This Town had 6 Stonehenges! - The Map Mystery

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  • Опубліковано 10 тра 2023
  • Sign up for behind the scenes, livestreams, discord and more, using either UA-cam Members or Patreon: / paulandrebeccawhitewick or youtube.com/@pwhitewick/join
    Welcome to a little insight into Stonehenge, Avebury and the line that may or may have formed a trade route or boundary.
    Join this channel to get access to perks:
    / @pwhitewick
    Media: www.paulwhitewick.co.uk
    Credits: Music: Epidemicsound and Artlist.io
    Thumb Image: Mactographer - Own work CC - "David Ball - www.davidball.net"
    Sound Effects: Epidemicsound and Storyblocks
    Additional Footage: Storyblocks - artgrid.io
    Roman Road Diagram - Roman Road Research Association.
    Additional Drone Footage:
    Hedley Thorne: @hedleythorne
    Maps: OS Maps Crown Copyright 2023 - Media License.
    Maps: Google Maps.
    Maps: National Library of Scotland
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 248

  • @pwhitewick
    @pwhitewick  Рік тому +14

    Just a quick short form from us today. Sign up for behind the scenes, livestreams, discord and more, using either UA-cam Members or Patreon: www.patreon.com/PaulandRebecc... or youtube.com/@pwhitewick/join

  • @watcher24601
    @watcher24601 Рік тому +57

    Some things never change, it neolithic times Swindon went mad for stone circles. Now they do the same with roundabouts!

    • @davidyendoll5903
      @davidyendoll5903 Рік тому +1

      The Magic roundabout ! Yes .... so I came across that some years ago when I had a rather fast motorbike . I thought what the heck was this in front of me and how do I handle it . I spotted a sign across from where I was stopped which indicated the correct exit for me , thought again of how to manage the crazy roundabouts , and then lost my patience. I just went straight across the whole thing basically ! Having found the damned thing I made sure I never returned . Just possibly , I am not sure , but it might not actually exist any more ... in it's original design that is . I wonder why ?

    • @roderickjoyce6716
      @roderickjoyce6716 Рік тому

      😅

    • @judithafholland
      @judithafholland 9 місяців тому

      @@davidyendoll5903 😂 I lived in Swindon for 40 years. We do indeed go mad for roundabouts of all types, from those with copses in the middle to bird dropping markings on the road. Before the magic roundabout was built, it was a cross roads between 2 dual carriage ways & 3 busy main roads, essential for going both N-S, E-W, & getting to the football!. The traffic jams were horrendous.
      It's still there, but I promise you that when it was 1st built, even the locals just pointed their car in the right direction, closed their eyes, & hoped.

  • @liamjackson6930
    @liamjackson6930 Рік тому +30

    Slight error, that was the M4 not M5, but still very interesting anyway, we walk the dogs along day house but didn't realise the stones were there, will have to look out for them now

  • @Richardincancale
    @Richardincancale Рік тому +41

    Seems like they invented yet another ‘Ley Line’. When there’s so much archaeology in the area you can draw connecting or boundary lines in an infinite number of ways!

    • @liquidsonly
      @liquidsonly Рік тому +10

      I recall someone doing this with the location of Woolworth stores.

    • @dlevi67
      @dlevi67 Рік тому +3

      The amazing thing is that they always, always, always line up in pairs.

    • @firesurfer
      @firesurfer Рік тому +1

      ​@@dlevi67 Well duh... the shortest distance between two points is a line.
      I think you were being sarcastic, but that is lost on the net.

    • @dlevi67
      @dlevi67 Рік тому +2

      @@firesurfer I was indeed being sarcastic. Hence the "always, always, always", but you are right that it's hard to convey in writing.

    • @judithafholland
      @judithafholland 9 місяців тому +1

      I agree that the example shown is a fabrication. I read about long barrows lining up around stone henge. To prove them WRONG I did the same on a 1:50,000 OS map around Avebury.
      Needed to mark in a few from archaeological papers. I demanded alignments of a minimum of 3 barrows aligned within 30 feet (the distance between was several miles max 11miles). Shocked that they did.
      Then aligned them to Avebury also of Neolithic origin. 2 types of alignment from different series of barrows - to the centre, & tangentially. It accounted for why Avebury was built where it was, & its shape flattened on 1 side like a closed in D. No one more shocked than me.
      In fact 1 site marked as a long barrow on OS didn't fit in. When I visited it, it wasn't a long barrow - IMO the hillock for a post mill.
      This isn't anything to do with "Ley lines". I find it more difficult to explain why long barrows should align in the 1st place, than why they should relate to Avebury.
      In fact in a majority of cases I'd agree with Richardincancale. Silly to connect any old lump or bump in the ground, & built over a period of 5,000 years.

  • @mikepowell2776
    @mikepowell2776 Рік тому +23

    Another fascinating piece of research. One minor correction; it’s M4 at Swindon, not M5. I have the dubious privilege of driving along it every few days.

    • @longbar2344
      @longbar2344 Рік тому

      ah better than m1 m5 and 6

    • @wessexdruid7598
      @wessexdruid7598 Рік тому +1

      And the area in Swindon is Coate, not Coates - as is shown on the OS map. 🙂
      Swindon itself as a town, is a relative recent invention. In the Domesday book it was a small village where pigs were bred (the name is Saxon for 'pig hill').

    • @paulharvey9149
      @paulharvey9149 Рік тому +1

      @@wessexdruid7598 There are probably those that would argue that the product of pigs makes the first name quite appropriate 😁

    • @wessexdruid7598
      @wessexdruid7598 Рік тому

      @@paulharvey9149 Suindune? From 'Swine'?
      Or Coate - from Coate Water, a reservoir built to supply the K&A canal?

    • @ATtravel666
      @ATtravel666 Рік тому +1

      As soon as I heard that, I wondered if anyone else had picked up on the M5 mistake.

  • @Duncan23
    @Duncan23 Рік тому +21

    Megalithic portal is a fantastic resource, our neolithic history is absolutely everywhere if you know how to look for it

    • @zGJungle
      @zGJungle Рік тому +3

      I can't believe I have only just heard about this site, got a lot of places to visit now !

    • @eldrich4662
      @eldrich4662 Рік тому +2

      Agreed ive been a member for years

    • @Duncan23
      @Duncan23 Рік тому +3

      @@zGJungle it was an eye opening discovery when I discovered it, the amount of site with an hour of me is mind blowing. I had been walking amongst neolithic burial mounds and stone art and circles for years without even realising

  • @syncrosimon
    @syncrosimon Рік тому +3

    I suspect that many many early structures have been repurposed over the years, the fact that any survive shows to me that we are looking at the tip of an iceberg which only represents a single digit percentage of what went before. Great video.

  • @IndaloMan
    @IndaloMan Рік тому +8

    Back in the 80s/90s I lived in Wiltshire. Never mind stone circles, how about a video on corn circles that were all the rage for a few years? What happened to them??
    Also, I think you mean M4 when saying M5...?

    • @Foxglove963
      @Foxglove963 Рік тому +2

      I gather the farmers were paid for allowing the creation of corn circles. These are easy to make, even at night.

    • @kiwitrainguy
      @kiwitrainguy Рік тому +1

      @@Foxglove963 What amused me is that even after the two men were shown on TV explaining how they did it there were still people who refused to believe them and maintained that they were made by extra-terrestials.

  • @antonioveritas
    @antonioveritas Рік тому +9

    Good to see Rebecca back...yay! When dad got a second hand Morris Minor in the early 1970s the first outing we had in it was to Avebury stone circle, West Kennet long barrow and Silbury Hill. You could climb all over Silbury Hill in those days, which we did! I was 7 years old at the time, and in the little museum at Avebury they had on display stuff the archaeologists had found. I remember one item was labelled "fossilised excreta of dog." I had never heard the word excreta, so in a very loud voice I asked dad what it was. He wouldn't tell me, but as everyone in the museum turned to stare at us he went very red! I wonder if they still have a museum at Avebury and if so I wonder if the excreta of dog is still there!😂

    • @annarboriter
      @annarboriter Рік тому

      The polite word for fossilized excreta is coprolite. I honestly don't know how it was possible to distinguish the species of poopmaker or whether Canis spp have been around long enough for fossilization to take place

    • @antonioveritas
      @antonioveritas Рік тому

      @@annarboriter Remember this was the early 1970s. I don't think archaeology was as advanced or structured then as it is now. The museum was just a large wooden shed if I remember rightly, and the exhibits were just sitting in glass cases with typewritten labels on bits of cardboard. If the guy who found the stuff wanted to call it excreta of dog he could. He could probably have called it excreta of dinosaur if he wanted to! I think they wanted to say that the beaker people kept dogs as pets, and this exhibit proved their theory! Of course it actually proved nothing of the sort, but it gave our family a chuckle for many years. Whenever we went for a country walk and saw "barker's eggs" on the path we would cry out "excreta of dog" as a warning! 😁

    • @roderickjoyce6716
      @roderickjoyce6716 Рік тому +1

      There's an enormous human poo in the museum gallery at the Jorvik Viking Centre in York - it was preserved by the anaerobic conditions in the waterlogged soil, so it is not a true fossil. I forgot to ask the staff how they'd prepared it for exhibition.

  • @roderickmain9697
    @roderickmain9697 Рік тому +15

    Fascinating. Back in the late 60s and early 70s, people like Erich von Daniken were seeing formations everywhere. The more mystical were going for lay lines and showing how stone circles "lined up". (skipping the outliers - or were they just part of a different layline?) I suppose climbing over the stones at Stonehenge when I was 5 (and you could still get up close to them) possibly started my fascination with these structures. When pressed, I will tell people they were clearly landing pads for Flying saucers - the Chariots of The Gods - but I like messing with people when "nobody knows". If you are ever in Brittany on holiday, I can recommend Carnac for miles of rows of standing stones - nobody knows what they were for either. A bit closer to home, there are stone circles on some of the Scottish Islands and of course theres Rollright Stone circle on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border. I bet none of them line up in reality ...unless you are just drawing straight lines through random points,.

    • @richardjames3022
      @richardjames3022 Рік тому +3

      I remember reading Chariots of the Gods at school in the early 1970's. Even then I thought what a load of BS, when I became an archaeologist I new it was a load of BS. The sad thing is that people believe it.

    • @davidyendoll5903
      @davidyendoll5903 Рік тому +1

      @@richardjames3022 I agree von Daniken was full of it , but he was not worthless because he showed his public that there were strange , unexplained as yet , places and beliefs from the past all over the world . That 'evidence' , usually taken out of context by Erich , made those who were now interested to THINK . Some of those people thought enough about what he publicised to get up and do something to prove his theories wrong and discover sometimes new things to think about . I think of Erich as an intellectual catalyst ; unfortunately he spawned a bunch of people who realised he had made loads of money and fame spreading the bull and they have gone deeper into the pile of misinformation and almost created a religion out of Ufos ; so I suppose he is a double edged sword !

    • @richardjames3022
      @richardjames3022 Рік тому

      @@davidyendoll5903 I take your point, he did I suppose he did sort of make people look at past societies, I just wish he had been, and his followers would look at the evidence with a more critical eye, and NOT just think we cannot understand this, it must be aliens. All sorts of believe systems start with this sort of non-understanding or lack of critical thinking

    • @kevinbaker4907
      @kevinbaker4907 Рік тому

      Sir Alfred Watkins, the old grey line.

    • @Foxglove963
      @Foxglove963 Рік тому

      Von Daniken is an opportunist who was imprisoned for fraud. He sells books replete with humbug and nonsense, what if.... this site... was a landing place for UFO's?! Now many naive people believe the pyramids were built by aliens, not knowing that culture was based on slavery. Von Daniken should be in a mental hospital.

  • @PhilWaud
    @PhilWaud Рік тому +9

    Good video, thank you. Im sure there was a documentary (might have even been a Time Team special) about the causeway into Stonehenge. From memory, Stonehenge was a destination and it was the journey that they implied was important. I seem to remember it was north-south aligned.

    • @dudmanjohn
      @dudmanjohn Рік тому +1

      The Avenue leads to the 'entrance' - see also en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonehenge_Riverside_Project

  • @yvonnetyrrell5657
    @yvonnetyrrell5657 Рік тому +6

    I've been noticing the way Rebecca walks. I copied
    her and it relieved my low back pain. 😮thank you

    • @SBCBears
      @SBCBears Рік тому +1

      Hmmm... I'll have to try that. My back might thank me.

    • @hairyairey
      @hairyairey Рік тому

      @@SBCBears Most of the time it's poor core strength that causes back pain.

    • @SBCBears
      @SBCBears Рік тому

      @@hairyairey Thanks. That's a good tip.

  • @neilhenty4050
    @neilhenty4050 11 місяців тому

    The trouble with trying to establish potential routes like these is that you that they tend to only use what they want and ignore everything else. For example, according to Burl and OS maps, there was a stone circle at Tisbury about 15 miles west of Stonehenge (apparently some of the stones were removed and used in the grotto at Wardour Castle, the same one used in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner). But if that was plotted onto the map then it would immediately throw out the alignment theory.

  • @Traveler13
    @Traveler13 Рік тому +2

    The Megalithic portal is my main place to find my places to visit and film, its excellent, good video as well

  • @ColinH1973
    @ColinH1973 Рік тому +8

    Exceptionally interesting as always. There's a congregation of stone circles around Penrith and Keswick that could be worth a visit if you are ever in the area. I see that there was no mention of ley lines.............. Keep up the great work you two!!

  • @zakamoriarty
    @zakamoriarty Рік тому +2

    Good to see this vid pop up unexpectedly this afternoon!

  • @romad357
    @romad357 5 місяців тому

    I visited Stonehenge in August 1977 and was able to walk in and around the formations.

  • @James-ld2jc
    @James-ld2jc 4 місяці тому +1

    I do enjoy your videos - looking forward to getting out in the countryside when the weather improves

  • @davidberlanny3308
    @davidberlanny3308 Рік тому +2

    Yes that was really interesting👏👏👏
    Perhaps many roads converged on Swindon and they needed a way to route the traffic from one road to another, and came up with decorative stone circles😅😅
    Great video and plenty of scope for a longer one later on. Great to see Rebecca in the foreground as well!!
    Have a great weekend and good luck from Spain!!

  • @nilo70
    @nilo70 Рік тому +4

    Thank you Paul and Rebecca for investigating these stone circles and taking me along with you !
    It’s a pity that farmers hauled off or knocked down the stones to make a few more £ and discourage pilgrims. Perhaps in the future they will be able to figure out the original design
    Cheers From California 😊

    • @DomingoDeSantaClara
      @DomingoDeSantaClara Рік тому +1

      They could figure it out with a geophys machine, it shows disturbances in the ground, but as usual it comes down to funding.

  • @mikepowell2776
    @mikepowell2776 Рік тому +2

    Might add that immediately south of Lockeridge, on A4 west of Marlborough, is a field of random sparse s from which at least some of the Stonehenge stones were acquired. Love your videos and grateful that you’re informing people of the history that surrounds us.

  • @martinmarsola6477
    @martinmarsola6477 Рік тому +2

    Thank you for today’s video. Another interesting trek back in time! Always look forward to them. Enjoy the weekend ahead! Cheers Rebecca and Paul! ❤️❤️🙂🙂🇬🇧👍👍🇺🇸😊

  • @judithafholland
    @judithafholland 9 місяців тому

    Yes, there are many stone circles in that area - my stomping ground for 40 years.
    Re trade routes, there is a famous trade route - the Ridgeway which runs from Grimes graves (flint mines) in Cambridgeshire to Neolithic salt making bays in Exeter (evaporation of sea water).
    Avebury was built by both Neolithic and Bronze age peoples as was Stone henge. "Henge" refers to a deep circular ditch with a bank from the excavated soil on the outside of the circle.
    Please may I record a personal finding re Avebury here. Thought to be built in the later Neolithic at a time when the long barrows were being carefully closed with megaliths & dry stone walling. It's actually flattened one 1 side. Considering the size of it, it's almost invisible until you get there. Why the shape & why in that particular place?
    I read a book which said that Stone Henge aligned with the local long barrows (Neolithic tombs) I didn't believe it & decided to disprove it.
    Plotted the long barrows on a 1:50,000 OS map but knew some unmarked barrows had been ploughed in during my life time so went to the archaeological Mags to find map references of the others. Then drew the lines to connect the barrows to within a distance of 10 yards - minimum of 3 to make a straight line. All except 1 aligned. When I visited it was a tumulus - probably site of a post mill. Many aligned although there was an intervening hill obstructing the view of the next barrow.
    Next I aligned the barrows with the centre of Avebury (red lion pub) but there were quite a lot which didn't. So I aligned the rest to find them tangential to the circle & accounted for the D shape.
    What were Neolithic stone chambered long barrows about? A vast majority were tombs for a select few of the population. There was an entrance, & side chambers from a central corridor They also have alignments to the sun at summer & winter solstice & (possibly equinox) but several people think that by standing on the higher bank beside the barrow, allowing for erosion, in Neolithic times certain very bright stars could be seen rising over the top of the barrow. However because of a "wobble" on the earth's axis the stars appear to slowly change position (heavenly precession) So why were the barrows closed during the late Neolithic & closed very carefully with sarsens graded in height - tall at the entrance & shorter at the sides + dry stone walling to fill the gaps? This must have taken time.
    I can't access the necessary knowledge & don't even know if it's available. Were the barrows closed at roughly the same time? IDNK?
    Does this represent a change in religious beliefs? or had the heavenly precession caused them not to work for star risings any more?
    Does it represent a change in social organisation? My personal thought is that the long barrows would have probably been used by an extended family group or small clan. Their position is always high, overlooking a settlement. So does Avebury represent a joining together of all the people in the area together with the "spiritual power" of all their ancestors?.
    Whatever, the initial Avebury built by Neolithic people was, AFAIK purely a henge. A very deep ditch over 20' deep, then bank above it, & 4 entrance causeways. There are no alignments to stars. I may be wrong, but understood that the huge sarsen stones & Avenues (only West Kennet remains) were built by the earliest Bronze age people.
    (Neolithic people did use upright stones eg the blue stones at stone henge & stones round the edge of long barrows (peristaliths) eg Weyland's Smithy at Uffington, but they're much smaller than the giant sarsens which came later)
    Minimally "off centre" is a group of 3 large standing stones - the cove - & this relates to the sun.
    I came out of it with more questions than I started. Particularly how the heck did they get those alignments when they couldn't see their destination? Begs the question of whether they invented a Roman style theodolite?
    What happened to them? Neolithic peoples had long skulls front to back (dolichocephalic) whereas Beaker folk had round skulls (brady cephalic). They just seemed to disappear.

  • @456ArmyGuy
    @456ArmyGuy 5 місяців тому

    I've always heard that the Roman Invasion of Britain in 43 AD, Ended the occupation of Stonehenge. It was active until then.

  • @shahad_alsayed
    @shahad_alsayed 7 місяців тому

    Interesting exploration, bonus beautiful scenery. Thank you Paul, Rebecca and team 🙏

  • @TrevsTravelsByNarrowboat
    @TrevsTravelsByNarrowboat Рік тому +1

    Avebury Ring, one of my most favourite places in the world that I have visited.

  • @surinfarmwest6645
    @surinfarmwest6645 Рік тому +1

    This is interesting as where I live it used to be Cambodia and there is a line of hospitals and places to stay dating back to the 1300's. Sadly only a few are interested and perform digs in a professional manner but the surviving constructions are somewhat amazing with the holes on the massive blocks they used to lift them. The people that made these constructions with massive lakes are from the people who made Siem Reap which is about 145 Km (90 miles) as the crow flies. Side note: they built lots of stone circles at Swindon as they could see into the future and were granted insight into the "Magic Roundabout", the one I drove straight over one night when I was there!

  • @bewster7
    @bewster7 Рік тому +2

    Swindon is my home town and I lived there for 30+ years and I never knew any of that.
    Dayhouse used to be quiet enough to take your girlfriend tho😂

  • @nickorman814
    @nickorman814 Рік тому +5

    You mean the M4 not the M5!

  • @silliaek
    @silliaek Рік тому

    I like your choice of background music. Energetic but soothing.

  • @timofthomas
    @timofthomas Рік тому

    how does this fit with the now established fact that Stonehenge at least was moved from the West Coast of Wales (Time Team found the actual matching stone socket holes that they could definitively match to the stones at the site in Wales. That means not only was a move required but a huge amount of strategic planning if we are now talking about a line of them!

  • @seanfaherty
    @seanfaherty Рік тому +1

    You guys should be sponsored by the British Tourist Board.

  • @eldrich4662
    @eldrich4662 Рік тому +2

    William Stukeley awesome i have photostats of a couple of he works and many more books on pre-history, you should look at Dartmoor i spent a week many years ago visiting just for the circles and rows :) Great vid guys look forward to more on this subject.

  • @Jimyjames73
    @Jimyjames73 Рік тому

    Cor what a lot of old Important??? Stones - Thanks for sharing - you've both got a lot of walking energy!!! 😉🚂🚂🚂

  • @TheDaveWoods
    @TheDaveWoods Рік тому +1

    Interesting as always. From watching documentary and listening to podcasts I think the ancient mini circles were probably equivalent to the old market squares and meeting points for trading. The likes of Stonehenge and Avebury were probably more "religious" meeting places.
    As some others had mentioned you got your motorways mix up, but we knew what you meant 😉

  • @shirleylynch7529
    @shirleylynch7529 Рік тому +1

    So interesting. Thank you again for all the research you put into your videos. Most enjoyable.

  • @jacquesvandenberg1873
    @jacquesvandenberg1873 Рік тому +1

    What an awesome, interesting and informative video, thanks guys!

  • @caldrail
    @caldrail Рік тому

    My neck of the woods! That was the M4 motorway, not the M5. There are other circles in the area, such as Purton and the contentious Blunsdon Circle that the landowners don't want you to visit despite a public footpath. Yes, Neolithic Swindon was a popular place to live, no doubt because of the natural springs that have mostly dried up since the Victorian Age.

  • @leonardjackman354
    @leonardjackman354 Рік тому +1

    Another very interesting video in a beautiful part of the country . Thank you.

  • @SharpblueCreative
    @SharpblueCreative Рік тому +1

    Living here as I do and growing up on the Ridgeway (Upper Upham) I am quite familiar with the stones, henges & Neolithic mounds plus the white horses in what is arguably the best county in the country - Wiltshire.

  • @RustyVanDoor
    @RustyVanDoor Рік тому +1

    Ah yes the stone circles of Swindon, the early magic roundabout 😂

  • @daveanderson70
    @daveanderson70 Рік тому +2

    I remember using that Megalithic Portal when I had a dial up modem. Could it be as old has Stonehenge itself?

  • @marksmith334
    @marksmith334 Рік тому

    I’m sure all enjoyed the first buttons of spring.

  • @phillunn4691
    @phillunn4691 Рік тому

    What an absolutely brilliant video, so interesting! I never realised any of these other stone ‘circles’ existed! Thanks for sharing this with us! Look forward to your next video Paul and Rebecca 👍🏼👍🏼

  • @jeffdayman8183
    @jeffdayman8183 Рік тому +1

    Great to see you both - in this medium length feature ! 8^) Cheers!

  • @efnissien
    @efnissien Рік тому

    I can't think of 'Stonehenge' without my inner voice doing Nigel Tufnell's pronunciation "Stown 'enge" from 'This is Spinal Tap'... and what makes it worse is I was a bloody archaeologist!
    The thing is, there are henges and stone circles everywhere and a lot of these 'lines' are arbitrary (bear in mind the number of monuments is less than in antiquity - even with 'modern' additions like those built as follies) and drawn to fit the promoters narrative.

  • @barrieainge4937
    @barrieainge4937 Рік тому

    Such an interesting piece of research Paul and Rebecca and as I now live in West Swindon I shall be grabbing my trusty OS map and investigating these sites. Well done!

  • @johnraworth8019
    @johnraworth8019 Рік тому

    Another great video ! Nice to know there's lots of Sarsons ! Great for your chips 🤣

  • @Extragonk
    @Extragonk Рік тому +1

    cool, this has inspired me to look for circles up here in northumberland!

  • @Oceansteve
    @Oceansteve Рік тому +1

    Thanks for this.. not been to the ones in coate.. clearly worth the trip.
    I must admit I was on tenter hooks in case you found the magic roundabout was constructed on top of such a lab ancient circle.

  • @rogerc7960
    @rogerc7960 Рік тому +2

    The real "alignment" is C17th : London, Stonehenge, Boston, NY, Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC

  • @Kyemedia
    @Kyemedia Рік тому +1

    wow that is so cool and fascinating been past the one at coate water prob countless times 😅 but now i know what to look for!! awesome!!!

  • @Astro_Gardener
    @Astro_Gardener Рік тому

    Thanks for the upload, I live in Swindon and never knew so many stone circles are near to me. Thought it was just Avebury and Stonehenge. Must see if I can locate some of them soon.

  • @thomasdieckmann5711
    @thomasdieckmann5711 Рік тому

    Going out and checking the facts - close to what I'd call research work. Well done Paul!

  • @helenw8520
    @helenw8520 Рік тому

    And... have you looked at Roman amphitheatres, they sometimes were built over stone circles. I did research on this at uni back in the 80s but no longer have the paper unfortunately.

  • @radiosnail
    @radiosnail Рік тому

    Always good to see. Thankyou

  • @frankparsons1629
    @frankparsons1629 Рік тому +1

    Harestone Down. Paul, your shots from the air and at a quick glance with the scatter of surviving stones looks perhaps not unlike Stanton Drew which was, if I recall rightly (having visited twice), 3 stone circles, an avenue and a Cove, the site sloping away to a nearby watercourse. Wouldn't get too hung up on straight lines (joining up the dots), Its a bit like those who 'see' stones pointing to stars, although having said that there are instances of long barrow entrances where the sun shines directly through to the far end of the chamber on either winter solstice or summer solstice (without double checking in my books), perhaps marking the time when the ancestors were awakened? Stones/timbers and their history. 3 massive timber posts circa 6,000 BC, a yard diameter under the car park at Stonehenge in a similar way at Avebury likely firstly in timber similar date(?), see extant post hole Sth entrance and unrelated to existing/known stones, discovered by Keiller and marked by a round concrete post, also noted by Pollard) and with straight lines and rectangles along with avenues/Coves, all a couple of thousand years before circles were even thought of. Falkner's circle is/was some 800 metres S of Avebury. Interesting about the 6 Swindon circles! Dorchester town has a whopping circle of timbers (never replaced by stones) underneath the town and almost as large a diameter as Avebury, the underground car park at Waitrose has some post holes marked out with coloured blobs showing positions! I reckon by the time the Beaker people got their bikes out and arrived in Britannia Avebury and Stonehenge were "complete" and old. The Beakers knew their meaning as places built to the Ancestors and venerated them by burying their dead very close to these sites, and in a lot of cases scooping out the chalky earth right up against stones. The builders would never do that, the stones were wedged upright with rammed chalk at the base, you don't dig/remove the supporting chalk to bury your dead and risk toppling a 50 ton monolithic sarsen; the original builders were long gone and ways of venerating ancestors had changed, ring barrows and tumuli were gaining traction. Excellent video as always, many thanks to both of you.

    • @Foxglove963
      @Foxglove963 Рік тому +1

      All Neolithic passage tombs are oriented to the sunrise at Mid Winter Solstice.

  • @paullewis6612
    @paullewis6612 Рік тому

    Hi Paul and Rebecca,
    Loving your documentaries 😁.
    You haven’t mentioned the stone circles at Stanton Drew in the Chew Valley, South of Bristol. A future programme, Mm? And the Quoit stone on the nearby ‘Quoit Farm’.
    All the best, keep up the excellent work,
    Paul Lewis.

  • @jomidwinter
    @jomidwinter Рік тому

    There are a load of sarsen stones in Lawn woods in Swindon and they seem to curve into the undergrowth of the hedgerow where there are more stones. The hedgerow ones disappear under nettles this time of year and some of the stone might be left over from the ha ha built there - but I’ve always wondered whether they are actually part of a stone circle. Great video

  • @SuperBartles
    @SuperBartles Рік тому +1

    Nice one. Love these places
    Also love Rebecca's new hair colour

  • @grahamlavers8128
    @grahamlavers8128 Рік тому

    I never knew my home town had so many stone circles lol, excellent video. I`m learning so much from your videos. Thank you.

  • @a.v.7797
    @a.v.7797 Рік тому

    Love to see more of these, they are so interesting.

  • @UsualmikeTelevision
    @UsualmikeTelevision Рік тому

    Fantastic episode!

  • @Sim0nTrains
    @Sim0nTrains Рік тому +1

    Sounds like Stone crazy. Great Video

  • @davie941
    @davie941 Рік тому +1

    hello again Paul and Rebecca , interesting video as always and love the black hair Rebecca, really well done and thank you both 😊😍

  • @kevingreen9909
    @kevingreen9909 Рік тому

    Great video P & R . Fascinating . I live in Wiltshire and will be exploring the other circles. M4 was a slight mistake Paul . 😅

  • @marketmalc
    @marketmalc Рік тому

    No comment about stone circles just to say that I enjoy your videos. Thank you.

  • @guillaumemaurice3503
    @guillaumemaurice3503 Рік тому +1

    Thank you for sharing this video that was very interesting.

  • @jameswalksinhistory3848
    @jameswalksinhistory3848 Рік тому

    Interesting presentation 👍

  • @paulharvey9149
    @paulharvey9149 Рік тому

    Stone circles aren't usually on their own. I can't remember if you've been to Callanish yet, but as the visitor centre there ably explains (and as you can see and visit and touch), there are at least three circles in that vicinity as well as the large, famous one. Also in Orkney, where the Ring of Brodgar is the central one. Much of Fife and Eastern Scotland is peppered with standing stones, too! I look forward to your future discoveries!

  • @dazmanbert
    @dazmanbert Рік тому +1

    Lovely, really enjoyed it.. the *M5 might be a little off! 😉😆🤫

  • @MickCampin-jp9kb
    @MickCampin-jp9kb Рік тому

    Nice to see the boss again. I remember seeing a BBC programme, only had 3 channels then, all about ley lines throughout the UK

    • @Foxglove963
      @Foxglove963 Рік тому

      The Ley Hunter Journal studied the ley theory for 35 years and concluded that leys do not exist, it's all coincidental. But there are other, more viable lines of enquiry, including spirit roads, death roads and corpse roads. Some prehistoric spirit roads have been discovered and excavated which left the archaeologist puzzled as these roads could not be traversed by carts.

  • @GeekyRuss
    @GeekyRuss Рік тому +1

    Love the Stewart Lee reference in there!

  • @sn47az
    @sn47az Рік тому

    Recommend visiting Manton / fyfield down near Marlborough. Hundreds of stone’s including the devils chamber. I believe it’s more of a Neolithic workshop area or ‘there factory floor’. I do a bit of navigation training up there and never get bored of it

  • @1956vern
    @1956vern Рік тому

    As you move forward and think about it, document how many ring stone there are?!
    Also in the deep past, as the giant died us smaller humans were allowed access to there lands! Something to ponder after all we are the seventh generation of humans that have lived on this wonderful blue gem!

  • @bigantplowright5711
    @bigantplowright5711 Рік тому +2

    Paul it is the M4, sorry about that, otherwise very interesting as usual.

  • @chrisjones4479
    @chrisjones4479 Рік тому +1

    Interesting, but have you had a look at a map of Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall and Brittany. You'll find loads more! Have fun discovering!

  • @lemonflavouredquark
    @lemonflavouredquark 7 місяців тому

    This seems so alien to me. I’m in a country that has only known human footsteps for around 800 years. When I see a boulder I don’t see anything else it’s a country empty (comparatively) of archeology.

  • @robertdonaldson6584
    @robertdonaldson6584 Рік тому

    I am Fiddling "Swinging on a Gate" on my Violin.

  • @teodelfuego
    @teodelfuego Рік тому

    You guys need to buy Julian Cope’s The Modern Antiquarian. It’s brilliant

  • @JISJ1964
    @JISJ1964 Рік тому

    Tan hill circle should have some nice chairs and a little bar to live up to its name.

  • @paulbennett7021
    @paulbennett7021 10 місяців тому

    Phew! I thought for just a moment we were to be dragged along the ridiculous Ley Line path!

  • @derekp2674
    @derekp2674 Рік тому +2

    Thanks very much for another intriguing video. My maths tells me that you can fit a circle through any given three stones, so how many stones does it take to prove that a given arrangement has been deliberately laid out as a circle?
    I wonder if there was a time when any established settlement would want to have its own stone circle but also when some collaborative work occurred to make a few big ones like Stonehenge.

    • @joshpullman1690
      @joshpullman1690 Рік тому +1

      Geology was important to Neolithic man, chalk being the most special. The vast majority of Neolithic monuments in the south lie on chalk down land. When you overlay a geological map with Neolithic sites it becomes apparent.

  • @punkypink83
    @punkypink83 Рік тому

    one of the best hidden neolithic feature in my opinion is durrington walls henge. no standing stones, but it's HUGE, at about 500m across(approx 100m for stonehenge), making it one of the largest henges to exist in all of Europe. there isn't much to see as plenty of the banks of the mound and ditch have eroded, and what remains well, just looks like a small rise due to the size of it, which is why it's " hidden"but check it out on google maps and let your imagination run wild.
    most parts of it have not been excavated and it's never really had a proper study done either. What little has been excavated has turned out really exciting archaeology that hints at far more. Also interestingly woodhenge is immediately to the south of it, literally next to each other.

  • @jasonwinchcombe560
    @jasonwinchcombe560 Рік тому

    Awesome vid guys really interesting. I have lived in Swindon all my life. I have walked past a few of the sarsons mentioned and never gave it any thought. Now I will. How on earth the map ended up so strange?!?!? Mental. Keep up the great work ❤

    • @Foxglove963
      @Foxglove963 Рік тому

      Use an Ordnance Survey map instead, these are absolutely correct.

  • @tintinaus
    @tintinaus Рік тому

    Is the Uffington chalk horse of the same period? When I visited the UK I went to Swindon for a connecting bus to the horse, and checked out the Greater Western Railway museum.

  • @annarboriter
    @annarboriter Рік тому

    Circle seems to be a very undefined polygon since every polygon can be circumscribed by a circle. Is there a minimum number of stones in order for a collection of big stones to be defined as a circle. It is my understanding that the reason for constructing such circles is that they functioned as a solar calendar which became essential with the advent of agriculture.

  • @1anmagnus
    @1anmagnus Рік тому

    The circles run all the way from Orkney down to Southern England

  • @markkilley2683
    @markkilley2683 Рік тому

    Fair questions, interesting stuff.

  • @glenlongstreet7
    @glenlongstreet7 Рік тому

    Every community needed a good calendar. Why are we so surprised when we find another one? Keep looking and you will find millions.

  • @johnmiller457
    @johnmiller457 Рік тому

    Sorry Paul, that’s the M4, not the M5!
    Really interesting stuff as always! Keep up the good work. Thanks.

  • @bobly
    @bobly Рік тому

    Another top class video Paul and a joy to see Rebecca too, I see Rebecca has changed the colour of her hair again it suits her

  • @TurboTimsWorld
    @TurboTimsWorld Рік тому

    I did my driving test across the Magic Roundabout in Swindon, including turning down a side street off of Shrivenham road and doing a 3 point turn right in front of my father-in-law TO BE who was up a ladder fitting double glazing, and I had to do it backing up a fiesta in a space without crashing into his van! LOL ! Hence I passed my test, married Elaine and lets not go there with the history LOL XXX

  • @stuartbuxton2546
    @stuartbuxton2546 Рік тому

    I like Rebecca's new hair look!

  • @eze8970
    @eze8970 Рік тому

    TY, interesting video! 🙏🙏

  • @barryballard1408
    @barryballard1408 Рік тому

    Terrific. A Megalithic-size thumbs up for this one!

  • @aengusmacnaughton1375
    @aengusmacnaughton1375 Рік тому

    Yay! Rebecca is back on camera -- to keep Paul on task!!!! 😂😂😂

  • @invisiblewizard2538
    @invisiblewizard2538 Рік тому +1

    New video series - Every Disused Stone Circle?

  • @lukemorton8431
    @lukemorton8431 Рік тому

    Don't you think when you look from above with drone it also makes shapes between rocks keep up the good work

  • @Herbybandit
    @Herbybandit Рік тому

    You missed the important Rollright Circle close to Chipping Norton.