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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsArchaeologists Believe They Have Identified the Unlikely Secret Ingredient Used to Build Stonehenge:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/archaeologists-stonehenge-lard-1600891A new study suggests that animal fat found at nearby Durrington Walls wasn't used in cooking, but in construction.
Sarah Cascone, July 15, 2019
The modern world had long marveled over the ancient site of Stonehenge, unable to figure out how prehistoric people erected the ring of monolithic standing stones. Now, archaeologists have finally solved the mystery of the Neolithic monuments construction: the massive slabs may have been moved into place with the aid of lard.
Researchers have long known that shards of pottery found at nearby Durrington Walls have contained traces of pig fat. But now archaeologists from Newcastle University are arguing that the lard wasnt be used in cooking, but was instead being stored in large buckets in order to create tallow, which was used as an aid for construction.
I was interested in the exceptional level of preservation and high quantities of lipidsor fatty residueswe recovered from the pottery, Lisa-Marie Shillito, senior lecturer in landscape archaeology at Newcastle University, told the Daily Mail. The animal bones that have been excavated at the site show that many of the pigs were spit roasted rather than chopped up as you would expect if they were being cooked in the pots.
SNIP
Lochloosa
(16,068 posts)diva77
(7,656 posts)rearrange heavy furniture!
Kaleva
(36,341 posts)hatrack
(59,592 posts)FailureToCommunicate
(14,020 posts)Last edited Mon Aug 12, 2019, 10:08 PM - Edit history (1)
trueblue2007
(17,238 posts)diva77
(7,656 posts)trueblue2007
(17,238 posts)TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)statues were built, and the topknots raised. Pictures, too, of present day Easter islanders building them using techniques passed down in oral history.
I imagine similar techniques could have been used on Stonehenge.
Bob Loblaw
(1,900 posts)Ptah
(33,037 posts)UTUSN
(70,740 posts)JDC
(10,133 posts)Rhetorical....
diva77
(7,656 posts)Twinkie-Henge!!!!
JDC
(10,133 posts)volstork
(5,403 posts)....or at least they build with lard.
diva77
(7,656 posts)volstork
(5,403 posts)Though it DID come from the intertoobz, so you never know.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)Went there back in July and it was the highlight of my trip to London and Paris (mostly because of the 3 hours in the air conditioned bus from London).
Ok maybe that's hyperbole, but it's very cool to see and hear all the history of the henge (ditch), the burial mounds, the different stones and the paths they took to get there.
I even got a stone bead bracelet made of the bluestone that the inner ring of Stonehenge is made from and from the same quarry some 150 miles away. I've worn it every day since I returned.
So, lard? Yep, sounds right. There's nothing a little fat can't do.
diva77
(7,656 posts)I've never heard of the stone bead bracelets -- have you been bestowed with special powers as a result of wearing one?