Friday, October 07, 2005

A 5000-year-old Log Path found in England - LexiLine Journal 364

The Yorkshire Post Today features an article by Emma Dunlop entitled "Walker Discovers 5,000-year-old Log Path on Moor: Find to shed new light on Neolithic man". See http://snipurl.com/i8cp which is a snip of http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=55&ArticleID=1212340

The find was made at Hatfield Moor, near Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, England (United Kingdom, UK). This remarkable find is one of the finds of the century in this still yet young 21st century. Axe marks can be seen on the wood and the logs are tapered. The logs were placed in parallel and the path is up to 4 meters wide on a path running at least 50 meters to a wooden platform.

The significance of this find can not be underestimated. One of the barriers to our astronomically-based land-survey interpretation of the megaliths has thus far been the entirely false view of Neolithic man held my mainstrem archaeologists and historians of astronomy.

This find will greatly help to lay to rest once and for all the ill- formed theory that Neolithic man was a stupid brute. If these men had the tools and the understanding to make this kind of a hewn, tapered log path (up to four meters wide) ending at a platform (of unknown
significance thus far), then he was also surely well capable of carving figures and cupmarks onto megaliths and using them for astronomically-based land survey.

Here is what my wife, who has a bit of clairvoyance, said about this log path after reading the article:
"They did not make tiny paths. They thought big. The path was created for moving big things."
This is in contradiction to the opinion of the Hatfield Moor archaeological site manager, Archaeologist Dr Henry Chapman, who is quoted as saying:
"This is utterly amazing and the only one of its kind in the world....A find like this could rewrite the history of Neolithic man as we know it. This platform could have been used for a number of reasons. We believe it is too big for a vantage point for hunting, but it could be religiously significant - as a place for offerings to the gods. Or, even more symbolically, it could have been a place where the dead were laid out."
For which latter opinions on religion, by the way, there is not the slightest bit of evidence. Such statements are pure conjencture.

In this connection, we should note as written at http://www.peatalert.org.uk/ that:
"Thorne and Hatfield Moors are the largest remaining lowland peat habitats in England."
See also http://www.shef.ac.uk/assem/3/3nicki.ht and http://www.britarch.ac.uk/briefing/jul97.html.

Indeed, peat is still being extracted there today, which has led to protests and demonstrations, as can be read at the above site. See also http://www.thmcf.org/moors.htm. Perhaps, quite simply, as this area become more and more waterlogged around 3000 B.C., the ancients built such log pathways at critical wet-points on paths used for the piling-up and transportation of peat, either to inland towns or to boats on the Humber. Recall that we have the site of Creswell Crags only about 25 miles (40 km) to the southeast, where evidence of habitation is found long before this log path. Creswell Crags is also on a direct line to Hatfield Moor and then the River
Humber near Goole [not to be confused with Google], a mere 12 miles (20 km to the North), which is an area significant now in terms of waterways as the most inland port in Britain. Surely the sea-faring ancients were also aware of this strategic transport location close to this extensive peat supply. See http://www.goole-guide.net/history%5B1%5D.htm

In fact, in this region, according to http://www.doncaster.gov.uk/about/chamber/default.asp?Nav=Report&ReportID=6037:
"Remains have been discovered dating back to Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Age/Romano-British periods...."
We read at http://www.thenortheast.fsnet.co.uk/Selby.htm
"GOOLE AND ITS RIVERS

Goole lies on the River Humber to the west of Selby and is an industrial port. Goole was once the name for a small stream or ditch. The town is located near to the so-called Dutch River, a drainage channel linking the River Don with the River Ouse. This channel was surveyed by a Dutch engineer called Cornelius Vermuyden in the seventeenth century. Goole is linked to mill towns like Halifax in the Calder valley to the west by the Aire and Calder Navigation canal.

The River Derwent from Ryedale joins the Ouse from the north at Barmby on the Marsh and a few miles further east near Goole, the Ouse is joined by the River Aire near Airmyn. The Aire begins its course in Airedale before travelling through Leeds and West Yorkshire. From Goole the Ouse continues east to merge with the famous River Trent. Close by it forms the massive estuary of the River Humber - a great dividing line between East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire."
In this connection, we should note as written at http://www.olavsrosa.no/en/objektinfo.aspx?id=71902 that the ancients used peat for clothes and textiles made of peat fibres, for fuel, energy production, for roofs, for strewing, for fertilization of the soil and for improving soil quality (the latter is still done today).

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