Stonehenge, Amesbury UK (http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/stonehenge)
Megaliths, cromlechs, henges, menhirs; what does it all
mean? These names all refer to large standing stones which have been discovered
in many different locations and time periods across the globe. While there are
many different names for them, there are many more different interpretations of
their purpose. For class we read an
interview with Ramilisonina, an archaeologist from Madagascar talking about his
collaboration with archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson on interpreting the
purpose of the sites of Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and Bluestonehenge (see http://www.archaeology.org/1001/etc/conversation.html
for the interview).
These archaeologists propose a theory that the stones of
sites like Stonehenge and the megaliths used in Madagascar have similar purposes
tied to ancestor worship and monuments of the dead.
In addition to the interview, we were also given a blogger’s
response to this interview (http://lucianoaimar.blogspot.com).
The blogger suggested that it was too much of a leap to assume that two
cultures so temporally (Neolithic-Bronze age and still practiced today) and
geographically (UK and Madagascar) separated have the same belief systems
surrounding standing stones.
We were then sent home for the weekend to ponder whether or
not we felt these diverse cultures could be interpreted in similar manners. As
usual I find myself on the fence. I think it is really important for
archaeologist to come up with hypotheses about the meanings behind the
artefacts they uncover and not just focus on documentation and preservation. It
is important to remember that it is not just the material culture itself that
is important but what it can tell us about past life. On the other side I also think it is important to be
critical about the scholarship we read. The past belongs to everybody and
sometimes having a certain distance from a topic can help to be more objective.
Basically I think it is important for archaeologist to come up with hypotheses
about the meanings behind archaeological material culture. Ethnographic analogy
can be a useful tool for trying to discern meaning as long as these theories
are treated as a working hypothesis which is only one possible interpretation
among many.
In reading another article about Bluestonehenge (Powell, 2010) I found an interview with Julian Thomas, a
scholar involved in the Stonehenge Riverside
Project (like Pearson), and Timothy
Darville, a Stonehenge expert not part of the project. Both speak about their
theories surrounding Stonehenge as ‘possible interpretations’. Darville says
the discovery
(of Bluestonehenge) reinforces
the idea
that Stonehenge
was part
of an
evolving landscape."Stonehenge
is really
about constant
change. There's
not one
architectural blueprint
we can
use to
understand these
sites. I'm
sure there's
more out
there to
be found."
(Powell, E. A. (2010). Bluestonehenge. Archaeology, 63(1),
12-13.))
I also found an interesting video about some of the henges
in England. The video has some cool computer reconstructions of the sites and
illustrates the vastness of the Stonehenge complex/community. The video also
offers an interesting hypothesis about the henge at Stanton Drew being an arena
for blood sports.
I found this video informative because I often think of Stonehenge
as being isolated on the landscape when really it is part of a vast network of
sites that were built over at least a thousand years. The long-term creation of
these monumental sites is important to their interpretation because when
looking at the archaeological record we see snapshots of the past. It is important
to remember that these snapshots may not be representative of a whole population,
culture, or belief system. The complex at Stonehenge had many different phases
of construction and as such may not represent one coherent plan or belief
system. Additionally the discovery of Bluestonehenge reminds us that in the archaeological
record we are only seeing a small fraction of the material history of a culture
and as new material is found we can continue to get a better picture of a past
culture however, that picture will never be perfectly clear.
So...after all this rambling I guess my main point is
archaeology is not an exact, factual science (no science is completely
objective and factual) but if archaeologists use different tools, such as
ethnographic analogy, and continue to have various and evolving hypotheses that
fit the available evidence we can increase our understanding of the past.
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