[Sca-cooks] Circles (was Period gifts in jars + question)
Martin G. Diehl
mdiehl at nac.net
Sat Nov 27 22:20:58 PST 2004
Chris Stanifer wrote:
Thanks for your response. Just a few selected comments
now ... if I don't make all of my comments, maybe some
more tomorrow.
> --- "Martin G. Diehl" <mdiehl at nac.net> wrote:
> > Some other points to consider at the estimated time
> > of constructing those sites ...
[snip]
> > (2) Lifting tools ...
> >
> > The actual tools are unknown; e.g. use of "Block and
> > Tackle", is very unlikely at that time.
>
> Give me a lever long enough, and I will move the world ...
OK ... but did *they* have the lever *then*?
> Your 'trench and hole' theory sounds good, and would
> require much fewer workers than, say, lifting the stone
> into an erect position with a lever and push-poles.
Building the ditch around a site did not necessarily yield
the stones for the ring.
> Still, it wouldn't take that many workers very long to
> get these bad boys into position.
... after quarrying and moving ... perhaps as much as
6 miles. The stones at the Ring of Brogdar seem to have
come from all over that island.
> Weren't there only something on the order of 14 large
> stones at Stennes?
NO ... 12 but only 11 were set in place. See Colin
Richards' web page,
"Rethinking the great stone circles of Northwest Britain"
http://www.orkneydigs.org.uk/dhl/papers/cr/
> > (3) Transportation ...
> >
> > In the worst case scenario, they would have had to
> > drag the stones from where they occurred naturally
[snip]
> Horses???
No. Before the invention and introduction of the horse
collar in 600 to 800 AD, the maximum load a horse could
pull was about 500 lbs.
See: Geis & Geis; "Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel"
> Ropes and really strong guys??
Yep.
> > (4) Food gathering ...
> >
> > While working, I think some time might have been
> > related to food gathering -- even without that being
> > a primary activity.
>
> This was probably done by the rest of the
> clan/tribe/whathaveyou while the work was being done.
Yes, it is still a reallocation of labor from food
gathering to monument building.
> > (5) Work time ...
> >
> > 12 hours per day seems a bit long -- using stone tools
> > to break bedrock during dawn, twilight, fog, or rain
> > would produce far more broken fingers than broken rocks.
>
> I think that if we were to take a little trip back to
> Neolithic times, we'd find these folks toiling away well
> into the evening,
Without efficient lighting ... how? Was that possible in
the Middle ages?
[snip]
> 12 hours sounds like a long time by today's standards,
> when the average workday is 6 to 8 hours long
I don't know about your averages ... for most of my last
11 years as an employee at the public accounting firm
Deloitte & Touche, I worked 3000 hours a year. A very
good thing I could use a supermarket instead of gathering
my own food. As the learned lecturer, George Carlin has
noted. <g>
[snip]
> Injuries were probably quite common, as well.
Maybe ... but not by choice then or now.
> > (6) Population ...
> >
> > In Burl, Aubrey; "A Guide to the Stone Circles of
> > Britain, ...", the author proposes a methodology to
> > estimate the population associated with a neolithic
> > site.
> >
> > The upper population bound could be estimated by the
> > number of people who could be comfortably accommodated
> > within the stone ring.
>
> What?? Where did the author come up with this number??
> This is assuming that the entire social unit lived
> within the confines of the ring/structure,
No ... his assumption is that the ring would need to be
large enough to accommodate the population (congregation)
at the time of a solar or moon alignment.
[snip]
> These were, mostly, rings of stones with some kind of
> socio-religious importance.
Probably ... and needed to be big enough for everyone to
observe the ceremony associated with the solar or lunar
alignment.
[snip]
> > The lower population bound could be estimated by the
> > number of workers needed to erect the largest
> > (heaviest) stone at the site.
>
> No problem with this one.... there had to be at least
> enough people to lift the heaviest stone.
Actually drag, not lift. ... But in any case, yes.
> > You should see the web page, "Rethinking the great
> > stone circles of Northwest Britain" (nearly the last
> > web page I found for this topic) -- The author notes
> > some of the same issues you raised about construction
> > time and also notes a very different interpretation of
> > the construction process.
>
> Yeah, I have my doubts about the alleged length of time
> it took to build a lot of these neolithic and prehistoric
> monuments.
That is exactly Colin Richards' point --- he notes that
the time estimates for a given site keep decreasing,
Possibly because each of our new estimate uses different
(new) mechanical or managerial methods.
Of course, we can think of a shorter time ... and prove
that it's possible. But how fast could they do it 5,000
years ago using *only* what they knew then?
> I'm no engineer, by any means, but it just seems to me
> that, if I could do it, they could do it.
Yes ... the whole basis of the SCA -- provided we act
within what was known in historical period.
> People, in general, seem to rally around an idea, if it
> seems like it might benefit them in some way. I'd wager
> folks came from miles away to get a piece of this Stone
> Standing action...
Sure. But still had to feed them -- and might have been
less to go around (hunter/forager) for all of those visitors.
> WdG
Vincenzo
--
Martin G. Diehl
http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=MGD
Reality: That which remains after you stop thinking about it.
inspired by P. K. Dick
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