
People buried at Stonehenge may have come from as far away as Wales - curtis
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/people-buried-at-stonehenge-may-have-come-from-as-far-away-as-wales/
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hunta2097
I am lucky enough to live not too far from Stonehenge. The most surprising
thing is how unremarkable the surrounding area is - geography-wise. It must
have meant _something_ to those people. It's pretty flat but that's not
remarkable for Wiltshire.

There are _so_ many 5,000 year old ancient sites in this part of the Britain.
Make sure you also visit Avebury if you are ever in the area - it's just as
old as Stonehenge but you can still walk among the stones and touch them.

~~~
chrisseaton
> The most surprising thing is how unremarkable the surrounding area is -
> geography-wise.

Salisbury plain? It’s some of the most commanding land in the south of
England.

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joshlemer
What do you mean by commanding?

~~~
chrisseaton
You can stand on the high parts and see large parts of the Kingdom of Wessex,
enabling you to literally command it.

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cptskippy
Is 150 miles a big deal because of the time period or because it's the UK? For
some reason they seem to make a big deal about distances that are a day trip
in the US.

~~~
fao_
> For some reason they seem to make a big deal about distances that are a day
> trip in the US.

The terrain in the UK is much, much more dense than in the US. I live in
Wales, UK. My train to the nearest city takes (almost exactly) an hour and 10
minutes to travel less than 24 miles distance because of the local geography,
it takes the same via car and bus. To contrast, one of my ex-colleagues
traveled daily to the same location from 72 miles away via the car, and it
took them only 40 minutes because of the variation in geography.

EDIT: This isn't to mention the extremes in weather that both the position of
the entire island, and the local geography creates. We kept away the Romans
for a long time simply through our geography, and weather.

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delinka
Did you perhaps mean “72km away”? If you did mean miles, that’s some very fast
driving.

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fao_
According to Google the exact driving route is 72.6 miles, it is along several
motorways.

~~~
AaronFriel
There are motorways where people (safely) drive 175km/hr in the UK?

~~~
ggm
I used to hitch rides in the UK. The number of travelling salesmen who drive
continuously at over 90 miles/hr freaked me out (lorry drivers didn't speed
nearly as much. They have tachometers)

So whilst this is the upper edge, from personal experience I can believe it.

~~~
implements
> They have tachometers ...

Heavy Goods Vehicles are also legally required to be ECU speed limited to 90
kph (56 mph) as well - which is pretty soul-crushing if you ever have to drive
one.

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scoot
It's been known since the 20's that some of the stones came from Wales,
(although the the view on which quarry has recently been revised [1]), so it
shouldn't really come as a huge surprise that some of the people involved in
the mind boggling task of transporting them should also have originated there.

As for why, or how -- that remains a mystery.

[1] [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-
articles/1215/071215-stonehen...](http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-
articles/1215/071215-stonehenge-bluestone-quarries)

~~~
cup-of-tea
I really think the reason why might be the same as why I've spent ten hours
reorganising my emacs configuration this weekend. Why not?

What really makes me wonder is how much of the output of people like us will
be recognised in the far future. How much will be lost? Probably a tiny
fraction will be remembered. Then it makes you wonder about what has been lost
if we're only seeing a tiny fraction of _their_ civilisation.

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seibelj
Stonehenge really affected me. It’s essentially a circle of big rocks in the
middle of nowhere, but what it says about humanity is fascinating. I highly
recommend seeing it if you have any interest in human history.

~~~
lostlogin
The number of visitors and the nearby motorway really detracted from it for
me, but it might have been a bad day. Much smaller but really impressive were
other ones that appear on ordinance survey maps all over the U.K. (check the
wiki). Even the relatively busy Avebury one is easy to escape the tourists due
to is vast size and long Meg sticks in my mind.

I was on a working holiday, and can recommend getting an ordinary survey map
of any area you’ll be around in the U.K. and visiting the old stuff. World War
Two airbases, Neolithic barrows, canal locks, quarries, mines and churches
etc.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stone_circles](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stone_circles)

~~~
chrisseaton
> nearby motorway

There’s no motorways by Stonehenge - that’s the A303 you’re thinking of.

~~~
cup-of-tea
While a motorway is a special designation of road in the UK, in practice roads
like the A303 are motorways, as in roads consisting of constant, heavy
motorised traffic.

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emiliobumachar
Very interesting take on strontium isotope counting revealing a corpse's pre-
death geography. I didn't know they can do that.

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j-pb
"But strontium turns out to withstand the heat," ... what a surprising
discovery!

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newthrowaway
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mg&feature=share](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mg&feature=share)
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