Stonehenge Silliness -- the imagined past

Reuters AFP pics of leaper and dancers at yesterday's Stonehenge solstice celebrations. More than 20,000 people showed up this year and by all accounts the sunrise was spectacular. Photographers were particularly impressed by the guy who jumped off one of the standing stones. Gotta admit, he's kinda spooky.

Stuff NZ covers the festivities here.

Of course, all of this stuff is a modern invention -- projecting romantic visions back onto the past -- and, according to recent research may be applied to the wrong solstice.

The Telegraph reports:

Modern-day druids, hippies and revellers who turn up at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice may not be marking an ancient festival as they believe.

The latest archaeological findings add weight to growing evidence that our ancestors visited Stonehenge to celebrate the winter solstice.

Analysis of pigs's teeth found at Durrington Walls, a ceremonial site of wooden post circles near Stonehenge on the River Avon, has shown that most pigs were less than a year old when slaughtered.

Dr Umburto Albarella, an animal bone expert at the University of Sheffield's archaeology department, which is studying monuments around Stonehenge, said pigs in the Neolithic period were born in spring and were an early form of domestic pig that farrowed once a year. The existence of large numbers of bones from pigs slaughtered in December or January supports the view that our Neolithic ancestors took part in a winter solstice festivities....

Prof Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield university, who leads the project, said: "We have no evidence that anyone was in the landscape in summer.''

Read it here.

Now here's the scary part. The Guardian noted:

Before dawn, King Arthur Pendragon, 51, the head battle chieftain of the British Council of Druids, led a troop of warriors - all anthropology students from the University of East London - in a dance honouring mother nature, whose effigy was held aloft and illuminated by fiery torches. [emphasis mine]

Oh well, the celebrations are harmless fun -- and that's all they are. They certainly don't reflect any honest expression of "science" or "history," even if "anthropologists" are involved. And parenthetically, I applaud the decision to once again open the site to the public.

Read it here.