “A quiet voice inside of me told me ‘This land is important.’”
Despite White’s good feelings about his property, he really had no idea that the land was anything more than just a beautiful spot in a bucolic setting. White’s understanding of just how special his property actually was began changing about two years ago.
Not long after White finished building his house he shifted his attention to longer term thoughts about whether his land could play a role as a Native American Church. For years, White said, he had dreamed of creating a retreat center where all types of people could come to meet and discuss issues that concern Native Americans. To complement his Oklevueha Native American Church of Virginia, White decided to establish the Sanctuary on the Trail, a faith-based neighborhood and community outreach-initiative where spiritual leaders across denominations could meet to create possibilities for communities, churches, and tribes on challenges and issues facing them in a modern world.
So, in 2010 White decided that a good first step toward implementing his Sanctuary on the Trail vision would be to construct on his property what, in Native American parlance, is known as a “medicine wheel.” White even had the perfect location picked for his medicine wheel; the beautiful glen just below his house next to Spout Run.
Medicine wheels, or sacred hoops, are constructed by laying stones in a particular pattern on the ground, often following the basic pattern of a stone center surrounded by an outer ring of stones with “spokes,”or lines of rocks radiating from the center. Originally, and still today, medicine wheels are constructed by certain indigenous peoples of North America for various reasons including astronomical, ritual, healing, and teaching purposes.
As White began clearing fallen trees and brush from his hoped-for medicine wheel site, something extraordinary began to unfold. As White removed debris, pre-existing circles of concentric rocks began to be revealed. As White continued to work, he soon noticed another circular rock pattern next to the first circle.
At first White didn’t know what to think. Could it be that the stone rings were nothing more than a natural anomaly created by some long forgotten rock slide or other random event? Yet certain features of the stone rings piqued White’s curiosity. For instance, why did it appear that larger stones were positioned at cardinal points within the ring? And why were there two rings positioned adjacent to each other?
White, who himself is of Native American heritage stemming from the Cherokee Nation, decided that a professional archaeologist might be able to give him a better idea of whether the rings had been formed naturally or were man-made.
White got in touch with Dr. Jack.
Like any scientist, Hranicky was skeptical at first, but was none-the-less intrigued by White’s find. After some preliminary investigation Dr. Jack decided that the site deserved additional archaeological investigation. With the assistance of Chris and Rene’ White, Hranicky conducted the first scientific excavation uncovering a small five by five foot area at the Spout Run Site that so far has produced jasper tools and other supporting artifacts dating back approximately 12,000 years before present.
“Finding jasper tools here is very important,” Hranicky said. “Jasper does not occur naturally in this area so its presence on this site is very important in establishing that Paleo-indians were once here.”
While the small pieces of jasper may be important from a science detective’s point of view, the more extraordinary feature from a layman’s perspective is that the ancient solstice calendar appears to still accurately mark the changing of the seasons today just as it must have done more than twelve millenia ago.
According to White and Hranicky, a person standing in the center of the stone rings is able to focus their line-of-sight with one of several large stone markers placed at precise positions in the ring’s outer-most perimeter. The stone perimeter points can then be aligned with prominent landmarks further from the circle – for example Bear’s Den Rocks nearly two miles away.
Based on the stone alignments, Hranicky says, a viewer standing in the middle of the circle will observe the Sun rise directly over Bear’s Den Rocks on the Summer Solstice – the Sun’s furthest apparent northern position. [See diagram, below, from article.]
Harnicky claims that a similar Winter Solstice alignment coincides between a stone pillar in the circle and another prominent geologic feature high above on the ridge. Not far from the stone ring is a pile of stones that Hranicky believes may have once served as an altar based on its alignment with other features of the site.
Although on a recent Autumn day Bear’s Den rocks are obscured by the thick leaves and trees, Dr. Jack says that when the stone ring and altar were built some 12,000 years ago there were no trees on the mountain thus giving the Paleo-indians a clear line of sight from the center of the circle to the stone altar and continuing further up the mountain to Bear’s Den Rocks.
According to Dr. Jack, the stone calendar site was probably built not only as a place to hold ceremonies and observe solar positions, but also as a location for jasper tool-making. However, the primary value to the ancient tribes surely would have been in its importance to their survival in predicting the changing seasons.
“The site investigation included mapping and exploring resources around the site and confirms that Paleo-indian priests carried out ceremonies here using the angle of the sun, concentric rings and a stone altar that stands about five-feet tall,” Hranicky said. Hranicky is in the process of registering the site as a state-recognized prehistoric site with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and as a National Historic Landmark with the U.S. Department of Interior.
Hranicky and the Whites have coined the name “Spout Run” for the prehistoric site after Spout Run stream that winds through the property before making its way further down the mountain and into the Shenandoah River.
Hranicky who believes that Clarke County’s Spout Run Site is the oldest above-ground Paleo-indian ceremonial site in North America, will be presenting his research on October 22 during the Annual Meeting of the West Virginia Archaeological Society in Charleston, West Virginia.
“This prehistoric site located in Northern Virginia is of unique national significance and offers a glimpse into a highly developed culture living in Virginia over 12,000 years ago,” Hranicky said. “The site has above-ground concentric rings, jasper tools, Summer/Fall focus and calendar using the summer solstice as a start for the year.
“Jasper is a cryptocrystalline stone in geology known to be a preferred mineral to fashion tools by Paleo-indians during the Younger Dryers period, which occurred after the Earth returned very quickly into near glacial cold, dry and windy conditions. Dating also corresponds to the length of time that the Paleo-indians mined for jasper at the Thunderbird (Flint Run) Paleo-indian Complex in Warren County” Hranicky remarked.
Thunderbird is a jasper quarry excavated in 1974 by Catholic University’s late William Gardner. Gardner was among the first to uncover evidence that Paleo-indians used the Shenandoah River to reach jasper quarries there.
“Our goal is to seek donations and funds to help preserve the site for future generations,” said Spout Run owner Chris White. “Anyone interested in helping preserve this sacred site can contact White at the Native American Church of Virginia."
Sunday, September 18, 2011
The Mysterious Stone Circles of the Middle East
Visible Only From Above, Mystifying 'Nazca Lines' Discovered in Mideast
Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 14 September 2011 Time: 10:33 AM ET
[Note: These are not animal glyphs like many of the 'Nazca Lines'. It seems that many ancient cultures, including Native American cultures, created stone wheels of some sort of other, from the so-called Medicine Wheels of the Plains Indians to the massive circular stone henges created in England and Normandy.]
They stretch from Syria to Saudi Arabia, can be seen from the air but not the ground, and are virtually unknown to the public.
They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines — ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru — and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands.
Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes radiating inside. Researchers believe that they date back to antiquity, at least 2,000 years ago. They are often found on lava fields and range from 82 feet to 230 feet (25 meters to 70 meters) across.
"In Jordan alone we've got stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older," said David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia. Kennedy's new research, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, reveals that these wheels form part of a variety of stone landscapes. These include kites (stone structures used for funnelling and killing animals); pendants (lines of stone cairns that run from burials); and walls, mysterious structures that meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet and have no apparent practical use.
His team's studies are part of a long-term aerial reconnaissance project that is looking at archaeological sites across Jordan. As of now, Kennedy and his colleagues are puzzled as to what the structures may have been used for or what meaning they held.
Fascinating structures
Kennedy's main area of expertise is in Roman archaeology, but he became fascinated by these structures when, as a student, he read accounts of Royal Air Force pilots flying over them in the 1920s on airmail routes across Jordan. "You can't not be fascinated by these things," Kennedy said. Indeed, in 1927 RAF Flight Lt. Percy Maitland published an account of the ruins in the journal Antiquity. He reported encountering them over "lava country" and said that they, along with the other stone structures, are known to the Bedouin as the "works of the old men."
Kennedy and his team have been studying the structures using aerial photography and Google Earth, as the wheels are hard to pick up from the ground, Kennedy said. "Sometimes when you're actually there on the site you can make out something of a pattern but not very easily," he said. "Whereas if you go up just a hundred feet or so it, for me, comes sharply into focus what the shape is." The designs must have been clearer when they were originally built. "People have probably walked over them, walked past them, for centuries, millennia, without having any clear idea what the shape was." (The team has created an archive of images of the wheels from various sites in the Middle East.)
What were they used for? So far, none of the wheels appears to have been excavated, something that makes dating them, and finding out their purpose, more difficult. Archaeologists studying them in the pre-Google Earth era speculated that they could be the remains of houses or cemeteries. Kennedy said that neither of these explanations seems to work out well.
"There seems to be some overarching cultural continuum in this area in which people felt there was a need to build structures that were circular." Some of the wheels are found in isolation while others are clustered together. At one location, near the Azraq Oasis, hundreds of them can be found clustered into a dozen groups. "Some of these collections around Azraq are really quite remarkable," Kennedy said.
In Saudi Arabia, Kennedy's team has found wheel styles that are quite different: Some are rectangular and are not wheels at all; others are circular but contain two spokes forming a bar often aligned in the same direction that the sun rises and sets in the Middle East. The ones in Jordan and Syria, on the other hand, have numerous spokes and do not seem to be aligned with any astronomical phenomena. "On looking at large numbers of these, over a number of years, I wasn't struck by any pattern in the way in which the spokes were laid out," Kennedy said.
Cairns are often found associated with the wheels. Sometimes they circle the perimeter of the wheel, other times they are in among the spokes. In Saudi Arabia some of the cairns look, from the air, like they are associated with ancient burials. Dating the wheels is difficult, since they appear to be prehistoric, but could date to as recently as 2,000 years ago. The researchers have noted that the wheels are often found on top of kites, which date as far back as 9,000 years, but never vice versa. "That suggests that wheels are more recent than the kites," Kennedy said.
Amelia Sparavigna, a physics professor at Politecnico di Torino in Italy, told Live Science in an email that she agrees these structures can be referred to as geoglyphs in the same way as the Nazca Lines are. "If we define a 'geoglyph' as a wide sign on the ground of artificial origin, the stone circles are geoglyphs," Sparavignawrote in her email. The function of the wheels may also have been similar to the enigmatic drawings in the Nazca desert. "If we consider, more generally, the stone circles as worship places of ancestors, or places for rituals connected with astronomical events or with seasons, they could have the same function of [the] geoglyphs of South America, the Nazca Lines for instance. The design is different, but the function could be the same," she wrote in her email.
Kennedy said that for now the meaning of the wheels remains a mystery. "The question is what was the purpose?"
Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 14 September 2011 Time: 10:33 AM ET
[Note: These are not animal glyphs like many of the 'Nazca Lines'. It seems that many ancient cultures, including Native American cultures, created stone wheels of some sort of other, from the so-called Medicine Wheels of the Plains Indians to the massive circular stone henges created in England and Normandy.]
They are the Middle East's own version of the Nazca Lines — ancient "geolyphs," or drawings, that span deserts in southern Peru — and now, thanks to new satellite-mapping technologies, and an aerial photography program in Jordan, researchers are discovering more of them than ever before. They number well into the thousands.
Referred to by archaeologists as "wheels," these stone structures have a wide variety of designs, with a common one being a circle with spokes radiating inside. Researchers believe that they date back to antiquity, at least 2,000 years ago. They are often found on lava fields and range from 82 feet to 230 feet (25 meters to 70 meters) across.
"In Jordan alone we've got stone-built structures that are far more numerous than (the) Nazca Lines, far more extensive in the area that they cover, and far older," said David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia. Kennedy's new research, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, reveals that these wheels form part of a variety of stone landscapes. These include kites (stone structures used for funnelling and killing animals); pendants (lines of stone cairns that run from burials); and walls, mysterious structures that meander across the landscape for up to several hundred feet and have no apparent practical use.
His team's studies are part of a long-term aerial reconnaissance project that is looking at archaeological sites across Jordan. As of now, Kennedy and his colleagues are puzzled as to what the structures may have been used for or what meaning they held.
Fascinating structures
Kennedy's main area of expertise is in Roman archaeology, but he became fascinated by these structures when, as a student, he read accounts of Royal Air Force pilots flying over them in the 1920s on airmail routes across Jordan. "You can't not be fascinated by these things," Kennedy said. Indeed, in 1927 RAF Flight Lt. Percy Maitland published an account of the ruins in the journal Antiquity. He reported encountering them over "lava country" and said that they, along with the other stone structures, are known to the Bedouin as the "works of the old men."
Kennedy and his team have been studying the structures using aerial photography and Google Earth, as the wheels are hard to pick up from the ground, Kennedy said. "Sometimes when you're actually there on the site you can make out something of a pattern but not very easily," he said. "Whereas if you go up just a hundred feet or so it, for me, comes sharply into focus what the shape is." The designs must have been clearer when they were originally built. "People have probably walked over them, walked past them, for centuries, millennia, without having any clear idea what the shape was." (The team has created an archive of images of the wheels from various sites in the Middle East.)
What were they used for? So far, none of the wheels appears to have been excavated, something that makes dating them, and finding out their purpose, more difficult. Archaeologists studying them in the pre-Google Earth era speculated that they could be the remains of houses or cemeteries. Kennedy said that neither of these explanations seems to work out well.
"There seems to be some overarching cultural continuum in this area in which people felt there was a need to build structures that were circular." Some of the wheels are found in isolation while others are clustered together. At one location, near the Azraq Oasis, hundreds of them can be found clustered into a dozen groups. "Some of these collections around Azraq are really quite remarkable," Kennedy said.
In Saudi Arabia, Kennedy's team has found wheel styles that are quite different: Some are rectangular and are not wheels at all; others are circular but contain two spokes forming a bar often aligned in the same direction that the sun rises and sets in the Middle East. The ones in Jordan and Syria, on the other hand, have numerous spokes and do not seem to be aligned with any astronomical phenomena. "On looking at large numbers of these, over a number of years, I wasn't struck by any pattern in the way in which the spokes were laid out," Kennedy said.
Cairns are often found associated with the wheels. Sometimes they circle the perimeter of the wheel, other times they are in among the spokes. In Saudi Arabia some of the cairns look, from the air, like they are associated with ancient burials. Dating the wheels is difficult, since they appear to be prehistoric, but could date to as recently as 2,000 years ago. The researchers have noted that the wheels are often found on top of kites, which date as far back as 9,000 years, but never vice versa. "That suggests that wheels are more recent than the kites," Kennedy said.
Amelia Sparavigna, a physics professor at Politecnico di Torino in Italy, told Live Science in an email that she agrees these structures can be referred to as geoglyphs in the same way as the Nazca Lines are. "If we define a 'geoglyph' as a wide sign on the ground of artificial origin, the stone circles are geoglyphs," Sparavignawrote in her email. The function of the wheels may also have been similar to the enigmatic drawings in the Nazca desert. "If we consider, more generally, the stone circles as worship places of ancestors, or places for rituals connected with astronomical events or with seasons, they could have the same function of [the] geoglyphs of South America, the Nazca Lines for instance. The design is different, but the function could be the same," she wrote in her email.
Kennedy said that for now the meaning of the wheels remains a mystery. "The question is what was the purpose?"
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Iron Age Burials Uncovered in Tamil Nadu, Including Stone Circles
Stone circles back in the news, this time in Tamil Nadu, India, dating to the Iron Age c. 500-300 BCE. In fact, there is an incredible mix of burial techniques uncovered in this excavation:
Fron the hindustantimes.com
Iron Age burial sites found in Tamil Nadu
Press Trust Of India
Tiruchirappalli, August 13, 2010
Hundreds of Iron Age megalithic burial sites of different types and habitational deposits of the contemporary period have been discovered by Archeological Survey of India (ASI) at Sengalur village in the Pudukottai District of Tamil Nadu. More than 500 megalithic structures believed to be dating back to about 500–300 BC have been found during excavations carried out in an area of about 25 hectares at the village near Tiruchirappalli, a senior ASI official said.
“The findings are rare and the megalithic sites are one of the earliest architectural attempts of the people in South India,” ASI Superintending Archaeologist, Temple Suvey Project Southern Region, D Dayalan said.
The findings include stone circles of laterite or granite boulders and made with cairn packing, cist burial of different types, pit burial and urn burial with or without capstones. A special feature was the rectangular shaped structure of Iron Age sepulchral monument. It was unique and not found anywhere in South India except a solitary finding at Sittannavasal in the same district, he said.
The excavations also yielded habitational objects like potteries of different shapes and sizes including bi-coloured (red and black) pots besides iron objects at Melappatti.
Fron the hindustantimes.com
Iron Age burial sites found in Tamil Nadu
Press Trust Of India
Tiruchirappalli, August 13, 2010
Hundreds of Iron Age megalithic burial sites of different types and habitational deposits of the contemporary period have been discovered by Archeological Survey of India (ASI) at Sengalur village in the Pudukottai District of Tamil Nadu. More than 500 megalithic structures believed to be dating back to about 500–300 BC have been found during excavations carried out in an area of about 25 hectares at the village near Tiruchirappalli, a senior ASI official said.
“The findings are rare and the megalithic sites are one of the earliest architectural attempts of the people in South India,” ASI Superintending Archaeologist, Temple Suvey Project Southern Region, D Dayalan said.
The findings include stone circles of laterite or granite boulders and made with cairn packing, cist burial of different types, pit burial and urn burial with or without capstones. A special feature was the rectangular shaped structure of Iron Age sepulchral monument. It was unique and not found anywhere in South India except a solitary finding at Sittannavasal in the same district, he said.
The excavations also yielded habitational objects like potteries of different shapes and sizes including bi-coloured (red and black) pots besides iron objects at Melappatti.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Wood Henges Found on Opposite Sides of the Atlantic
First, article from the Guardian.co.uk:
Stonehenge twin discovered stone's throw away
New wooden henge, a circular ditch that aligns with world-famous monument, deemed site's most exciting find in a lifetime
By Maev Kennedy
Thursday 22 July 2010 10.52 BST
Without a sod of earth being dug up, a new henge, a circular ditch which probably enclosed a ring of timber posts and may have been used for feasting, has been discovered within sight of Stonehenge. (Image: An artist's impression of a structure discovered by archaeologists studying the land surrounding Stonehenge, Wiltshire)
Professor Vince Gaffney, of Birmingham university, described the discovery of the new monument, only 900 metres away and apparently contemporary to the 5,000-year-old stone circle, as the most exciting find at Stonehenge in a lifetime.
"This finding is remarkable. It will completely change the way we think about the landscape around Stonehenge.
"People have tended to think that as Stonehenge reached its peak, it was the paramount monument, existing in splendid isolation. This discovery is completely new and extremely important in how we understand Stonehenge and its landscape.
"Stonehenge is one of the most studied monuments on Earth but this demonstrates that there is still much more to be found."
Midsummer revellers coming to Stonehenge for the solstice have probably trampled unwittingly across the grass hiding the henge.
The henge was revealed within a fortnight of an international team beginning fieldwork on the three-year Stonehenge Hidden Landscape project, which aims to survey and map 14 sq km of the sacred landscape around the world's most famous prehistoric monument, which is studded with thousands more monuments from single standing stones to ploughed out burial mounds.
Amanda Chadburn, the archaeologist responsible for Stonehenge at English Heritage, said: "This new monument is part of a growing body of evidence which shows how important the summer and winter solstices were to the ancient peoples who built Stonehenge. The discovery is all the more remarkable given how much research there has been in the vicinity of Stonehenge, and emphasises the importance of continuing research within and around the world heritage site."
The survey suggests that the henge was on the same alignment as Stonehenge, and comprised a segmented ditch with north-east and south-west entrances, enclosing internal pits up to a metre in diameter believed to have held massive timbers.
For the last fortnight curious tourists have watched scientists trundling what look like large lawnmowers around the nearby field. The geophysical equipment can peer under the surface of the earth using techniques like ground-penetrating radar, revealing structures now invisible to the human eye.
The new discovery was hidden in the landscape: nothing remains above ground.
The international team includes scientists and archaeologists from Birmingham University, Bradford, St Andrews, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Virtual Archaeology in Austria, as well as teams from Germany, Norway and Sweden.
Professor Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, said: "This is just the beginning. We will now map this monument using an array of technologies that will allow us to view this new discovery, and the landscape around it, in three dimensions. This marks a new departure for archaeologists and how they investigate the past."
The work of other teams suggests that timber and stone monuments were separate parts of the same Stonehenge story. Professor Mike Parker Pearson, an archaeologist who has been excavating for many seasons at Durrington Walls, another nearby timber henge site, has already suggested that timber henges and structures were associated with feasting for the living, and stone circles with the realms of the dead.
Work continues and the team expects to uncover many more secrets in the landscape.
And this article, from National Geographic News (sorry, I looked for but could not find an artist's rendition of Moorehead Circle - Woodhenge):
Wooden "Stonehenge" Emerges From Prehistoric Ohio
Timber circles, like U.K. monument, aligned to summer solstice, study reveals
Published July 20, 2010
Just northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio, a sort of wooden Stonehenge is slowly emerging as archaeologists unearth increasing evidence of a 2,000-year-old ceremonial site.
Among their latest finds: Like Stonehenge, the Ohio timber circles were likely used to mark astronomical events such as the summer solstice.
Formally called Moorehead Circle but nicknamed "Woodhenge" by non-archaeologists, the site was once a leafless forest of wooden posts. Laid out in a peculiar pattern of concentric, but incomplete, rings, the site is about 200 feet (57 meters) wide. (See a picture of reconstructed timber circles near Stonehenge.)
Today only rock-filled postholes remain, surrounded by the enigmatic earthworks of Fort Ancient State Memorial (map). Some are thousands of feet long and all were built by Indians of the pre-agricultural Hopewell culture, the dominant culture in midwestern and eastern North America from about A.D. 1 to 900.
This year archaeologists began using computer models to analyze Moorehead Circle's layout and found that Ohio's Woodhenge may have even more in common with the United Kingdom's Stonehenge than thought—specifically, an apparently intentional astronomical alignment.
The software "allows us to stitch together various kinds of geographical data, including aerial photographs and excavation plans and even digital photographs," explained excavation leader Robert Riordan, an archaeologist at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
The researchers had known, for example, that an opening in the rings; a nearby, human-made enclosure; stone mounds; and a gateway in a nearby earthen wall are all aligned.
But the model revealed that the alignment is such that, during the Northern Hemisphere's summer solstice—the longest day of the year—the sun appears to rise in the gateway, as seen from the center of the circle, Riordan said.
In much the same way, and on the same day, the sun appears to rise alongside Stonehenge's outlying Heel Stone, casting a beam on the monument's central altar.
Trench Mystery at Woodhenge
Park officials using ground-penetrating technologies discovered the first holes at Moorehead Circle in 2005. Since then, Riordan's team's excavations have revealed hundreds more.
About 10 inches (30 centimeters) across and up to three feet (one meter) deep, the holes are thought to have held posts made from stripped oaks, hickories, and other local trees, Riordan said.
Each post probably stood about 10 to 13 feet (3 to 4 meters) above ground, and some were spaced only a few inches apart.
At the center of the innermost circle is a patch of cleared earth filled with reddish, burned soil and hundreds of broken pottery fragments.
In 2007 Riordan and his team discovered a series of trenches filled with ash and clay and capped with gravel and soil.
The trenches' layout mimics the pattern of the long-gone posts. And as with the posts, Riordan said, "We have no idea what [the trenches] were built for."
(Also see "Stonehenge Was Cemetery First and Foremost, Study Says.")
An Elaborate Construction
For the ancient Ohioans, constructing Moorehead Circle would have been a significant undertaking.
"They would have had to dig these holes, go get the trees, cut them, strip them, and carry them in," Riordan said.
Workers would have had to carry limestone rocks from about a mile (1.6 kilometers) away and up a 250-foot (76-meter) hill. The rocks would have then been broken up and placed in the pits to help keep the posts upright.
Not even digging the postholes would have been easy. Lacking shovels or picks, the Hopewell people dug with bones and sharpened pieces of wood.
And for all their work, the circle's creators must have known their monument wasn't built to last. After about ten years the wooden posts would have been largely rotted and ripe for replacement, Riordan said.
"This was an elaborate construction," he added. "All the effort that went into constructing it suggests it was the ceremonial focus of Fort Ancient for a time."
Further information on Moorehead Circle
Stonehenge twin discovered stone's throw away
New wooden henge, a circular ditch that aligns with world-famous monument, deemed site's most exciting find in a lifetime
By Maev Kennedy
Thursday 22 July 2010 10.52 BST
Professor Vince Gaffney, of Birmingham university, described the discovery of the new monument, only 900 metres away and apparently contemporary to the 5,000-year-old stone circle, as the most exciting find at Stonehenge in a lifetime.
"This finding is remarkable. It will completely change the way we think about the landscape around Stonehenge.
"People have tended to think that as Stonehenge reached its peak, it was the paramount monument, existing in splendid isolation. This discovery is completely new and extremely important in how we understand Stonehenge and its landscape.
"Stonehenge is one of the most studied monuments on Earth but this demonstrates that there is still much more to be found."
Midsummer revellers coming to Stonehenge for the solstice have probably trampled unwittingly across the grass hiding the henge.
The henge was revealed within a fortnight of an international team beginning fieldwork on the three-year Stonehenge Hidden Landscape project, which aims to survey and map 14 sq km of the sacred landscape around the world's most famous prehistoric monument, which is studded with thousands more monuments from single standing stones to ploughed out burial mounds.
Amanda Chadburn, the archaeologist responsible for Stonehenge at English Heritage, said: "This new monument is part of a growing body of evidence which shows how important the summer and winter solstices were to the ancient peoples who built Stonehenge. The discovery is all the more remarkable given how much research there has been in the vicinity of Stonehenge, and emphasises the importance of continuing research within and around the world heritage site."
The survey suggests that the henge was on the same alignment as Stonehenge, and comprised a segmented ditch with north-east and south-west entrances, enclosing internal pits up to a metre in diameter believed to have held massive timbers.
For the last fortnight curious tourists have watched scientists trundling what look like large lawnmowers around the nearby field. The geophysical equipment can peer under the surface of the earth using techniques like ground-penetrating radar, revealing structures now invisible to the human eye.
The new discovery was hidden in the landscape: nothing remains above ground.
The international team includes scientists and archaeologists from Birmingham University, Bradford, St Andrews, and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Virtual Archaeology in Austria, as well as teams from Germany, Norway and Sweden.
Professor Wolfgang Neubauer, director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute, said: "This is just the beginning. We will now map this monument using an array of technologies that will allow us to view this new discovery, and the landscape around it, in three dimensions. This marks a new departure for archaeologists and how they investigate the past."
The work of other teams suggests that timber and stone monuments were separate parts of the same Stonehenge story. Professor Mike Parker Pearson, an archaeologist who has been excavating for many seasons at Durrington Walls, another nearby timber henge site, has already suggested that timber henges and structures were associated with feasting for the living, and stone circles with the realms of the dead.
Work continues and the team expects to uncover many more secrets in the landscape.
And this article, from National Geographic News (sorry, I looked for but could not find an artist's rendition of Moorehead Circle - Woodhenge):
Wooden "Stonehenge" Emerges From Prehistoric Ohio
Timber circles, like U.K. monument, aligned to summer solstice, study reveals
Published July 20, 2010
Just northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio, a sort of wooden Stonehenge is slowly emerging as archaeologists unearth increasing evidence of a 2,000-year-old ceremonial site.
Among their latest finds: Like Stonehenge, the Ohio timber circles were likely used to mark astronomical events such as the summer solstice.
Formally called Moorehead Circle but nicknamed "Woodhenge" by non-archaeologists, the site was once a leafless forest of wooden posts. Laid out in a peculiar pattern of concentric, but incomplete, rings, the site is about 200 feet (57 meters) wide. (See a picture of reconstructed timber circles near Stonehenge.)
Today only rock-filled postholes remain, surrounded by the enigmatic earthworks of Fort Ancient State Memorial (map). Some are thousands of feet long and all were built by Indians of the pre-agricultural Hopewell culture, the dominant culture in midwestern and eastern North America from about A.D. 1 to 900.
This year archaeologists began using computer models to analyze Moorehead Circle's layout and found that Ohio's Woodhenge may have even more in common with the United Kingdom's Stonehenge than thought—specifically, an apparently intentional astronomical alignment.
The software "allows us to stitch together various kinds of geographical data, including aerial photographs and excavation plans and even digital photographs," explained excavation leader Robert Riordan, an archaeologist at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.
The researchers had known, for example, that an opening in the rings; a nearby, human-made enclosure; stone mounds; and a gateway in a nearby earthen wall are all aligned.
But the model revealed that the alignment is such that, during the Northern Hemisphere's summer solstice—the longest day of the year—the sun appears to rise in the gateway, as seen from the center of the circle, Riordan said.
In much the same way, and on the same day, the sun appears to rise alongside Stonehenge's outlying Heel Stone, casting a beam on the monument's central altar.
Trench Mystery at Woodhenge
Park officials using ground-penetrating technologies discovered the first holes at Moorehead Circle in 2005. Since then, Riordan's team's excavations have revealed hundreds more.
About 10 inches (30 centimeters) across and up to three feet (one meter) deep, the holes are thought to have held posts made from stripped oaks, hickories, and other local trees, Riordan said.
Each post probably stood about 10 to 13 feet (3 to 4 meters) above ground, and some were spaced only a few inches apart.
At the center of the innermost circle is a patch of cleared earth filled with reddish, burned soil and hundreds of broken pottery fragments.
In 2007 Riordan and his team discovered a series of trenches filled with ash and clay and capped with gravel and soil.
The trenches' layout mimics the pattern of the long-gone posts. And as with the posts, Riordan said, "We have no idea what [the trenches] were built for."
(Also see "Stonehenge Was Cemetery First and Foremost, Study Says.")
An Elaborate Construction
For the ancient Ohioans, constructing Moorehead Circle would have been a significant undertaking.
"They would have had to dig these holes, go get the trees, cut them, strip them, and carry them in," Riordan said.
Workers would have had to carry limestone rocks from about a mile (1.6 kilometers) away and up a 250-foot (76-meter) hill. The rocks would have then been broken up and placed in the pits to help keep the posts upright.
Not even digging the postholes would have been easy. Lacking shovels or picks, the Hopewell people dug with bones and sharpened pieces of wood.
And for all their work, the circle's creators must have known their monument wasn't built to last. After about ten years the wooden posts would have been largely rotted and ripe for replacement, Riordan said.
"This was an elaborate construction," he added. "All the effort that went into constructing it suggests it was the ceremonial focus of Fort Ancient for a time."
Further information on Moorehead Circle
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