5.3 Europe: 3000 to 1500 b.c.  (Page 4/6)

Western europe

There was a late Copper Age in Spain with techniques coming across southern Europe from the Caucasus, after 3,000 B.C. A source of tin was found in northwest Spain so that the area could readily participate in the bronze industries between 2,500 and 1,500 B.C. Some of the metal-using communities, such as those in southern Spain and Portugal about 2,500 had to be fortified and some had two high walls with outlying fortresses to give warning of attack. Defenders fought with bow and arrows. (Ref. 175 )

In the last chapter we discussed the 4th millennium inhabitants of England, the Windmill Hill people. It was probably these who, at the beginning of the 3rd millennium, started to build a series of remarkable stone monuments in southern England. The best known and most thoroughly investigated, written about, photographed, painted and romanticized of these, is Stonehenge. The original structure, Stonehenge 1, dates to not later than 2,900 when there were already some 180 separate habitation centers in Wessex. At Stonehenge, first of all there was dug a circular ditch some 1,050 feet in circumference, 4 1/2 to 6 feet deep and 12 feet wide. The purpose of this was to supply the chalk soil for a bank which was thus built up along the inner side of the ditch. It has been estimated that this alone required about 28,000 man-hours of work, using red-deer antlers for picks and whatever for shovels. The bank measures 320 feet in diameter and was at least 6 feet high, although some say 20 feet, with a causeway entrance on the northeast. Only a few stones were used in Stage I, a couple at the causeway entrance and perhaps the four Station Stones, but a mysterious feature was a group of 53 post holes also in the causeway entrance.

Most modern scholars are convinced that these were used for precise and constant observation of the extreme northerly risings of the moon for a hundred years or more. It requires nineteen years for the moon to exactly repeat its course in relation to the earth and sun, so that predictions of moon positions, possible eclipses, etc. require long periods of observation. The average diameter of the post holes is 3 feet 6 inches, with a depth of 2 1/2 feet.

There is no evidence that they ever held stones or wooden posts. Some have yielded cremation remains, flakes of flint, cups, etc. all adding to the mystery. Professor Fred Hoyle (Ref. 99 ) believes that this was not built by local people, but by some who came especially to place the circle at the exact spot needed for some astronomical reasons.

After Phase I of Stonehenge was completed (but before Phase II) another enormous, strange construction appeared about one-half mile north of Stonehenge. This is a narrow horse-shoe shaped earthworks with each leg running for one and three-quarters miles, and which is called the "Cursus", because some have felt it represents a Neolithic race-track. There is some evidence that the bluestones which we shall see were used in Stonehenge II had earlier either been used for some purpose or stock-piled at the western end of this Cursus. There are about twenty similar constructions in Britain and this one is the second longest and it may even pre-date Stonehenge I. The longest Cursus is at Dorset and measures 6.2 miles in length. (Ref. 7 ) There are none of these constructions outside Britain.