Archeologists discover another Stonehenge

[PsychoDad]

Archeologists discover another Stonehenge in the Russian city of Ryazan
07/06/2005 15:33

http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/15764_stonehenge.html

A 4 thousand years old construction found in Russia

Two years ago, Russian archeologist Ilya Akhmedov made a sensational discovery: he found an ancient construction resembling the English Stonehenge near the site of ancient settlement of Staraya Ryazan (now this is a big Russian city), in the village Spasskaya Luka. It was estimated that the construction is 4 thousand years old. This discovery is smaller than the English analogue and is made of wood.

This is astonishing, but similar discoveries were later made all over Eurasia within the next two years. Not amateurs but rather experienced researchers discovered these ancient observatories. As a rule, all of these constructions are based upon the same principle: on the day of the summer and winter solstice the sunrays fall upon some definite spot of a sanctuary made of megalith stones or wood. This is strange that none of the researchers has made an attempt to compare these discovered observatories and find out their common principles.
...
The sanctuary near Staraya Ryazan is situated on the highest hill in the junction of the rivers Oka and Pronya. The area is unique for the great variety of cultures presented there: from the upper paleolith to the early Middle Ages. The previous expedition in 1979 was very close to discovering the sanctuary but failed to find it.

The construction is a circle of seven meters in diameter hedged in with wooden columns each is half a meter thick, at the same distance from each other. There is a large rectangular hole in the center of the circle and a pole. The wooden columns were destroyed but one can clearly see the round holes where they used to stand.

[evlbstrd]

1. Celts.

[aquart]

2. Were they Celts yet? But, yeah.

The redheads were all over the place.

There was a lot of frantic observatory-building around 2000 BC, and some weird events to, like the drowning of Woodhenge....

[evlbstrd]

3. There's a lot of archaeological evidence that the Celts originated

in Eastern Europe and maybe share a heritage with central Asia. They migrated west and nearly conquered Rome.
We will eventually rule the world.

[aquart]

5. Ah. You're one of them.

Busy folks.

You know the Gobi mummies? The ones in the nice plaid? They were found near a place called Wu Shan or San, I forget. It translates Scarlet Hill. Asians sometimes say W for R. Funny, that would make it sound like Russian. The Rus, the Reds who gave Russia its name, buried at Scarlet Hill...what a coincidence.

I love stuff like that. Celts, Latin American civilizations, and the people of India all believe in the Moon Hare. Why is that?

[evlbstrd]

7. I'm one of what?

This is real.
From Wikepedia:
Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, both those spoken by the ancient Celts, and those used by their modern descendants, the Gaels, Welsh, Cornish and Bretons. They are a branch of the Indo-European language family. They were spoken across western Europe during the 1st millennium BC, but are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles and on the peninsula of Brittany in France.
There are four main groups of Celtic languages, of which the first two are now long extinct:
Gaulish and its close relatives, Lepontic, Noric, and Galatian. These languages were once spoken in a wide arc from France to Turkey and from the Netherlands to northern Italy.
Celtiberian, anciently spoken in Galicia, Asturias, León and elsewhere in Spain.
Goidelic, including Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx.
Brythonic, including Welsh, Breton, Cornish, Cumbric, the hypothetical Ivernic, and possibly Pictish
Note that the Breton is not Gaulish, but closely related to Cornish and is thus a member of Insular Celtic. Brittany is known to have been settled from Britain in historical times.
Celtic languages
Proto-Celtic language
Continental Celtic languages
Celtiberian | Gaulish
Lepontic | Galatian
Insular Celtic languages
Goidelic languages
Primitive Irish | Old Irish
Modern Irish | Scottish Gaelic | Manx
Brythonic languages
Welsh | Cumbric
Southwestern Brythonic
Breton | Cornish
The separation of these groups probably occurred around 1000 BC. The early Celts are commonly associated with the archaeological Urnfield culture.

[aquart]

10. One of what, indeed.

Pick one. They're all good. Some may be a bit rarer than others.

[Hissyspit]

8. Is it not fairly well-established that they headed the other way, too?

The northern Europeans (Celts, Vikings) head back east later on?

[evlbstrd]

9. The Vikings were a separate lingual/cultural group.

They did occupy ancient Ireland for a time. But they never could conquer her. The phrase "beyond the Pale" originates from the inabilty of the Vikings to strike out beyond what is now Dublin. Beyond the Pale meant facing the Wild Irish.

[aquart]

11. Yes. My large, shaggy brother-in-law with the horned helmet

Is not a Celt. He would tell you so himself.

[Hissyspit]

13. Sorry. I did not mean they were the same...

I just meant that there examples of tribal/ethnic groups who moved the other direction later on (medieval years) in other words, inhabited the same European geographic extremes, and that Celts were possibly an example of this.

[evlbstrd]

15. The Celts did branch from the IndoEuropeans,

and did exactly that.

[existentialist]

14. beyond the pale

as I heard it, "beyond the pale" referred to the English inability to control more than (basically the same) area around Dublin.


(or is that the American inability to control Baghdad outside the "green" zone?)

[evlbstrd]

16. It was the Viking inability to venture beyond their Dublin Settlement.

Fear of the Wild Irish.
Baghdad's Green Zone is an apt analogy.

[Igel]

12. Rather a useless designation that far back.

2000 BC? Slavic and Baltic hadn't formed their little subgroup yet, and if the Celts had separated out by then, they'd probably have been a bit west, adjacent to Germanic and Italic. But it's not even clear the Celts existed as a separate folk by then. Probably a dialect of IE. I'm unsure there's any trace of Celtic east of Slavic at any point, at least not until after great "Wandering" started in the 400s AD.

Go back another millennium, and it's for sure there were no Celts, or Italic speakers or Germanic speakers.

[H2O Man]

17. Possible but not necessarily.

Much of the archaeological record would indicate that the Celts, who originated in the Mediterranean world, were not the the the builders of Stonehenge. The myth of the Hyperboreans, who were believed to live in the distant north, is found in the writings of the 6th century "historian" Hecataeus, and who is quoted by Diodorus; they believed these people occupied a large island in the ocean facing the country of the Celts, and that they worshipped the sun god in a magnificent circular temple. However, as Barry Cunliffe points out in "The Ancient Celts," there is little evidence that Stonehedge was in use at this late date. Both he and Fran Delaney ("The Celts") note that Stonehedge appears to pre-date any significant Celtic occupation of the isles.

The likely builders were the pre-Celtic tribes, who are the people found in the north. Their languages were not Celtic, and their culture is believed to be approximately the same as the Sami herders, who pre-date any other known ethnic group in that part of the world. The Sami are one of two groups in that part of the world who do not have Indo-European languages, the other being the Basque.

Celtic history is rich, indeed, but when push comes to shove, we must admit there were at least ten great events in history that occured without our direct participation.

[Hissyspit]

4. If it's made of wood, it's a wood henge, not a stone henge.

There is a wood henge near Stonehenge in Wiltshire. It is called Woodhenge.

Sorry, being nitpicky. I know what they mean. :P

[NVMojo]

6. whatever ...this is cool!!!