WEBVTT - How Stonehenge Works 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:03.920 Welcome to you stuff you should know from house stuff 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:12.240 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.280 Josh Clark, There's Charles Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. It's a 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:21.840 brand new day, it is. It's a it's a Wednesday. Yeah, 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.240 we're welcome back, buddy from my vacation. Yes, you mean 0:00:25.320 --> 0:00:27.800 I went to New Zealand and then to Okinawa. It 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.160 was pretty awesome. You want to say anything about it 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:35.000 or New Zealand is wonderful. Yeah, I always love Japan. 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.080 I've heard New Zealand is like America in the nineteen 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.080 fifties that it's like I've heard it described that way. 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.239 It's very pure still and like oh yes, friendly and 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:49.560 just sort of uncorrupted. So um, Apparently New Zealand ranks 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.839 fourth on the Global Peace Index, which is you know, 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:58.320 it takes into account like, yeah, you don't get the 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.480 impression that there's this nie a day or innocence necessarily. 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:09.640 It's more just like they are a thoroughly content, peaceful 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:12.360 people and it's not like, you know, it's not like 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:17.720 that manufactured like labored kind of like friendly contentedness that 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.440 you kind of run into sometimes this is the real 0:01:20.560 --> 0:01:22.960 deal and it rubs off on you while you're there. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.000 Like New Zealanders are a okay in my book. Everyone 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:31.360 we met, everyone was friendly, except for one truck driver 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.560 who I had an incident with, But in retrospect, I 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:36.480 look back and I'm wondering if he thought he was 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:40.759 trying to protect me by not letting me go around him. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:45.520 But everybody else was just like totally friendly, neat, cool people. 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:47.880 And we were everywhere, Like we were in a little 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:50.520 spot town of Rhoda Rura, we were in Auckland, we 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.240 were in Wellington, we were in a little Napier, which 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.960 is like the Art Deco capital of the world. They 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:59.600 had an earthquake in and it just leveled the town 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:01.640 all the a or afterward leveled town. So they're like, 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.800 we need to rebuild. What kind of architectural movement is 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.520 hip right now? Art Deco? So they rebuilt the town 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:13.520 in Art Deco. It's really pretty that you would love Napier. Cool. Yeah, 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:18.200 So New Zealand awesome, great stuff. Lots of sheep, like, 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.840 no joke, they are probably more sheep than sheep than people. Yeah, um, 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:26.760 and it's a wonderful place. And then of course Okinawa 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.120 we Once we got there, we're like, okay, let's start eating. Yeah, 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:33.000 you're like a japan expert at this point, right, Uh, 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.959 except I can't speak Japanese, but yeah, everything, I'm an expert. 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.800 I'm learning. We hung out with with Humi's family, nice 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.040 and her little I guess second cousin or first cousin 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:49.200 once removed a little kid. Awesome, little precocious dude at 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.320 one point was trying to talk to me and he 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:53.640 liked just put his face in his hands and said 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.560 in Japanese, this communication in Japanese is not going very well, 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.680 that's adorable. Yeah it was, and you ate like a king. Yes, 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:05.840 I bet man, that sounds that sounds great. Thanks man, 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.079 Thanks for welcoming me back. You're still a little jet legs, 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:14.000 so in case I get a little weird, that's why. Uh. Well, 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.080 maybe one day we can hit up New Zealand on 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:20.880 a tour. I would love that. Yeah, and Australia too, 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:22.840 I know they love us over there. Well, we can't 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.560 go to one without the other. I just did well 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.600 first stuff you should know show Oh that would be 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:34.800 rude awesome. Well, welcome back, thanks um and now Stonehenge, 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.320 have you ever been No, I've been to London and 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:42.480 that's it as far as the UK goes. Yeah, same here. Um, 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.040 I would love to go to Stonehenge too. It sounds 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.880 like a very very cool place and I wanted to 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.560 go before I researched this, but now that I have them, like, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.520 definitely want to go because it's not just Stonehenge. You 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.440 think it's just Stonehenge and you go and there's like 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.000 the rock formation, and sure, when you get in your 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.960 car and go home, you could do that, but you'd 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:08.520 be missing out on like a whole huge, rich tapestry 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:13.200 of weirdo earthen works that are totally mysterious to us 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:16.440 still to this day, in that whole area. Yeah, I 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.360 had no idea either. It's a hotbed of hinges. Yeah, 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.240 you know which technically a hinge, by the way, we 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.560 should say, is an earthworks that I didn't know that 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.600 dentil I studied this, I didn't either, But so it's 0:04:29.600 --> 0:04:31.919 an earthwork that consists of a bank and a ditch, 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:36.479 and in most cases the high bank encloses a ditch 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:41.880 within it. But Stonehenge, which is which gives the name 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.640 hinge to other hinges, is the opposite it's a reverse hinge. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.760 It has the ditch on the outside of the bank. Yeah. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:50.840 And and you know it sort of looks when you 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.760 look at these images of hinges from above, um, sort 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.560 of like a crop circle with nothing in the middle, right, 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:01.839 just grass, just grass. Uh. And remember that's where the 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.800 home of crop circles started, was in that area, the 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:12.960 Salisbury Plain and outer space already Stonehenge. So, like we said, Chuckers, 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.800 the the whole reason for any of this stuff, for 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:25.880 building these things still defies understanding. But exploration has gone 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.039 back many, many, many centuries. You know, you don't just 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.960 walk past Stonehenge and say that's natural. It's clearly man made. 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.320 But the idea behind it has been lost. But study 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.560 of the whole thing has kind of has yielded some 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.640 pretty good stuff. Like, for example, we have a pretty 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:48.000 good idea of when Stonehenge was constructed and apparently, uh, 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.160 it was constructive of a period of less than two 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.440 hundred years. Yeah. We also have a pretty good idea 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.599 about where it is because it is where it is, 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:03.119 which is eight miles north of Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. Crop 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:06.279 Circles home of crop circles and where the Banshees live 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:10.479 and they do live well, the Banshees. Yeah, you're not 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:14.640 a spinal tap band. No, I've been having that song 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.240 Stonehenge in my head all day on a loop. They 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:19.400 talk about the Benshees. That's one of the lines where 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.480 the Banshees live and they do live well. I thought 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:26.320 they were from Ireland, the Banshees. Yeah, I don't know. 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:28.880 I mean they're talking about Druids and the song as well. Yeah, 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.480 it's spinal tap, which is a common, uh, a common 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.479 misconception that the Druids built Stonehenge, right, Yeah, they have 0:06:36.600 --> 0:06:40.320 dated it and they were not there at the same time, correct. Yeah. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:43.919 So back in the nineteenth century, some antiquarians which was 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.480 what they used to call historians and archaeologists and stuff 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:51.880 before there were such things, um, figured that Stonehenge was 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.839 some sort of Druidic temple, which made a lot of 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:57.480 sense because the Druids were a weird mystery cult that 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.200 um we're big on, like human sacrifice and all sorts 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.160 of like really interesting stuff. They were the priestly class 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.680 of the Celts, right. Um. The problem is is the 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:13.120 Druids were around from about till the first century c 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:19.120 E when the Romans suppressed them. H and Stone Inch 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:22.760 is way older than that, at least the whole earthworks 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.840 thing goes back at least five thousand years. Yeah, and 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.000 that's the earthworks, the actual large stones that it's most 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:34.040 famous for. UM. They date that between b c. E, 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:39.800 which is about the same time as the Great Pyramids 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.360 in Egypt. So UM, if you're wondering how they managed 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:47.760 to get these large stones, that's still a mystery. But um, 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:51.080 they were not as advanced as the Middle East at 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.240 the time. Right. So in the Middle East they know 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.600 they were well into I guess the Bronze Age UM, 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.040 while the I guess so well at the time Europe, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:04.040 Western Europe at least was still in the Neolithic, the 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.560 New Stone Age UM. So yeah, the idea that there 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:13.480 was this massive public works UM is a huge mystery, 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:16.640 like why that happened, how it happened, how they got 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.680 the stones there. There's another um long held theory that 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.600 was recently discarded that the stones were moved there through 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:31.560 glacial activity, uh thousands, hundreds of thousands of years before UM. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.360 And they've they've checked it out and they said, no, 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.840 these stones actually did come from quarries at a minimum, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.880 I think of forty miles away. Yeah, they said that 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.760 even if um there was glacial evidence, then it would 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.080 not have been able to carry it that far. There's 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:52.120 just no way. Yea, So humans did again no idea 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:54.400 how because this is before the wheel was around in 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.800 Western Europe, which makes the whole thing that much more impressive. Yeah, 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.120 they've got some theories like um, basically things that sort 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:04.680 of acted as wheels before they were technical wheels, like 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.680 small rocks or stone ball bearings or the old log 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.840 roller trick, which makes sense because the largest of these 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.400 things can weigh up to fifty pounds. Yeah, and the 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.560 smallest ones are you know, about five thousand pounds two 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.440 to five tons, So the smallest ones get like the 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.280 strongest men to lift these things that you've got a 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.920 hundred strong men because they're you know, only so big. 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:31.400 You can't crowd that many dudes around and lift this 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:34.480 thing anyway. Exactly. There's just no way. It's a mystery. 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:37.080 It's a mystery. So let's talk about the stones themselves. 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:38.800 I mean, this is what people think of when they 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.240 when they talk about Stonehenge. But there's more too, and 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.720 we'll get into it. But the stones, um, they're the 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:49.600 upright stones are called um Sarsen's right, that's right, And 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.160 sarson it's a it's a kind of sandstone that's particularly 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.640 peculiar to the region. Uh. Yeah. And the closest um 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:02.559 they found this is the Marlborough Downs about twenty miles away. So, um, basically, 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:04.160 if you haven't picked up on it by now, what 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.000 we're saying is these stones weren't just laying around and 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.120 they decided to prop them up right. At the very least, 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.880 they were brought from twenty miles away and likely much 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:16.840 much further. Oh I thought it was forty miles away. 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.080 Twenty miles away. Well, they said the closest source of 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.840 this sandstone is twenty miles away. But there were there's 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.319 all different kinds of rocks, which we'll see. Yeah. Um, 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.079 so the Sarson's it's a type of stone. But when 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.640 you're talking about Stonehenge, if somebody points to a stone 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.320 and say, is that sarson there, they're talking about the 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:40.160 upright column, that's right. The Sarson's are topped in the 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.559 outer circle and in the inner circle of stones by 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.199 what are called lentils, that's right, which are also starsin stone, 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.800 I believe. But um, because they're horizontal on top of 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.000 the upright ones, they're called lintels, and the upright ones 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.319 are called Sarsen's right, Yes, pretty cool. And again these 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.640 are really heavy stones. And again we have no idea 0:10:59.679 --> 0:11:02.280 how they got them there, how they erected him, and 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.040 how they got the heavy ones on top of the 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:09.280 upright ones. That's crazy because again we're talking about many 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:13.400 many tons stones right each. But as if just to 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:18.040 show off for the the people that followed, um, the 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:23.320 people who erected Stonehenge carved the Sarson's with a knob 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.760 knobs on top, and carved the lentils with grooves so 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:31.280 that they fitted and they were replicating a type of woodworking. Yeah, 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.199 mortis and tinnin um and I'll put together. These are 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.640 called the trilothon in the inner circle, the big ones. Yeah, 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.320 when you have the Sarson's and the lentils, it's called 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.480 the trilathon. And uh yeah, they they don't know why 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:48.560 they carved those because apparently when I heard that, I 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:50.440 was like, well, probably to make them fit together better, 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:52.840 But they said that it really has nothing to do 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.480 with it. Well, they said, it's totally unnecessary. Yeah, so 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.600 they think it may be symbolic. Um, which we'll get 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.320 too later. Um. So so you've got inside the inner 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:06.480 circle and I found, um this kind of thing. It's 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:10.040 like describing a yo yo e motion or something like that, 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:11.680 like a yo yo trick. It's just easier to go 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.840 see it yourself. There's a thousand, a million and a 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:19.480 thousand great pictures of stone Hings, yes, one million, one 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:21.760 thousand pures. You just gotta look at one of them. 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:23.880 So yeah, it'll help if you if you're checking this 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.520 out or we're describing it. But there's the inner circle 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:29.880 of Stonehenge, and those are made of trilothons, which are 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:33.560 two upright Sarsen's and a lintel, right, yeah, there's five 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.120 of those. And then and those are the big boys. 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.480 Those things are like thirty ft tall. I think it's 0:12:38.520 --> 0:12:41.240 the tallest pine. Yeah, which is I didn't realize it 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.199 was that big. That's like ten Yeah, you have to 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.280 I would say, you probably have to go there and say, oh, 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.160 this is bigger than I thought. Right, unless you thought 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:51.760 it was bigger than you might say it was smaller 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.560 than you thought, you know, uh yeah, unless the opposite 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:00.480 is true Um. And then in the outer uh circle 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.360 it was apparently it was intended or it was at 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.320 one point to be a complete circle. And this is 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:11.120 made of lentils and sarson's, but they're not trial athons 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.280 because it's just basically, if you took a bunch of 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.760 um sarsen's, a bunch of upright columns and put them 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.280 a circle and then topped it with as few lentils 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:21.440 as it would make a complete circle, that's what you have. 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.520 So it made a ring. Yeah, And I think my 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.720 impression is that it was not ever completed because there 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.240 would probably be some evidence of the you know, falling 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.280 down sarsens or something. Um. Well, there's unless they were 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.960 taken away. That is the theory that when the Romans 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.400 came along, or then later on when the Church came 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.520 to power after the fall of the Roman Empire, that 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:48.040 um locals were like, well, that's some pagan weirdness. We 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.800 don't want to encourage paganism. Let's just take it and 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.640 build a church that'll show them. So it's possible that 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.760 some of those rocks are found in medieval churches in 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:01.240 the area. Interesting and that crazy, that is crazy. That's 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.640 gray uh and there are four more of the stars 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.240 and stones um that actually have names. The slaughter stone, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.439 the heel stone, which is huge, uh, and then to 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.400 station stones and they're out of the outer Sarson circle 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.200 inside the circle, and then also outside the circle or 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.680 what are called blue stones. These are the smaller stones 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.400 that are between two and five tons. Still little guys, 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:27.480 but that's that's what they're calling. There's a bunch of 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.400 those guys too. Yeah, and they're called bluestones because when 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.600 they're cut or when they're wet, they look blue. Yes, 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.720 pretty neat. So that's the stones and um, but that's 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.680 just the bluestones. It's there's they're all different kinds of rock, 0:14:40.760 --> 0:14:44.880 which proves that they came from different sources. It is 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.200 the key. It also might um, it might get to 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.040 the bottom of why Stonehenge was built, but we always 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:53.760 we just touched the tip of the iceberg here by 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:55.760 just talking about the rocks. We're gonna talk about the 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.760 larger hinge part and what was originally there right after 0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:16.640 the Yeah, alright, chuckers, we're back. Yeah. I mentioned quickly 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.160 before we broke about the blue stones being uh coming 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:24.200 from different places. Um. One of the places they think 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:28.320 that eleven of these bad boys came from was in 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:33.960 western Wales and forty miles away Nuts, so that that's 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.840 probably the maximum some of these stones traveled, which it 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:41.240 kind of um gives a little bit of credence weirdly 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:44.720 to one of the old legends of where Stonehenge came from, 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.960 which was Merlin. Merlin and some of his boys stole 0:15:49.000 --> 0:15:52.280 it from Ireland and the stones proved too heavy for 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:57.680 the uh, I guess Merlin's men to lift even fifteen 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:01.320 thousand of them, so he just uses magic to load 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.480 them onto the boats, which he should have done to 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:05.760 begin with. Yeah, they were like, why don't you try 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:10.720 this before, Like Jimmy broke his back, right, Jimmy the 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:19.400 U the night Um. That was from the Historia Regum Britagnier. Yeah, 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.760 the History of the Kings of Britain from Jeffrey of 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:25.160 Monmouth's name, and that was the one of the original 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:30.560 um Jeffrey of Monmouth. Yeah, with the g Geoffrey Geoffrey Um. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.840 That was one of the original theories was that giants 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.920 built this and that to commemorate the death in the 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:41.640 battle against the Saxons. Was when Merlin was like, let's 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.600 steal this stuff. The giants dance, let's steal it. The 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:46.920 giants built it in Ireland, and Merlin was like, let's 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:52.160 go steal that because four Britons died. Al right, So 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:54.480 that was one of the theories. We'll get to a 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.200 few more of those in a bit. But jumping back 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:03.160 to the Salisbury Plain, what they do think it's true 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.639 is that they not giants. Not giants not Merlin was 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:09.240 that this was a good place for hunting. It was 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.400 a good hunting ground because there's a causeway from glacial 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.399 heaving and thawing. It formed what they call like an 0:17:16.440 --> 0:17:21.760 avenue um which made of chalk apparently, so this avenue 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.240 coincides with the rising of the summer solstice and then 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:30.679 the setting eventually with the winter solstice um. And for 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:33.159 many years they thought this was like this meant something, 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.280 but now we think that it's just coincidence. Right. But 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.440 I mean, like if you're if you're you know, hunting 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:45.200 wooly mammoths and eating psychedelic mushrooms and that's your existence. 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:47.760 You see the sun come up and then go down, 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.560 and this crazy like the on the longest and the 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.280 shortest day of the year, and it's like a white 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.440 chalk line connecting the two. You gotta put a little 0:17:56.480 --> 0:18:00.639 significance on this um. So they did. That's why they 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.439 think that they chose the site for um for Stonehenge, 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.720 like it was sacred and divinely inspired. Exactly. Again, you 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:10.800 were on a ton of mushrooms at the time, so 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.879 it made sense. Then, Okay, that's right. Don't judge. So 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:17.960 we mentioned the hinge earlier. That was these hinges, I 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.880 don't think we pointed out they're not natural formations. They 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:24.159 are designed and built by people. And so something like 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:28.720 three thousand years BC, so about five thousand years ago 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:35.480 on the nose almost some Neolithic uh Western Europeans in 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.520 the area of what is now the Salisbury Plain um 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:45.600 grab some deer antlers, turn them into pick axes and 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:50.520 started digging the circles that ended up becoming the ditches 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:54.399 that ended up becoming U. Stonehenge built the earthworks, they 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.239 dug the ditch, they made the bank, and then you 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:01.920 had this raised ground long four the stones ever showed up, Yeah, 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.199 about three d and thirty feet across. And like you 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.640 said earlier at the beginning, it is um a reverse 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.119 hinge because the high bank is on the inside and 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:14.120 not the outside. Right, Usually the ditches inside the bank, 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.520 that's right, rather than outside. I don't know why stone 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.560 Hinge is different. Who knows. Maybe they started to make him. 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:22.119 We're like, oh man, we made it backwards. Yeah, but 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:24.560 we've already done like a hundred feet. I'm not digging 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:29.760 another one. Uh. So they left a wider entrance on 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:34.040 one side, on the northeast end um, which is that's 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:37.159 like where the avenue runs into stone Hinge. Yeah, the 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.520 main entrance almost like a road to a roundabout or 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.680 cul the stack. Yeah, that's maybe that's what it was, 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:47.880 was sun temple called the stack um. And then there's 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.680 a narrow entrance on the south side. And um, that's 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:53.920 not all. That's not all that's there. They found all 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:58.040 these holes, the Aubrey holes, fifty six of them. Um, 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:00.840 basically where they think that they're or wooden post that 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.040 there were either totems or some kind of a structure 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:08.080 there previously. Yeah, that structure that's very significant. Something like 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:13.960 uh ten thousand years ago, I think about eight thousand BC, 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:19.760 somebody put up three pine posts. They think it was 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.160 probably pine Yeah, those are not the Aubrey holes. Those 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.760 are those are different? Right? They discovered those. They were 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.040 going to make a parking lot for Stonehenge in the sixties, 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.600 and while they were while they were excavating. Yeah, I 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.160 guess they should qualify that there would be a parking 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:38.399 lot in the sixties. Well, actually, I guess we do 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.959 know now there wouldn't be one. So in the nineteen 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.560 sixties they were going to put a parking lot, and um, 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.000 they discovered these three post holes and they were like, 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.360 these probably held totems of some sort. This is huge 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.800 because there's no other site like it. There's no evidence 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.640 of any other kind of monument building this far back 0:20:58.720 --> 0:21:01.760 ten thousand years ago in Europe. It was a very 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.160 that's crazy. So at least as far back as that, 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:10.399 this site was considered somehow significant, if not sacred, by 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:15.000 the locals years ago. Yes, all right, but then again 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:18.679 we're fast forwarding to five thousand years ago, three thousand 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:23.240 b C. And that's when the earthworks have have been constructed, 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.960 the Henge is built. Now we're under the Aubrey holes 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:29.080 because I think they were deposited at the same time, right, yeah, 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.040 fifty six of them, and um, like I said, they 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.159 could have had Um, they could have held blue stones. 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.880 Maybe that was a structure. Maybe it was some sort 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:44.639 of a astrological or astronomal astronomy astronomical design or layout 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:48.200 or something. Uh. They didn't leave a book behind saying 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:49.679 what they were doing, so we don't know. It's all 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.200 the speculations. All we know is there is a circle 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:55.240 of holes that probably held something at some point. We 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:58.280 don't know what. But that was the original hence the 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:02.399 original stone henge. Yeah. Uh. And then um, that was 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:09.920 the first stage, right uh yeah. Basically at between is 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:14.560 when these starson the stars in Horseshoe came about. Yeah, 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:19.840 about three hundred or so years after the first construction 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:24.240 of the earthworks, the stones come in, that's right. Yeah. Um, 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:26.359 so they bring the stones in again, like you said, 0:22:26.440 --> 0:22:30.280 from as far away as Whales. The nearest is twenty 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:33.240 miles away. There's definitely a quarry. Some stones came from 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:37.080 like forty miles away. Um. So they're coming from all 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:41.200 these different places and they're being brought in and erected. Um. 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:43.800 And then the that's the second phase. So the stonehenges 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:49.520 we know and love it today was built about then 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:54.080 about um b C. The last phase of construction as 0:22:54.119 --> 0:22:58.000 far as anybody can tell as undertaken, and it's basically 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.800 like sprucing up the place. That's right. That's when they 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:05.160 dug their ditches and banks. Um, that's when the avenue 0:23:05.680 --> 0:23:08.280 was cleared out, which is one point seven miles long 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.800 by the way. Yeah, that's significant. Using deer antler axe 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:16.080 picks they dug. They they made ditches on either side 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:19.840 of this avenue to to um clarify it, I guess 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:23.080 for two miles. Basically, it's pretty amazing. And they it 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:27.520 followed a route um to the river avon Um and 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.040 then over the next few hundred years, basically they would 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:35.119 reposition some of these stones, these blue stones um to. 0:23:35.920 --> 0:23:38.080 I don't know why, to fit their whims maybe or 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.679 should they had reasons. That's another mystery too. Some of 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:45.120 this stuff would be moved around from one place to another. Yea, uh, 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:47.720 you said that it goes to the river Avon and 0:23:47.800 --> 0:23:51.440 I think about two thousand there was a big archaeological 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:56.520 survey undertaken that uncovered another hinge called blue Stone hinge 0:23:57.040 --> 0:23:59.920 that was at where the avenue hits the River Avon 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:03.880 and so at the far end of stonehenge Um that 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:08.200 they think that's where the bluestones came from. So apparently 0:24:08.240 --> 0:24:12.959 originally they may have had another type of hinge closer 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:17.200 to the river and decided let's move it into Stonehenge proper. Yeah, 0:24:17.359 --> 0:24:20.760 no idea. Why you know. I used to go camping 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:24.720