Shifting Perceptions: Spatial Order, Cosmology, and Patterns of Deposition at Stonehenge

Abstract

The changing cosmological symbolism incorporated in Phases 1 and 2 at Stonehenge is reviewed in the light of new evidence from patterns of deposition prior to the construction of the bluestone and sarsen stone settings. The early structure of the monument and attendant depositional practices embodied a scheme of radial division, including a symbolic quartering primarily demarcated by solstitial rising and setting points. Through sustained ritual practice, however, the motions of the moon came increasingly to be referenced through deposition, particularly of cremations. This evidence seems to contradict earlier claims of a sudden shift in and around Wessex during the mid-third millennium BC from a predominantly lunar to a predominantly solar cosmology. It suggests instead that interest in solar and lunar events did not necessarily preclude each other and that over the centuries there was a process of subtle change involving the continual reworking of symbolic schemes emphasizing a sense of ‘timelessness’ and the unchanging order of the universe.

The ‘Solarization’ of the Moon: Manipulated Knowledge at Stonehenge

“…Unlike viewing from the centre of the monument, many of its design principles recommend that we accept this winter sunset interpretation (Darvill (1997) interprets Stonehenge's horizons very differently but see Pollard & Ruggles (2001)). The surfaces of the monument have been engineered to present a clear-cut silhoue�e to an observer standing at the Heel Stone (Whi�le 1997, 155).…”

“…These dramatic stones draw walkers along the processional avenue into the horseshoe and simultaneously entrain their gaze onto the southwestern sky, then framed by the grand trilithon uprights. The assumption that we should be looking to the northeast is an artefact of plan viewing of the monument, not three-dimensional viewing (Pollard & Ruggles 2001). A plan view gives no information about the height of the stones, severely diminishes the significance of the lintels and gives li�le indication of the slope of the land on which the stones stand.…”

New evidence on the spatial organisation of the Valencina de la Concepción Copper Age settlement: geophysical survey between La Pastora and Montelirio

“…It is therefore currently unclear whether Valencina represents a single phase of occupation in which all c. 400 hectares were occupied simultaneously, or a series of occupations or activities repeated (perhaps seasonally) over more than 1500 years, or some- thing between these extremes. Elsewhere in Atlantic Europe, megalithic structures of significantly greater scale such as Stonehenge (Pollard & Ruggles 2001;Parker Pearson 2004;Parker Pearson et al 2006) and Avebury (Whittle 1993;Pollard & Reynolds 2002;Gillings et al 2008) have not been shown to be associated with large, permanent settlements and appear more likely to result from less rigid forms of social organisation that may include seasonal gathering, periodic or 'tethered' sedentism (Whittle 1997).…”

The materialization of religious structures in the time of stonehenge

“…These take the form of both cremations and single or groups of disarticulated bone, the latter frequently mixed with animal bone (Pollard and Ruggles 2001). Certainly in the case of those placed in the ditch, the frequency of deposition of human remains increased over time, and the practice lasted for much of the third millennium BC.…”

“…Harding has argued that their appearance marks a "religious revolution" and "a radioal break with the past," in which worship of localized ancestors gave way to that of other supernatural spirits (Harding 2003: 26; see also Buri 1987). The argument is oonvincing, not least because this was 343 a period of important social and material change, mari<ed by new house styles and a distinctive style of ceramic with a wide currency knovm as Grooved Ware (Bradley 2007;88-142}. Stonehenge began as a oircular earthwork enclosure, possibly with internal stone settings, connected from the beginning with the deposition of remains of the human dead (Cleal et al, 1995;Parker Pearson et al 2009;Pollard and Ruggles 2001). Its form finds analogy with other circular earthworks of the late fourth and eariiest third millennium BC, most explicitly with Llandegai A, Gwynedd (Lynch and Musson 2004), and the Flagstones enclosure at Dorchester, Dorset (Smith et al 1997: 27-39).…”