8 ms·

How can something like this be discovered in 2022? It sounds incredible. I would understand it if it was at the bottom of the sea, but they appear to be standin

by mongol 4y ago

How can something like this be discovered in 2022? It sounds incredible. I would understand it if it was at the bottom of the sea, but they appear to be standing in plain sight. No one gave any thought to it before?

silvanocerza 4y ago
The article picture is not from the discovered site. If you click on the picture you can read the full description: > Carnac in northwestern France is one of the most famous megalithic sites in the world with some 3,000 standing stones .
GekkePrutser 4y ago
Spain has a lot of remote rural areas. Must likely these stones were overgrown in tall grass, bushes or covered in dirt. I walk a lot in remote areas but even there it's very rare for people to leave the trails. And finally it's possible that some locals were aware of some "rocks in that field" but weren't aware of the archeological significance. Be aware that the photo in the article is not from the site in question but one in France that's much bigger and maintained.
- powerhour 4y ago
  > Be aware that the photo in the article is not from the site in question but one in France that's much bigger and maintained. I completely overlooked the text below the photo. That's on me, I guess, but it's crazy they don't have a photo of this new site in the article.
  - yorwba 4y ago
    The archaeologists' paper (in Spanish) has pictures: https://tp.revistas.csic.es/index.php/tp/article/view/881/951 https://tp.revistas.csic.es/index.php/tp/article/view/881/95...
    - flint 4y ago
      Should be top comment
    - em-bee 4y ago
      looking at those photos, it is entirely not obvious that these stones are placed in a pattern. some look entirely random. it's not surprising that this wasn't discovered earlier.
    - mongol 4y ago
      Thank you!
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I hate the trend of "we have an article, we will use a stock photo" as it catches me here and there, also.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
franciscop 4y ago
As I read once, Americans get surprised by European history (and Europeans by America's distances). As a local in Spain and as my sibling commenter said, this could def pass as "yeah there's a bunch of rocks in that field". It was common for buildings in the middle ages and almost at any time in history to reuse rocks from the nearby ruins from older civilizations. After all those were readily available and saving weeks of work could mean the difference between having a dwelling and death. It's also very commong to find archeological ruins when excavating, just yesterday my father (who is in construction) told me of a region in Spain where construction companies will just not go because it's certain they will hit ruins and have the project paralized. As the article described, here the owner gets their field of avocados taken over by the government at least until 2026, hopefully they didn't take any loan to buy it or they'll surely default.
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  > It was common for buildings in the middle ages and almost at any time in history to reuse rocks from the nearby ruins from older civilizations. After all those were readily available and saving weeks of work could mean the difference between having a dwelling and death. I'm sure that the choice between a dwelling or death was sometimes the case, but it's not like they needed such a stark pro to override the con of destroying archæological remains. It was simply that at the time there was no such thing as wanting to preserve useless old things that happened to be there, and reusing conveniently available building blocks was a no-brainer.
  - franciscop 4y ago
    Something that I've learned recently that we're very misinformed is the concept of the "lazy peasant". Apparently for most of history, people and communities were very often at the brink of death by starvation[1], so saving weeks of unrelated work that you can be spend on producing food is very likely a thing that more often than not would improve your survival chances greatly. Of course as you say "historical relevant" was also not a concept as well for the common folks. [1] Sure it'd be very seasonal, where you could go few years in a row with excess of food! But excess food was "bad" as well, so then what people got that they worked in reducing producing the amount of food to prefer diversifying their crops to reduce risk of a big event wiping their whole farm.
dmoo 4y ago
The article says many were buried & it’s a reasonably large site so it may not have been that obvious. A pattern may not have been discernible from ground level.
- karaterobot 4y ago
  I mean, this is the answer. The article's picture is not a picture of the site the article discusses, that's why. One thing I'll add is that the article says "Many of the stones are buried deep in the earth." Presumably that's why nobody saw them until they looked pretty hard.
- UberFly 4y ago
  Exactly. I saw this story posted at the Archeology subreddit and that was also the first question there too. Mostly buried but obvious patterns to the trained eye.
BrianHenryIE 4y ago
Newgrange, in Ireland, c.3300 BC (older than the Pyramids) was "discovered" in 1699, really just became a household name since archeology in 1962. When you take the tour, it's described as ~"well, everyone living here knew about it, but it wasn't a big deal because it was always here, it was only when foreigners saw it that they made a big deal of it." http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/boyne/newgrange.html http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/boyne/newgrange.html Every winter solstice (only on and around the 21st December) the sun shines into the inner chamber. There are live-streams showing it. It's great.
- Jaruzel 4y ago
  Orkney (north east Scotland) is full of neolithic stone structures and rings, you can't go anywhere on the islands without tripping over some. Totally recommended for visit. US cruise ships dock there all through summer.
  - Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
    I went to visit the Callinish Stones on the Hebrides once. By far and away the eeriest place I've ever been. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.
pvaldes 4y ago
You may enjoy also the fantastic Aquis Querquennis roman camp in The North of Spain, lying under a reservoir and currently over the water level by the dry spell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquis_Querquennis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquis_Querquennis https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Aquis+Querquennis&t=newext&atb=v319-1&ia=web&iaxm=places https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Aquis+Querquennis&t=newext&atb=v31...
progre 4y ago
This is a wild guess, but foliage penetrating radar is getting pretty cheap and deployed for even smaller digs. Larger scans (whole towns, or large fields) are exposing lots of unknown stuff, like forgotten wall structures and abandoned villages.

by mongol 4y ago

silvanocerza 4y ago

The article picture is not from the discovered site. If you click on the picture you can read the full description: > Carnac in northwestern France is one of the most famous megalithic sites in the world with some 3,000 standing stones .

GekkePrutser 4y ago

Spain has a lot of remote rural areas. Must likely these stones were overgrown in tall grass, bushes or covered in dirt. I walk a lot in remote areas but even there it's very rare for people to leave the trails. And finally it's possible that some locals were aware of some "rocks in that field" but weren't aware of the archeological significance. Be aware that the photo in the article is not from the site in question but one in France that's much bigger and maintained.

powerhour 4y ago
> Be aware that the photo in the article is not from the site in question but one in France that's much bigger and maintained. I completely overlooked the text below the photo. That's on me, I guess, but it's crazy they don't have a photo of this new site in the article.
- yorwba 4y ago
  The archaeologists' paper (in Spanish) has pictures: https://tp.revistas.csic.es/index.php/tp/article/view/881/951 https://tp.revistas.csic.es/index.php/tp/article/view/881/95...
  - flint 4y ago
    Should be top comment
  - em-bee 4y ago
    looking at those photos, it is entirely not obvious that these stones are placed in a pattern. some look entirely random. it's not surprising that this wasn't discovered earlier.
  - mongol 4y ago
    Thank you!
- bombcar 4y ago
  I hate the trend of "we have an article, we will use a stock photo" as it catches me here and there, also.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

franciscop 4y ago

As I read once, Americans get surprised by European history (and Europeans by America's distances). As a local in Spain and as my sibling commenter said, this could def pass as "yeah there's a bunch of rocks in that field". It was common for buildings in the middle ages and almost at any time in history to reuse rocks from the nearby ruins from older civilizations. After all those were readily available and saving weeks of work could mean the difference between having a dwelling and death. It's also very commong to find archeological ruins when excavating, just yesterday my father (who is in construction) told me of a region in Spain where construction companies will just not go because it's certain they will hit ruins and have the project paralized. As the article described, here the owner gets their field of avocados taken over by the government at least until 2026, hopefully they didn't take any loan to buy it or they'll surely default.

Mordisquitos 4y ago
> It was common for buildings in the middle ages and almost at any time in history to reuse rocks from the nearby ruins from older civilizations. After all those were readily available and saving weeks of work could mean the difference between having a dwelling and death. I'm sure that the choice between a dwelling or death was sometimes the case, but it's not like they needed such a stark pro to override the con of destroying archæological remains. It was simply that at the time there was no such thing as wanting to preserve useless old things that happened to be there, and reusing conveniently available building blocks was a no-brainer.
- franciscop 4y ago
  Something that I've learned recently that we're very misinformed is the concept of the "lazy peasant". Apparently for most of history, people and communities were very often at the brink of death by starvation[1], so saving weeks of unrelated work that you can be spend on producing food is very likely a thing that more often than not would improve your survival chances greatly. Of course as you say "historical relevant" was also not a concept as well for the common folks. [1] Sure it'd be very seasonal, where you could go few years in a row with excess of food! But excess food was "bad" as well, so then what people got that they worked in reducing producing the amount of food to prefer diversifying their crops to reduce risk of a big event wiping their whole farm.

dmoo 4y ago

The article says many were buried & it’s a reasonably large site so it may not have been that obvious. A pattern may not have been discernible from ground level.

karaterobot 4y ago
I mean, this is the answer. The article's picture is not a picture of the site the article discusses, that's why. One thing I'll add is that the article says "Many of the stones are buried deep in the earth." Presumably that's why nobody saw them until they looked pretty hard.
UberFly 4y ago
Exactly. I saw this story posted at the Archeology subreddit and that was also the first question there too. Mostly buried but obvious patterns to the trained eye.

BrianHenryIE 4y ago

Newgrange, in Ireland, c.3300 BC (older than the Pyramids) was "discovered" in 1699, really just became a household name since archeology in 1962. When you take the tour, it's described as ~"well, everyone living here knew about it, but it wasn't a big deal because it was always here, it was only when foreigners saw it that they made a big deal of it." http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/boyne/newgrange.html http://www.carrowkeel.com/sites/boyne/newgrange.html Every winter solstice (only on and around the 21st December) the sun shines into the inner chamber. There are live-streams showing it. It's great.

Jaruzel 4y ago
Orkney (north east Scotland) is full of neolithic stone structures and rings, you can't go anywhere on the islands without tripping over some. Totally recommended for visit. US cruise ships dock there all through summer.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  I went to visit the Callinish Stones on the Hebrides once. By far and away the eeriest place I've ever been. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.

pvaldes 4y ago

You may enjoy also the fantastic Aquis Querquennis roman camp in The North of Spain, lying under a reservoir and currently over the water level by the dry spell. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquis_Querquennis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquis_Querquennis https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Aquis+Querquennis&t=newext&atb=v319-1&ia=web&iaxm=places https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Aquis+Querquennis&t=newext&atb=v31...

progre 4y ago

This is a wild guess, but foliage penetrating radar is getting pretty cheap and deployed for even smaller digs. Larger scans (whole towns, or large fields) are exposing lots of unknown stuff, like forgotten wall structures and abandoned villages.