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Blue Stones, strange lines on the ground and a Pictish beast

19 September 2011
Archaeology

At the topnotch web site www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/09/2011/bluestone-henge-twin … if you remember, from the TV series on the 2007 excavations, a former bluestone circle was found on the banks of the Avon, at the beginning of the Avenue. Now, this circle was dated to around 3000BC and it is thought it consisted of blue stones. However, the stones were transported up the Avenue after roughly 500 years in their original position and they are thought to have become part of the larger bluestone circle erected at Stonehenge in around 2500BC. In addition, it is thought the former site of the bluestones, on the bank of the river Avon, was redeveloped in around 2400BC – the ditch and henge feature being modified.  

Meanwhile, BBC News had a story about a strange beast carved on a Pictish stone – see www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-14881753

And at www.livescience.com/16046-nazca-lines-wheels-google-earth.html is a story about some strange features seen on the desert floor of Jordan via satellite images. Thousands of stone structures, known to archaeologists as wheels, have been found, ranging from 82 feet to 230 feet across. They are part of the ancient landscape of the region, along with the more famous 'kites' – used to funnel gazelle herds for butchering. Also, there are 'pendants', lines of stone cairns and walls that meander across the landscape with no apparent usefulness. The bedouin referred to them as the 'work of the old men' and an archaeologist commenting on the wheels said there seemed to be some overriding need to build things circular – but why? Some of the wheels are found isolated and others come in clusters. Near the Azrak Oasis they occur in their hundreds. 

Elsewhere, in Saudi Arabia, there are 'wheels' – but these are not always circular, or contain spokes. 

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