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A question that really interests me about Stonehenge, Gobleki Teppeh and other such mysterious monumental sites is "how many people did this?" When we (now, an

A question that really interests me about Stonehenge, Gobleki Teppeh and other such mysterious monumental sites is "how many people did this?" When we (now, and in the past) look at ancient construction projects, we instinctively tend to imagine fairly "brute force" construction methods. Basically, the way things are done now but with people powered trucks, cranes and such. Think of all those depictions of many people dragging huge loads on rollers or sleds. Very large groups of people using muscle power. Thousands of labourers, hundreds of years. Herodotus suggests that it took 100,000 builders over 20 years to build a pyramid, 2m man years. In egypt, it's plausible. They had huge numbers of people, an empire, large scale slavery... With stonehenge in 5,000 ypb britain, there are thought to be far fewer people. It wasn't a massive urban culture like egypt. People are thought to have lived in small dispersed groups at that time, with little evidence of large "political" authority that could command a large labour force. Gogleki Tepeh's builders achieved similar feats 12,000 YBB. This is before large scale societies are thought to have existed at all, anywhere. So either, (1) "civilised" society was much more common historically and ancient in origin (2) There were "pre-civilised" ways of organising very large numbers of people. Or (3), they had very clever building techniques that did not require many people. Any of these answers, or some combination of them could add a lot of flavour to our understanding of the neolithic, culturally.

zorkw4rg 8y ago
The number of 20 years is often repeated for the great giza pyramid, however its constructed using 2.3 million stones (~2.5 ton each) meaning they would have to place a stone every 5 minutes, for 20 years to make any sense. Traditional theories of egyptology fiercely defended by argument of authority are utterly useless. In reality nobody has any idea how, when or even by whom (I would despute the cartouche as solid evidence) the great pyramid was actually built and egyptology certainly won't figure it out (at least not with its current systemic issues).
- dalbasal 8y ago
  The 100k workers over 20 years figures aren't a theory of modern researchers. Those estimates are from Herodotus, who was reporting on what Egyptians of his day (2,500 ybp) thought. That's why it's repeated so often. It could be that they/he was wrong. I think it sounds plausible in terms of the amount of work. 1 man year per stone.
  - nickonline 8y ago
    YBB YBP? This is some pretty incredible jargon is this widely used, I've never seen it before and needed to look it up. Is it really that hard to say 2,500 years ago?
    - black6 8y ago
      I had to look it up, too. I’m still used to BC and AD, and at least BCE and CE are familiar enough to me because of political correctness.
    - dalbasal 8y ago
      It starts to get cumbersome when you use it multiple times in a paragraph. The problem is really the BC/AD (starting the clock 2018 years ago) is clunky. It's pretty widely used in the context of history these days, mostly because it's common to look at long stretches of time. It's really the easiest system once you know the acronym. Here... Herodotus is a 5th century BC historian, a favourite among the 13th century European historians that founded the modern discipline. He was relaying information that may have been invented sometime in the 2nd millennia BC, as many primary records were lost during the 19th century BC dark period. The Pyramid itself was constructed in the 24th century BC. This is a little more confusing to me than ybp. BTW, I'm still not really sure what AD stands for.
      - madhadron 8y ago
        AD = Anno Domini, "year of the lord". It refers to when the Medieval church in western Europe thought Christ was born.
      - mkohlmyr 8y ago
        While you may think BC/AD is clunky, having a static reference point in the past obviously has its advantages. 200BC will forever correctly and uniquely reference the same year, 2218 YBP not so much, as it depends on year of writing (which is fine for a live interaction, but less handy for written and archived content).
- Retric 8y ago
  Five minutes per stone actually seems rather slow IMO. 2.5 tons sounds really heavy, but just 25 people could lift and move that much weight. 50 people could move reasonably quickly and 100 people could carry that at a normal walking pace all day long. PS: They also used larger stones on the bottom and smaller stones at the top.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >2.5 tons sounds really heavy, but just 25 people could lift and move that much weight. 50 people could move reasonably quickly and 100 people could carry that at a normal walking pace all day long. In which planet's gravity? And carrying them from which remote location, on which nicely paved roads to make this easy?
    - Retric 8y ago
      The normal combat load in the US army is 60 to 100 pounds including body armor and batteries. People are expected to travel long distances over rough terain by foot, and run short distances. The average pyramid builder may have been somewhat shorter on average, but they would have been extremely fit. People building these things where not stupid. These stones where not being lifted over boulders or anything just reasonably flat level ground. PS: You will note the pyramid happens to be near a very nice river flowing in the correct direction. So, they don't exactly need to build hundreds of miles of roads, just enough to minimize effort.
      - coldtea 8y ago
        >The normal combat load in the US army is 60 to 100 pounds including body armor and batteries. People are expected to travel long distances over rough terain. Wearing specially mounted load, in specially designed clothing, hooks and suck, and nicely distributed among various body parts. And even the higher end of that range (100 pounds) is still 1/55 the weight of the huge, monolithic, piece of rock. >People building these things where not stupid. These stones where not being lifted over boulders or anything just flat level ground. They didn't have to be stupid to have to lift them over non-flat ground. They just had to not have a source of such rocks in a straight line over flat ground to the pyramids. Plus, when they got them there, they had to raise them appropriately. Not to mention the cutting of those stones at the quarry itself.
- mikeash 8y ago
  Is one stone every five minutes supposed to sound implausible? Because it seems perfectly reasonable to me. The work would be massively parallelized.
brownbat 8y ago
Agreed, all those options are fascinating possibilities in their own way. A few months ago lidar revealed a lost Purépecha city that had more buildings than Manhattan. The Purépecha were contemporaries of the Aztecs that most people have never even heard of. Sometimes archaeology makes me feel about humanity the same way a Randall feels about dinosaurs--we know so much and yet it's almost nothing: https://xkcd.com/1747/ https://xkcd.com/1747/ Think about how distinct the 50s, 70s, 90s, and 2010s seem, or how different pre and postwar Japan are, say, over just decades. Then think of the thousands of years since some early wonders were built. There's got to be so much we're missing.
- kingkawn 8y ago
  It fascinates me that the idea that we’re missing so much feels revelatory, but only because the authority figures of these fields presented their theories based on surviving available evidence as definitive and complete. It is a byproduct of how we assert our ideas that the idea that we are working with an incomplete picture seems mind blowing.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  That xkcd is the perfect analogy. I hope that archeologists diligently "debunking earlier works" to more accurately place the quarries will lead to a clue about webs.
coldtea 8y ago
>With stonehenge in 5,000 ypb britain, there are thought to be far fewer people. Well, it's also a much smaller scale project compared to a pyramid. >So either, (1) "civilised" society was much more common historically and ancient in origin (2) There were "pre-civilised" ways of organising very large numbers of people. Or (3), they had very clever building techniques that did not require many people. I think (1) is almost a given. Our idea for anything prehistoric is basically based on old prejudices. We find all kinds of things pushing civilization several millenia before where we thought it was.
- dalbasal 8y ago
  Yes, definitely much smaller scale. Still, the unit of work is similar (massive stone cut, moved and placed). If it takes a lot of people, that implies a lot of people coordinating at that time an place. In a sense, it gives us a minimal level of societal complexity that must have existed. Since britain didn't seem to have towns or cities, the nature of this complexity would be pre-civilised in the literal civil=city sense. I agree though, civilisation has been getting older as evidence emerges. Or, as I prefer to think of it, the mysterious precursors to civilisation have been getting more impressive.
  - nonbel 8y ago
    You don't have to move huge stones. Its possible to cast limestone in place, like concrete. I read/watched some stuff about this guy not too long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits He claims he sent samples of his cast limestone to geologists and they couldnt tell the difference. Overall I think his theory makes much more sense. It just would have been easier to pour each block in place rather than lug huge stones around.
    - ec109685 8y ago
      I am surprised there aren’t documenration / art that describes the process contemporaneously.
yread 8y ago
maybe they were all mythical 10x builders?
zby 8y ago
With some ingenuity it is possible with much less human power than is commonly imagined: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c
Retra 8y ago
The tools we use today are basically the same techniques that were used before. The only real differences is stronger materials and engines. I.e., the difference between turning a crank at 1000 rpm versus 3 rpm. And if you're forced to use the latter, it's going to look like loads of dudes and animals dragging things about no matter how it is organized. All in all, what I'm saying is that we see the past as using "brute force" construction methods because those are the construction methods we still use today. We just use denser energy sources to make it happen faster. This isn't going to change any cultural understandings unless you're trying to paint a picture that magic was involved before.
JJMcJ 8y ago
Saw TV show on Stonehenge. A group of students dragged a stone from the quarry location (as was believed when the show was made) and about 20 people got it done in about two weeks. There is a tendency to underestimate what can be done by human labor.

zorkw4rg 8y ago

The number of 20 years is often repeated for the great giza pyramid, however its constructed using 2.3 million stones (~2.5 ton each) meaning they would have to place a stone every 5 minutes, for 20 years to make any sense. Traditional theories of egyptology fiercely defended by argument of authority are utterly useless. In reality nobody has any idea how, when or even by whom (I would despute the cartouche as solid evidence) the great pyramid was actually built and egyptology certainly won't figure it out (at least not with its current systemic issues).

dalbasal 8y ago
The 100k workers over 20 years figures aren't a theory of modern researchers. Those estimates are from Herodotus, who was reporting on what Egyptians of his day (2,500 ybp) thought. That's why it's repeated so often. It could be that they/he was wrong. I think it sounds plausible in terms of the amount of work. 1 man year per stone.
- nickonline 8y ago
  YBB YBP? This is some pretty incredible jargon is this widely used, I've never seen it before and needed to look it up. Is it really that hard to say 2,500 years ago?
  - black6 8y ago
    I had to look it up, too. I’m still used to BC and AD, and at least BCE and CE are familiar enough to me because of political correctness.
  - dalbasal 8y ago
    It starts to get cumbersome when you use it multiple times in a paragraph. The problem is really the BC/AD (starting the clock 2018 years ago) is clunky. It's pretty widely used in the context of history these days, mostly because it's common to look at long stretches of time. It's really the easiest system once you know the acronym. Here... Herodotus is a 5th century BC historian, a favourite among the 13th century European historians that founded the modern discipline. He was relaying information that may have been invented sometime in the 2nd millennia BC, as many primary records were lost during the 19th century BC dark period. The Pyramid itself was constructed in the 24th century BC. This is a little more confusing to me than ybp. BTW, I'm still not really sure what AD stands for.
    - madhadron 8y ago
      AD = Anno Domini, "year of the lord". It refers to when the Medieval church in western Europe thought Christ was born.
    - mkohlmyr 8y ago
      While you may think BC/AD is clunky, having a static reference point in the past obviously has its advantages. 200BC will forever correctly and uniquely reference the same year, 2218 YBP not so much, as it depends on year of writing (which is fine for a live interaction, but less handy for written and archived content).
Retric 8y ago
Five minutes per stone actually seems rather slow IMO. 2.5 tons sounds really heavy, but just 25 people could lift and move that much weight. 50 people could move reasonably quickly and 100 people could carry that at a normal walking pace all day long. PS: They also used larger stones on the bottom and smaller stones at the top.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >2.5 tons sounds really heavy, but just 25 people could lift and move that much weight. 50 people could move reasonably quickly and 100 people could carry that at a normal walking pace all day long. In which planet's gravity? And carrying them from which remote location, on which nicely paved roads to make this easy?
  - Retric 8y ago
    The normal combat load in the US army is 60 to 100 pounds including body armor and batteries. People are expected to travel long distances over rough terain by foot, and run short distances. The average pyramid builder may have been somewhat shorter on average, but they would have been extremely fit. People building these things where not stupid. These stones where not being lifted over boulders or anything just reasonably flat level ground. PS: You will note the pyramid happens to be near a very nice river flowing in the correct direction. So, they don't exactly need to build hundreds of miles of roads, just enough to minimize effort.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      >The normal combat load in the US army is 60 to 100 pounds including body armor and batteries. People are expected to travel long distances over rough terain. Wearing specially mounted load, in specially designed clothing, hooks and suck, and nicely distributed among various body parts. And even the higher end of that range (100 pounds) is still 1/55 the weight of the huge, monolithic, piece of rock. >People building these things where not stupid. These stones where not being lifted over boulders or anything just flat level ground. They didn't have to be stupid to have to lift them over non-flat ground. They just had to not have a source of such rocks in a straight line over flat ground to the pyramids. Plus, when they got them there, they had to raise them appropriately. Not to mention the cutting of those stones at the quarry itself.
mikeash 8y ago
Is one stone every five minutes supposed to sound implausible? Because it seems perfectly reasonable to me. The work would be massively parallelized.

brownbat 8y ago

Agreed, all those options are fascinating possibilities in their own way. A few months ago lidar revealed a lost Purépecha city that had more buildings than Manhattan. The Purépecha were contemporaries of the Aztecs that most people have never even heard of. Sometimes archaeology makes me feel about humanity the same way a Randall feels about dinosaurs--we know so much and yet it's almost nothing: https://xkcd.com/1747/ https://xkcd.com/1747/ Think about how distinct the 50s, 70s, 90s, and 2010s seem, or how different pre and postwar Japan are, say, over just decades. Then think of the thousands of years since some early wonders were built. There's got to be so much we're missing.

kingkawn 8y ago
It fascinates me that the idea that we’re missing so much feels revelatory, but only because the authority figures of these fields presented their theories based on surviving available evidence as definitive and complete. It is a byproduct of how we assert our ideas that the idea that we are working with an incomplete picture seems mind blowing.
dalbasal 8y ago
That xkcd is the perfect analogy. I hope that archeologists diligently "debunking earlier works" to more accurately place the quarries will lead to a clue about webs.

coldtea 8y ago

>With stonehenge in 5,000 ypb britain, there are thought to be far fewer people. Well, it's also a much smaller scale project compared to a pyramid. >So either, (1) "civilised" society was much more common historically and ancient in origin (2) There were "pre-civilised" ways of organising very large numbers of people. Or (3), they had very clever building techniques that did not require many people. I think (1) is almost a given. Our idea for anything prehistoric is basically based on old prejudices. We find all kinds of things pushing civilization several millenia before where we thought it was.

dalbasal 8y ago
Yes, definitely much smaller scale. Still, the unit of work is similar (massive stone cut, moved and placed). If it takes a lot of people, that implies a lot of people coordinating at that time an place. In a sense, it gives us a minimal level of societal complexity that must have existed. Since britain didn't seem to have towns or cities, the nature of this complexity would be pre-civilised in the literal civil=city sense. I agree though, civilisation has been getting older as evidence emerges. Or, as I prefer to think of it, the mysterious precursors to civilisation have been getting more impressive.
- nonbel 8y ago
  You don't have to move huge stones. Its possible to cast limestone in place, like concrete. I read/watched some stuff about this guy not too long ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Davidovits He claims he sent samples of his cast limestone to geologists and they couldnt tell the difference. Overall I think his theory makes much more sense. It just would have been easier to pour each block in place rather than lug huge stones around.
  - ec109685 8y ago
    I am surprised there aren’t documenration / art that describes the process contemporaneously.

yread 8y ago

maybe they were all mythical 10x builders?

zby 8y ago

With some ingenuity it is possible with much less human power than is commonly imagined: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c

Retra 8y ago

The tools we use today are basically the same techniques that were used before. The only real differences is stronger materials and engines. I.e., the difference between turning a crank at 1000 rpm versus 3 rpm. And if you're forced to use the latter, it's going to look like loads of dudes and animals dragging things about no matter how it is organized. All in all, what I'm saying is that we see the past as using "brute force" construction methods because those are the construction methods we still use today. We just use denser energy sources to make it happen faster. This isn't going to change any cultural understandings unless you're trying to paint a picture that magic was involved before.

JJMcJ 8y ago

Saw TV show on Stonehenge. A group of students dragged a stone from the quarry location (as was believed when the show was made) and about 20 people got it done in about two weeks. There is a tendency to underestimate what can be done by human labor.