Stone Circles and Henges ?

[PADDYBOY]

Considering the extreme difficuly and hardship it must have caused to construct these circles, why was it so important to these early peoples to build them ?

Bearing in mind that the population of hunter-gatherers was likely small. Estimates for the number of people living in Scotland at the time vary wildly - from several thousands to several hundreds ? The only safe assumption is that the population were few and that bands of people ranged over wide areas. In this case ? meeting up with other bands is unlikely and not very promising for young men and women looking for unrelated marriage partners. There is a very good chance that meetings were a matter of tradition, both in time and space. The solstices are a good and widely understood way of keeping ancient time, and somwhere easily accessable by boat would have made a good meeting place.
I doubt if finding a marriage partner would have been the sole purpose of these meetings, trade would also have been a good reason, the exchanging of surpluses would have been very benificial to all parties, also the exchanging of ideas, information etc.
The full purpose and extent of these meetings is difficult to guess but they may well have been friendly especially if marriages were being arranged. Assuming there was no competition for land or resources, these peoples had a lot to gain by being good neighbours.

Just my take on it.

PS
I apologise if this topic has already been covered. I'm a newbie here and haven't had a proper look around yet.

[elman]

The Neolithic people who built these structures were not hunter gatherers they were early farmers. As such any device that could help keep track of and calculate the time of year and passing seasons using lunar and solar alignments would have given a significant advantage over sheer guesswork. Crops were their lives. They HAD to get it right. The circles and stones let them do that.

Also the 28 day female menstruation cycle coinciding with the lunar cycle would have allowed them to calculate the most fertile time for reproduction. Again a big advantage in keeping the population up. I'm sure they practiced all sorts of weird ceremonies using them. But I think the core use was practical rather than spiritual.

It's also a bit of a myth that the population was few and scattered. There are monuments all over Europe left by these people. Some over 4000 years old. Considering the vast number of ruins left by these guys that has remained and probably half or more again that has been lost I think the place must have been pretty busy. They farmed, mined and built on an industrial scale. Not the work of a few tribal hunter gatherers.

[PADDYBOY]

Originally Posted by elman

The Neolithic people who built these structures were not hunter gatherers they were early farmers. As such any device that could help keep track of and calculate the time of year and passing seasons using lunar and solar alignments would have given a significant advantage over sheer guesswork. Crops were their lives. They HAD to get it right. The circles and stones let them do that.

We know from settlements, such as Skara Brae that a large portion of their diet came from the sea and this is probably what enabled many of these people to live in permanent settlements. We also know that they farmed a lot of their food, but based on the huge shell middens found at these sites, we also know that they did a heck of a lot of gathering.

Originally Posted by elman

Also the 28 day female menstruation cycle coinciding with the lunar cycle would have allowed them to calculate the most fertile time for reproduction. Again a big advantage in keeping the population up. I'm sure they practiced all sorts of weird ceremonies using them. But I think the core use was practical rather than spiritual.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by elman

It's also a bit of a myth that the population was few and scattered. There are monuments all over Europe left by these people. Some over 4000 years old. Considering the vast number of ruins left by these guys that has remained and probably half or more again that has been lost I think the place must have been pretty busy. They farmed, mined and built on an industrial scale. Not the work of a few tribal hunter gatherers.

I'm not sure about this.
2,000 years of Neolithic in Britain saw a lot of change in human population. by the beginning of the second millennium BC there was a much greater number of people living in Britain than before. We know this from archaeological evidence in the form of more and larger sites.
Also, many of these circles/henges started of being made from wood and were later replaced by stone as populations grew.
I was really trying to guess their original purpose .

[elman]

There is no doubt they hunted and gathered as well as farmed especially where pickings were rich along the coasts. Archaeological evidence proves they ate monumental amounts of shellfish and meat both on the mainland coast and the islands. But the people of the Bronze Age can be distinguished from the earlier hunter gathers because of their non nomadic farming nature. It was the technology of farming that lead to permanent settlement not hunting and gathering. Even on the islands as the climate was warmer and places like Orkney were cultivated.
The use of monoliths and circles to help record and predict the seasons would have been of great value. Without a calendar a farmer is pretty lost! But there's no doubting that there would have been an awful lot of mumbo jumbo involved as well but we'll never know the answer to what that involved exactly.
Population is a matter of conjecture. We really don't know. But the sheer number and spread of these ancient monuments does not suggest sporadic small groups of people living in isolation. Rather a widespread, culture of farming and trade with transportation largely by sea. It's highly likely that population remained fairly constant until the arrival of the Celts, then the Romans, Angles, Saxons, Vikings etc etc….each bringing different technologies and cultures.

Wooden circles would have been much easier to construct especially where stone wasn't readily available. It's also possible that wooden versions were built first as effective prototypes to test the accuracy of the placement before the permanent structures were built. I'm not convinced that there would be any specific correlation between population and the use of stone instead of wood but rather it was simply an evolving culture and technology. Quarrying, transporting and erecting these stones required a degree of know how and resource. Just as later in the Medieval period a stone built church reflected the wealth and status of the people over those of wooden ones. Population would certainly have been greater where life was easiest so I would say that it was the resources and technology that drove the population rather than the population driving the resources and technology. It would have all been down entirely to successful trading. Basic resource management. Those who were good at that prospered and built structures to reflect the status of their success just as we do today. Those that didn't failed and made do with wooden poles and little stones.

Not much has changed really when you think about it.

[PADDYBOY]

Excellent post elman.
I could quibble a tad on one or two points here, but I'd probably be doing it to save face rather than contributing positively, so I won't.

There's no doubt that seed cultivation, coupled with animal husbandry led to a substantial increase in the human population and these early neolithic peoples were certainly part of that revolution, so I stand corrected for referring to these early farmers as 'hunter gatherers'.

I hope you stick around elman. I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy reading your considered opinions.

[hiorta]

Folk of earlier times had a knowledge of telluric energy - a natural renewing force that could be harnessed at points, standing stones, and transmitted to further along their desired directions. It depended very much on landscape.
The old 'coffin routes' followed these ley lines, but as these take the line of least resistance too, I dont know whether this was realised.
A guy in Crief has written a very interesting book on it.

[Crofter]

Paddyboy,

I agree with you, Elman’s take on the stone circles is spot on. All linked to the seasons and estimating time by reference to the solar system etc.

His suggestion that they could also have been used as an early form of contraception never occurred to me before. It’s all starting to make more sense. So much more convenient than carrying these awkward little pouches around in your wallet. I’m off to Callanish on the next bus, a week on Thursday.

Could the Muslim faith have borrowed some practices from these ancients? They have to face a particular way when praying and some of their Holy days are dependent on phases of the moon.

I’m not too sure but I read somewhere that Christian Churches were built in a particular way, facing a particular point of the compass, for similar reasons.

Regards,

Crofter.