Origins of stone worship: From the twelve pillars of Moses, Warren Fields and Stonehenge, Newgrange Tomb, Gobekli Tepe, the forgotten megalith monument Nabta Playa, Stone Circles in Japan, Australian Aborigine stone circle, Native American stone wheels
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: A recent addition to Stonehenge is a new study from experts at University College London (UCL) and Aberystwyth University suggests that Stonehenge might've served a similar unifying purpose beyond its well-documented astronomical uses. This breakthrough comes from the discovery reported earlier this year that the six-ton Alter Stone—the recumbent central megalith at Stonehenge—actually originated from Scotland and not Wales, as previously believed. (Popular Mechanics, by Darren Orf Published: Jan 02, 2025) "Stonehenge may have had a second purpose beyond its well-documented astronomical uses…that the monument may have been built in part to unify neighboring people groups in and near the area of its construction. This idea comes primarily from the fact that many of the stones used in the construction of Stonehenge hail from various locales around the United Kingdom. In context of stone worship, recent research appears to indicate larger numbers of people gatherings at get-togethers than earlier suspected - such as at Vespasian's Camp near Stonehenge (CA 271) and Star Carr (CA 282) are increasingly being detected by archaeologists. These get-togethers appear to have involved far greater numbers of people than previously suspected." Furthermore, Andrew B. Powell in his assessment of the Irish Newgrange Passage Tomb in comparison to other Irish Passage Toms observes, "The scale of megalithic tomb construction in Ireland during the Neolithic is clear evidence that important sets of social relations, including rights of succession to symbolic and material resources, were ideologically legitimized in the context of mortuary ritual. The various tomb types found in Ireland — the passage tombs, court tombs, portal tombs, Linkardstown cists, and wedge tombs, representing different domains of ritual practice and discourse — are each characterized by specific symbols and forms. In a competitive social environment, where economic and political power derived increasingly from the possession of ritual power, ever tighter control was exerted over the content of the passage tomb ritual discourse, the inherent ambiguity of its symbolism being exploited in order to legitimize the possession of that power." Models of social-moral order 1. Erica Hill's Model as "dynamic social behaviours embedded within the context of daily life of arctic hunter gatherer and beliefs in animal spirits as "human relations with the natural world"; "Their thoughts and actions established and maintained relationships with prey animals and may be more productively conceptualized as dynamic social behaviours embedded within the context of daily life than as privileged ritual acts." – and the beliefs focused attention (evolutionary adaptive selective attention) of the community on the activity of hunting-gathering of animals. 2. Emile Durkheim's model: "The forces before which the believer bows are not simple physical energies, such as are presented to the sense and the imagination; they are social forces," 3. Ramon Reyes Model from prehistoric societies in the Philippines: "In sum, one social and moral order encompasses the living, the dead, the deities and the spirits, and the total environment."
DOI: 10.17613/ps6gn-en185
Author: E Peck Jr, Charles
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6944139698
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