Heritage! The Battle For Britain’s Past – BBC 4
Interesting 3 part series on Bbc4 started last night.
Features the move to protect prehistoric sites by Lubbock and Pitt-Rivers.
G
Gwass
Secrets Of The Stonehenge Skeletons 8pm Sunday 10th March
New 90 minute documentary on channel 4 next Sunday night.
Stonehenge is Britain’s greatest prehistoric monument and, for many centuries, has also provided perhaps our greatest prehistoric mystery.
One man believes he has found the vital clues to solve this puzzle, and this programme follows him through a series of discoveries that rewrite the story of Stonehenge.
Buried beneath the stones are ancient bodies, and a research team led by world-renowned archaeologist Professor Mike Parker Pearson has been granted special permission to analyse them for the first time.
The results of that investigation overturn the accepted view on when Stonehenge was built and what it was built for, providing compelling evidence that it once united the people of Britain.
The programme proves that the monument we know today was not the original Stonehenge and answers the mystery of its sudden decline.
Had been wanting to get here for a while and finally did on the end of May bank holiday. Access is ok although the road leading up to it is very narrow and had to reverse down the hill when I met another car.
There is space to park and turn at the top although the ‘monument’ is on private land. It is a weird one, unique in the Peak District and I’ve read that the only comparable site is something like Long Bredy bank barrow. It has been dug into a fair bit and the mound was divided up into stalls radiating off a central stone spine. Lots of skeletons were found dating to the neolithic.
It’s a funny one to make sense of, 2 bronze age barrows are surplanted onto each end although they’re pretty battered. Good site with amazing views across the area and lots of other barrowed hill tops.
View from ground level, gives you an idea of how big this thing is.
View South West from ground level
Looking South West
One of the bronze age barrows at either end. This one is North East
View from the top. This really is massive
View looking North East along Long Low bank/long barrow.
This place really punches above it’s weight, small stones but perfectly formed and the woodland setting with the view add an ambience that has to be seen or felt! to be beleived!
Mrs Dixon’s B&B view again. Like the way the sunlight highlights the folds (or ceremonial pathway) towards the top of the mound.
The view from our bedroom window while staying at Mrs Dixon’s B&B, May Bank Holiday 09.
The info board, love the neolithic mini skirt and waist length fur coat. Looks like something off wallace and gromit!
A view of the other barrows slightly degraded from this side
The most prominent barrow from of the group. There are actually 7 barrows in total despite the name but 2 are very rare pond & saucer barrows. 1 is neolithic where a woman was found buried by the great Mortimer Wheeler with flint knives and an amber bead neclace. The causewayed enclose of maiden bower and wauluds bank henge (apaprantly) are near by
The first barrow approaching from the ancient Icknield Way
View of the remaining knolls. I have never been so cold in my life!
Ivinghoe Beacon from the larger of the 5 knolls
Sun going down over the Dunstable Downs, the start of the chilterns. Maiden Bower causewayed enclosure is half a mile to the west, within sight of the 5 knolls, Wauluds bank henge is visib le on a good day to the north east. The round hump to the right of the pic is ivinhoe beacon bronze age fort
The first barrow, I have never been so cold as toady. THe car said it was -4 with the wind chill it was bloomin freezin!
Image credit: View from the largest of the knolls with the sun setting over Ivionhoe Beacon Bronze Age fort & barrow cemetery
Image credit: View from the largest barrow
Most people will probably have seen the advert but I thought I’d post this as I’d be gutted if I hadn’t heard and missed it.
It’s on this Monday night on channel 4 and incorporates all the findings and new theories from the last 6 years of digs by the Stonehenge Riverside Project run by Mike Parker Pearson, Julian Thomas and Colin Richards.
Ridley Scott To Direct Stonehenge Film
Before everyone gets very excited indeed. This is a supernatural thriller set in the modern day about ancient sites being destroyed of which stonehenge is the key.
It should still be good with hopefully some juicy flashbacks to rituals of the neolithic and bronze age.
Begs the question though, why has no one made a really well done film about the neolithic/bronze age. Think gladiator/apocolypto style
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