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We forget sometimes that the builders of ancient structures were also anatomically modern humans, every bit as clever and complex as us. We should be surprised

We forget sometimes that the builders of ancient structures were also anatomically modern humans, every bit as clever and complex as us. We should be surprised if there weren't the kind of transport methods and trade networks to support this.

alserio 2y ago
I'm not surprised that they could, I'm more surprised that they wanted to.
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  What else was there to do? There was no Internet, no television, no football (perhaps), no books, no broadcast radio. I'm only half joking.
  - alserio 2y ago
    Maybe someone was "visiting" Scotland, and decided that it would look good in their backyard
    - deepsun 2y ago
      Yea, ancients had a certain taste for decorations. For example in Assyria, to get an audience with their king Ashurbanipal, I believe, one had to go through a corridor full of heads of king's defeated enemies. We often forget how violent past was. It was extremely hard to live to adulthood without killing anyone.
- dboreham 2y ago
  See also: Stone of Scone.
  - alserio 2y ago
    Fascinating but also a lot more portable
tialaramex 2y ago
Although humans from this period are anatomically the same as us, their culture isn't much like ours and the things you're talking about are a matter of culture.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  The specifics are a matter of culture, but every civilization has transportation and trade. That's universal.
dboreham 2y ago
The rock formation identified is at the surface throughout the Orkney Islands. The River Avon seems to be at least close to navigable by a barge carrying a 5m long stone, requiring less than a mile of transport across land to Stonehenge. So it doesn't seem to require extremely implausible means to get it there. As to why -- perhaps the Stonehenge civilization came from Orkney originally, bringing their sacred stone with them? Or perhaps Orkney was a sort of Rivendell back then -- it's easier to defend as an isolated island group. You might go get a big stone from the monks there to establish the authenticity of your satellite colony.
- qingcharles 2y ago
  I wonder what the Avon looked like back then? The waters down the west coast can be a little hairy. I asked Claude to analyze the paper and speculate a route and it thought the east coast route, then up the Thames and down the Avon was more likely? "Modern oceanographic knowledge tells us that the Irish Sea can be challenging due to strong currents, frequent storms, and numerous shoals and sandbanks. These conditions were likely present in Neolithic times as well." (Claude)
  - addaon 2y ago
    > (Claude) That certainly is a sequence of words consistent with the rules of English grammar. Can you explain what you think it contributes to the conversation? Are you suggesting it’s more likely to be semantically valid than other such sequences of words?
  - termy 2y ago
    Interesting thanks :)
  - defrost 2y ago
    > I asked Claude to analyze the paper and speculate a route and it utterly failed to mention glacial erratics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_erratic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_erratic https://www.cyark.org/projects/okotoks-erratic/overview https://www.cyark.org/projects/okotoks-erratic/overview Mind you, so did every other HN commentator and it's something that rarely comes up when forums speculate on the transport of stones in the UK for ancient monuments. It's easier to stack up the "weird non local" stones dropped at the end of a valley after a glacial retreat than it is to transit them ~1,000 km without a crane and a truck.
trhway 2y ago
>every bit as clever and complex as us 5000 years is a long time for adaptational/behavioral selection in the comparatively - compare to other large mammals - dense society. During the well observable last couple centuries we see significant changes in the average human height, aggressiveness and testosterone production, socials skills, even IQ level noticeably drifts over just few generations being the subject of economical and societal mass-selection process. You can't just dismiss the selective effect of mass culling events like wars, revolutions, Inquisition and similar societal level massive behavioral-based selection processes adjusting the society for specific traits (for example Russian revolution killed several millions most educated people, and later Stalin "adjusted" the society by killing several millions of people who tended to be less-conformists), executing over the centuries or later putting in prison significant number of people with specific social/behavioral traits, etc.
- trhway 2y ago
  I see people strongly disagree. I wonder how those people would explain how similar selection actions produce such strong changes in just a few generations of say dogs or cows.

alserio 2y ago

I'm not surprised that they could, I'm more surprised that they wanted to.

kwhitefoot 2y ago
What else was there to do? There was no Internet, no television, no football (perhaps), no books, no broadcast radio. I'm only half joking.
- alserio 2y ago
  Maybe someone was "visiting" Scotland, and decided that it would look good in their backyard
  - deepsun 2y ago
    Yea, ancients had a certain taste for decorations. For example in Assyria, to get an audience with their king Ashurbanipal, I believe, one had to go through a corridor full of heads of king's defeated enemies. We often forget how violent past was. It was extremely hard to live to adulthood without killing anyone.
dboreham 2y ago
See also: Stone of Scone.
- alserio 2y ago
  Fascinating but also a lot more portable

tialaramex 2y ago

Although humans from this period are anatomically the same as us, their culture isn't much like ours and the things you're talking about are a matter of culture.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago
The specifics are a matter of culture, but every civilization has transportation and trade. That's universal.

dboreham 2y ago

The rock formation identified is at the surface throughout the Orkney Islands. The River Avon seems to be at least close to navigable by a barge carrying a 5m long stone, requiring less than a mile of transport across land to Stonehenge. So it doesn't seem to require extremely implausible means to get it there. As to why -- perhaps the Stonehenge civilization came from Orkney originally, bringing their sacred stone with them? Or perhaps Orkney was a sort of Rivendell back then -- it's easier to defend as an isolated island group. You might go get a big stone from the monks there to establish the authenticity of your satellite colony.

qingcharles 2y ago
I wonder what the Avon looked like back then? The waters down the west coast can be a little hairy. I asked Claude to analyze the paper and speculate a route and it thought the east coast route, then up the Thames and down the Avon was more likely? "Modern oceanographic knowledge tells us that the Irish Sea can be challenging due to strong currents, frequent storms, and numerous shoals and sandbanks. These conditions were likely present in Neolithic times as well." (Claude)
- addaon 2y ago
  > (Claude) That certainly is a sequence of words consistent with the rules of English grammar. Can you explain what you think it contributes to the conversation? Are you suggesting it’s more likely to be semantically valid than other such sequences of words?
- termy 2y ago
  Interesting thanks :)
- defrost 2y ago
  > I asked Claude to analyze the paper and speculate a route and it utterly failed to mention glacial erratics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_erratic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_erratic https://www.cyark.org/projects/okotoks-erratic/overview https://www.cyark.org/projects/okotoks-erratic/overview Mind you, so did every other HN commentator and it's something that rarely comes up when forums speculate on the transport of stones in the UK for ancient monuments. It's easier to stack up the "weird non local" stones dropped at the end of a valley after a glacial retreat than it is to transit them ~1,000 km without a crane and a truck.

trhway 2y ago

>every bit as clever and complex as us 5000 years is a long time for adaptational/behavioral selection in the comparatively - compare to other large mammals - dense society. During the well observable last couple centuries we see significant changes in the average human height, aggressiveness and testosterone production, socials skills, even IQ level noticeably drifts over just few generations being the subject of economical and societal mass-selection process. You can't just dismiss the selective effect of mass culling events like wars, revolutions, Inquisition and similar societal level massive behavioral-based selection processes adjusting the society for specific traits (for example Russian revolution killed several millions most educated people, and later Stalin "adjusted" the society by killing several millions of people who tended to be less-conformists), executing over the centuries or later putting in prison significant number of people with specific social/behavioral traits, etc.

trhway 2y ago
I see people strongly disagree. I wonder how those people would explain how similar selection actions produce such strong changes in just a few generations of say dogs or cows.