WEBVTT - The Building of Stonehenge 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:14.200 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.840 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. Julie. 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:21.040 Prior to researching this episode, what what would occupy your mind? 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:23.960 What visuals would would stream into your consciousness? When someone 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:28.680 uttered the words stone Hinge, spinal tap, Yeah, of course 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.160 you big spinal tap fan form Back in the day, 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.720 I wouldn't say I was a big spinal tap fan 0:00:33.880 --> 0:00:36.199 that just like everybody else, you know, that's permeated the 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:41.160 fabric of the culture that I experienced. So for me, Stonehenge, yeah, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:44.360 definitely spinal tap. But also you know this sort of 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:50.640 mysterious groupings of rocks in the hinter land and with 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.160 spinal tape referring to a particular scene right where they're 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.480 there's dancing, there's dancing, there's a stage scene. But there 0:00:56.520 --> 0:01:01.840 also is some um, some stone Hinge philosophy flying out 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:03.480 with some of the members of the band who are 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:08.160 talking about the reason for its existence. And that is 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.640 kind of the big question, um that we're gonna get 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.160 into in this pair of episodes. What is Stonehenge like? 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:16.400 Why is it there? How is it built? These are 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.800 all these these mysteries that that's sort of a swirl 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.040 around it, and it's easy to sort of stand outside 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:25.400 of the discussion of those mysteries and just sort of 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.600 pick up contact information and contact ideas about it. And 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:31.720 I feel like that's what I've done mostly throughout my 0:01:31.760 --> 0:01:34.760 life is I've never really been that interested in Stonehenge, 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.200 so I've only just sort of picked up little bits 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.280 here and there. I've certainly never been there, and I've 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.479 just heard things about UFOs, about aliens and it never 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:46.480 really bought into that. But that's just kind of the 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:49.640 coloring that the subject has taken on. For me. It's 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:55.440 just sort of an abstract, uh collage of UFOs and 0:01:55.520 --> 0:02:00.560 ancient aliens and pagan priests like sacrificing goats and go down. 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.520 I don't know why goats are so involved in it 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:04.600 for me, but but yeah, just sort of a general 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:07.400 vision of that kind of stuff without me ever really 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.960 thinking all that much. Well, what we're gonna try to 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.160 do today is we're gonna talk about so the nuts 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.720 and bolts of Stonehenge because we can't really understand the 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.080 meaning of it or with all these theories about why 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.440 it exists in the first place, without actually looking at 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.919 the building of it, which is in itself fascinating. So again, 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:29.760 think about this megalith structure and this mysterious pile of rocks, 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.040 and mostly people kind of came up with, as you say, 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.400 these sort of theories of it. Could be aliens, it 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:39.720 could be uh, you know, a celestial observatory. But in 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:41.720 order to really get to the meat of it, you 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:43.720 have to sit there and say, how in the world 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:47.320 was this erected in the first place. It's insane. And 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.240 before we get into this sort of bird's eye view 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.160 of the complete structure, what it would have looked like, 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.040 and it's heyday. I wanted to mention that Stonehenge finally 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.880 has its own visitor center. Oh really cold? That long? 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.080 That long? I mean it has something like a million 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.480 visitors a year. No visitor center. Well it's which means 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.720 no bathrooms, I'm assuming. Yeah, and I'm thinking, Pheinge, that's 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:14.840 what I'm thinking. You can just squat behind the behind 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.399 the stones, Yeah, Papa squat hinge. Alright, So the basics, 0:03:20.160 --> 0:03:23.720 where is it? Obviously it's in the United Kingdom, it is. 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.720 It is in the plains of Salisbury, England, and we'll 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:28.959 get more to why it actually is probably at that 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.560 specific location. But it's a nice sort of like grassy 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.200 looking area if you look at all the photos, and 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:40.800 of course it's circled by highways because some people will 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.480 complain the monument just hasn't had enough respect over the 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:48.760 centuries for people to understand that perhaps it's it means 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.520 much more to us than we realize about these sort 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.920 of life and death rituals and what it means to 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.040 be humans. But instead here you have this little byway 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.440 cutting through around it. Yeah, for the longest it was 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.160 just kind of a big stones It really went until 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:03.480 the seventeenth century or so people started really getting a 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:05.360 little more serious about trying to figure out what it meant, 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:08.120 what it meant, how it was built, and and really 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.480 giving it the importance that it's due. Yeah, alright, so 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.680 let's give a little view of it. In its final form. 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:19.200 Stonehenge had a path leading to a circular ditch, creating 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.080 a bank of earth. This is the hinge part, by 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.200 the way, So if you hear that word hinge, it's 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.240 referring to this sort of circular structure that's made. And 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.880 if you pass the heelstone, and you would have noticed 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:34.760 a ring of fifty six pits just within the ditch 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:37.680 and in the circumference of it. And these are like 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.440 post hole ditches, like a little round ditches right exactly, 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.040 but they're empty. At this point we'll get to why 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.279 that is. Two stone pillars would have flanked the entrance 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.719 and a sarsen circle. These sarsen stones composed of these 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.440 huge upright stones about eighteen feet high and seven feet thick. 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.400 They were set in an outer ring about a hundred 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.880 feet across. Now today only seventeen of these megalists are standing, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.839 and you have a few ten and a half foot 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.680 lintels spanning the tops of these. At one point they 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.240 had um I believe they were called triathons. Five of 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.279 these triathons at the center. There are only three of 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.279 them right now. Now. Within this was a horseshoe of 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:21.520 bluestones around a pillar known as at that time an altarstone, 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.120 because it was thought that this perhaps is where a 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.200 sacrifice would have happened, where would have been cut exactly, 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.719 And then a banked path would have led from Stonehenge 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.600 to the river Avon. Yes, and that's important to note too, 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.440 that it is adjacent to a river, and that's going 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.280 to be more and more important as we we get on. 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.200 But in the same way that highways enable humans to 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.880 visit it today, proximity to a river would have been 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.080 important in Newly at the times. Yeah, because it was 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.600 thought that around a tenth of the population would have 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.200 actually traveled here to Stonehenge for various reasons that we'll 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.800 get into later. So this wasn't just a sort of 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.640 as we think of it as a drive by tourist attraction. 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.039 This was that this was a destination. This is where 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:04.279 you went. Yeah, this was sort of like the first 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.080 Las Vegas, rising from the landscape. You know, so out 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.039 in the middle of nowhere. If you build it, people 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.440 will come. That's another movie, but you know what I'm saying. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.479 But no, the comparison to Las Vegas is very apt 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:18.640 because we're talking about on a very simple level, man 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:22.839 made structures that are rising above the landscape and it's 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.440 really today that's nothing, but it's but it's interesting to 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:29.040 think back to a to a neolithic world and imagine 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:31.640 the power of that. I mean, really you have to 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.160 you have to think of like the monoliths and in 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:36.000 in a two thousand and one to kind of get 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.760 the same sort of power. Yeah, and let's talk about 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.080 what it might have been like five thousand years ago 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.440 during this Neolithic age. We're talking about before wheeled vehicles, 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.560 before the use of metals and tools were widespread. Um, 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:51.640 but you did have the stone axe here. This is 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.760 this is in full force and people use it to 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:57.599 clear forces and and shape the timbers of their homes. 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.679 We're talking about small settlement that are scattered and people 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.440 who are keeping livestock and they move with their herds 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:08.680 and they raise barley and wheat. So um. One picture 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:10.640 that comes out of this is that this is these 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:12.840 are people who have a lot of resources in terms 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.120 of food, and so we know that one of their 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.640 basic needs are being met. So it would make sense 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.240 that they begin to really focus on other things beyond, 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.520 like perhaps what Stonehenge means to them, and you know, 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.000 is it this burial ground and so on and so forth. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:29.840 Because as well go forward, you'll see that Stonehenge was 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.560 a mega project. Certainly for these people, this was a megaproject. 0:07:33.680 --> 0:07:36.200 And you have to have space in one's life to 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.280 do that. You have to have certain needs, have to 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.320 be net. You know, it's like taking on an enormous 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:42.360 hobby in your life. If you're gonna, say, build a 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.120 ship in a bottle, you probably want to wait till 0:07:45.200 --> 0:07:47.320 the house is a little calm, you know, till they 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:49.440 at least some of the kids are old enough to 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:53.200 not break it or demand all of your spare energy. Yeah, 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.800 this would be like the Neolithic people's me time or 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.720 their yoga time. They probably would have uh devoted it 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.280 to this. And I wanted to read this great quote 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:04.400 and I were talking about this earlier. It's um it's 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:08.400 from Colin Richards. He's a professor of World prehistory history 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.080 archaeology at the University of Manchester, and he says Stonehenge 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.960 is an expenditure of labor on a grand scale. It's 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:17.200 easy for us to forget that these people were creating 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:20.000 something which had never been created before. It's a bit 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.840 like their own Space program. Yeah, and that inevitably brings 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:26.600 me back to our conversations with Neil de grasse Tyson, 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.720 who spoke about the actual Space program and its existence 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:33.640 as a megaproject on scale with something like Stonehenge was 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.960 something like the Pyramids. It's something like uh, the Great 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.360 Wall of China, and you have to act yourself. What 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.240 motivates people to do that sort of thing. Well, yeah, 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:44.720 and that's a great point that you make, because if 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:46.920 you're talking about the space program, then you were talking 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.160 about generations of people who are trying to move this 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.840 agenda forward. If you were talking about the Neolithic period 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:57.199 in Stonehenge, then you are talking about five thousand years Okay, Um, 0:08:57.200 --> 0:08:59.920 we're talking about a fifteen hundred year period in when 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.400 Stonehenge was built in three phases. And moreover, you were 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:09.120 talking about these uh pine posts initially being erected at 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.880 that site ten thousand, five hundred years ago, so that 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.240 long ago people had an idea of what this site 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.240 might mean to them and what it could become. Yes, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.760 and we'll get more into the meaning as we we progress, 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.239 but again, we really need to to lay the groundwork 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:28.360 about the construction of it and the physical characteristics of 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.080 it to truly appreciate it. Yeah, and and just to 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.640 give everybody context to this is not the only hinge 0:09:33.720 --> 0:09:36.160 hanging around in in the UK. There are about a 0:09:36.240 --> 0:09:39.920 thousand other stone circles that can be found um, and 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.040 a lot of timber circles too. In fact, you have 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.479 some timber circles which may have reached fifteen ft high, 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.120 and so these sort of monuments could have been a 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.160 burial ground for the dead, or it could have been 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.640 families prominent families in those areas, just raising this, uh, 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:01.760 the these monuments to themselves essentially. But Stonehenge is different 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.480 in this way because again it's drawing people from all 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:08.959 over the area as opposed to just being this localized phenomenon. Alright, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:10.480 we're gonna take a quick break and when we come 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:21.719 back more on Stone. All Right, we are back, and 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.480 we're going to talk about this ultimate remodeling project undred 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.760 years in the making. And if anybody is interested in 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:31.719 looking at this in detail, you can check out the 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:35.400 English Heritage Stonehenge site. And these are actually the people 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.360 who are responsible for bringing the visitor center or visitor 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.200 center to fruition. But they have some really great information 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:45.240 about what this construction might have looked like, what would 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.160 have been built first. Yeah, this is a this is 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:50.280 really key and it's so certainly something that I feel 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.760 like you don't pick up on when you're just sort 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:57.200 of doing the sort of usual pop culture absorption of Stonehenge. Infoe. 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.440 You just think, oh well, at some point, some dudes, odd, hey, 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.120 let's erect some stones, let's build this shape for whatever purpose. 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:06.400 And they just did it, not realizing that what you're 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:10.400 seeing is um is a design that that evolves over time, 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.800 the construction that takes ages to complete. Yeah, and again 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.040 we're talking about the sort of technology that they have 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.920 available to them at that time. We're talking about antlers 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:23.640 to dig ditches with, and um, these hammerstones that they 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.120 would have held in their hands to try to actually 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:30.240 shape the stones and to cut down timber and so 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.640 on and so forth. Because yeah, they got the stones there, 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.760 and then you still had to to to work on 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.280 them to give them in to just the desired a 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.319 correct shape, and then to make sure they're fitting in 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.240 with the other stones. Oh yeah, we'll talk about that 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:43.280 in a second. To this tongue and groove. It's amazing 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.480 to look at and say, oh, I cannot believe that 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.640 this was constructed during that time period. And you start 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.600 to think about the depth and breadth of that effort 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.000 over over so many, you know, thousands of years, it's 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.720 pretty amazing. So okay, T Dred years ago, you get 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.160 this timber post put up that to say X marks 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.160 the spot. Now, if you look at about three thousand BC, 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.240 you'll see that that hinge that's when that was beginning 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:09.480 to be built. Again, we're talking about the antler. They're 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.360 scraping this away, and that earth was piled up to 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.120 make this inner and outer bank, and then within the 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.360 ditch that's where this ring of fifty six timber or 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.920 stone post would have been. Now, I thought that those 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:28.000 stone posts held the original bluestones that were later moved 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.120 to the middle. Yes, And that was really opening to 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:33.640 me as well, the idea that you had this sort 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.040 of temporary design that was there for a while, and 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.680 then all the stones were moved in, and then that's 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.880 where we get those holes. They weren't as one might think, bathrooms, 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:44.360 you know, that's right. I mean that's the other thing 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:47.199 is that if you take this information and just take 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.400 it at face value, of course, you would come up 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.600 with a million different theories as to why they were 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.920 doing what they were doing. And it really is the 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.920 accumulation of history as well as our own current technology 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.480 that kind of gives us a better idea of how 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.240 it was constructed and why it was constructed. Um, but 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.960 you know, about five hundred years later, after this hinge 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.439 was made, the stars and stones, those huge stones were 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:14.160 brought in and then the bluestones were moved inside. And 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:17.600 then later you have parallel banks that were constructed as 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.200 a kind of road from Stonehenge to the River Avon. 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.400 And this wasn't apparent really unto I think it was 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:29.560 about two thousand and ten when researchers Mark Pearson and 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:33.240 his team were taking some surveys and they could tell 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:35.960 um by the equipment that they were using, that there 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:40.240 was actually this road that was dug out underneath the landscape. Yeah, 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.000 it's really interesting, um hearing him talk, because as he 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.400 pointed out, like there was a huge boom of a 0:13:47.440 --> 0:13:52.280 Stonehenge interest in the seventeenth century, so people got pretty 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.120 interested in the site up early on, and they were 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.280 they were digging it up, they were they were looking everything. 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.920 So so the side itself was be thoroughly examined. Uh, 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.360 you know by the time I got to the twentieth century. 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:09.719 But it's in it's in exploring the realms surrounding Stonehenge, 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.360 looking and this in this case at the space between 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:15.240 Stonehenge and the river. And as we'll discuss later looking 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.920 at some other sites uh within a close proximity to Stonehenge, 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:22.080 that ends up giving us a lot more understanding about 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.040 what Stone Hinge was about. Yeah. And the other thing 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:27.120 is that you know, now we have the technology to 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:28.960 look at the stars and stones and say, okay, well, 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:30.840 not only are they a type of sandstone and they're 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.280 harder than granite, but hey, they're found scattered all over 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.880 southern England. And most archaeologists believe that these stones were 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:42.880 brought from Marble Downs about twenty miles away. And then 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.600 if you think about this, it's kind of nuts. On average, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.040 these Starson's way about forty five tons each. I think 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.080 the heel stone is like fifty tons. Yeah, these things 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.640 were enormous. Yeah. And then you have the blue stones. 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.280 What kind of our puny in comparison, because we're talking 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.440 about two and five tons each, that's it. They weigh 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:04.280 about um. But those came from the Pricelli Hills in 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.440 southwest Wales a hundred and fifty five miles away. That's 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.560 worth noting that these blue stones. Just see a picture 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.880 of them and you may think yourself, well that doesn't 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.800 that doesn't really look blue. Well, that They're called bluestones 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:17.880 because when they're they're nice and wet, they have kind 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:19.760 of a blue sheen to them. May be cut into them, 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.840 there's kind of an appearance of blue. But yeah, they're 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:28.000 not like smurf blue by any means. Unfortunately. Uh, Now, 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.400 there was this idea that these bluestones could have been 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.800 brought to the Salisbury Plains area by the movement of glaciers, 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.360 but at this point most archaeologists think that they are 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:41.080 actually transported by human effort, and uh, it's not known 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.960 exactly how this was. Probably they were carried via water 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:50.000 networks or and or hauled over land. And there's a 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:52.840 couple of ideas about how they could have been hauled 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.760 over land, especially it's forty five ton ones. Yeah, one 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:59.040 of the theories that's explored in the Nova Special Secrets 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:01.120 of Stone Hinge. But you can find online and watch 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:03.360 it's it's it's really good. One of the ideas that 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.320 they explore in that video is the idea that you 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:08.520 have you have all these little almost a palm sized 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.680 stone spheres, okay, and you find them, so a lot 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.880 of them are just rough and unpolished, you know, and 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:22.160 then others seem to have some monochuma design. Yeah, but 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:26.000 they're all about the same size like like like almost 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:30.040 with a degree of precision that is suspicious. And so 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:32.200 one of the theories as that is that these were 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.440 used as ball bearings so that you could you could 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:40.400 move a platform across tracks with those bearings, those ball 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.760 bearings underneath them. Uh, and is a way to move 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.880 the stone across across the ground. What I love about 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:48.720 this is that this was the idea that spring out 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.760 of Andrew Young's brain. He was doing graduate work at 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.760 the University of Exeter and he was obsessed with these 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.520 these stone carved balls and he actually started to take 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:59.960 up the practice himself and do it over and over again, 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.800 and he had that moment of like, why why are 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.840 the ones that are found the same diameter? We're talking 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:08.439 to the millimeter And that's why he had his aha 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:11.720 moment of well, you need uniformity in design when you're 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.920 trying to make something work, if you're trying to make 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:20.520 make it useful. And that actually was something that panned 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:22.720 out for him because he and I believe it was 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.879 Pearson's team. I mean, it might be wrong about that um, 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.160 but they actually re enacted this and they got some 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.520 of the larger stones and the smaller stones to work 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.280 on this track platform with these sort of ball bearings 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.960 carrying the stones across or sliding the stones across. Yeah, 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.360 they had a few missteps along the way, like possibly 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:44.560 the type of wood they were using, but for the 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:47.720 most part they proved true. Yeah. And now there's a 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.640 possibility that people may have laid a path of tree 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:54.040 trunks and rolled the stones over them, um, or even 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:57.720 just had wooden tracks slathered with with grease as a 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:00.360 means to try to move them across it. It's hard 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.600 to say maybe all of these scenarios are true, that 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:06.359 the span of time in which this was built would 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.480 give possibility to to any one of these theories. Yeah, 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:11.840 you keep coming back to this. Uh. That's one of 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.960 the big problems about about stone hinges that you ultimately 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.240 have to try and put yourself in the mindset of 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.120 of of neolithic man and trying to understand not only 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:27.000 how a neolithic human would approach a physics problem a 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:31.439 design uh challenge, but how they would they approach the 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:35.000 cosmos itself, how they approach their entire view of the world. 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:37.440 And we'll see more of that in the second episode 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:40.520 that explores the meaning of Stone Hinge. But but even 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:46.080 in just the purely practical physical challenge of construction, you 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.240 have people just having to think, well, how would they 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.920 how would they view this, how would how would unwield 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.200 humans analyze this problem and attempt to solve it? Yeah, 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.560 what were their resources? What were their abilities at that time? 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.320 And what is the dents that that supports some of 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.959 these theories. And that's what is so nice about that 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.040 Nova documentary, The Secrets of Stonehenges. It really does build 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.639 a case, uh for not only how it was built, 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.240 but why it was built. Um. But first let's get 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.520 to that shaping the stones. We talked about those hammerstones. 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.440 We're talking about more than fifty hammerstones that have been 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.080 found at the Stonehenge site. And again when we talk 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.520 about these hammerstones, we're talking about these um stones that 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:26.720 fit in the palm of the hand, and they have 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.480 evidence of chipping away at other stones, like lots of 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:32.720 chips that came off of the stones as they were 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:34.320 they were doing the fine work on it. Yeah, that 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.040 repeated striking. There's a lot of pitting in there. So 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.680 they would have been used not only to sculpture the stones, 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:42.560 but also to create this sort of tongue and groove 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.480 joint system, which is amazing to me when you see 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.679 these these up close pictures of the joints going together. Now, 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:50.800 obviously describing something like this can be a bit of 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:54.320 a challenge in a podcast, but essentially you want to 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.840 imagine first of all those vertical stones, okay, and then 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:00.240 you're gonna put those lintels on top. You're going to 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.280 to cap those stones who create this elevated um a 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:05.800 ring of stones, right, Okay, So this is that kind 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:10.399 of um iconic trilothon sculpture that you see with the 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:13.400 two uprights and then the one capping the very top, right, 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:18.159 So you have the little pieces that that form the lentil. Okay, 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.119 think of if you have to ever have like a 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.800 kid's rail railroad tracking where you have the different curve 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:26.320 pieces and you stick them together and it forms a 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.600 circle for the little train to go around. All right, 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:32.479 So each of those little bits of track come together 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.040 and and and in this case, they're gonna come together 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.120 on the top of the vertical stone. Okay. So yeah, 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.439 this is so if you're looking at this bird's eye perspective, 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:45.119 imagine this circle of these lentils that are topping the 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.320 upright stones, and they're all tongued and grooved, so they've 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.439 got that kind of like snaky, sinewy line going through that. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.840 It's perfectly together. I mean, we're talking about level within 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:01.000 inches here. And then those actual bright stones that are 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.560 supporting the lentils, those have stone cap like these little 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.119 stone balls. Yeh, like bumps kind of I think in 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.600 terms of legos and the way that legos interact, there's 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:11.760 like a bump and then the bump goes into a hole. Yes, 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:13.280 and it's easy to miss that. You look at stone 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:15.160