[Stones] Tan Hill and cattle

[Ric]

Thank Thelma,

good point - the pigs (or sort of semi-wild boar, as
they might have been then?). such ritual culling also
took place at Durrington, i believe - and at
Woodhenge?

but cattle were a mainstay of this economy, and many
of the drovers' tracks ['droves'] are presumably
prehistoric - i know that droves date from at least
the Bronze Age.

reiteration: the bluff recently christened 'Silbaby'
probably did have ritual significance in prehistory:
these people 'lived the landscape' - the whole
landscape was symbolic for them, every hill, valley,
river and knoll ... 

there also seems to have been a symbolic dialogue
between stone and wood, the one hard and dead
(ancestral), the other organic and belonging to the
here and now ~ and hence the feasting?

R

--- Thelma Wilcox <thelmawilcox at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> 
> 
> Ric <megalith6 at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:    i've got an EH
> map of the Avebury region - based on
> o/s - produced by one *Nick Burton* [nd /
> publication
> unknown] which shows about three round barrows /
> ring
> ditches where the 'Silbaby' bluff occurs: this is
> obviously what Stukeley recorded on Littlestone's
> map;
> the bluff looked out onto the West Kennet Palisade
> Enclosures, which could well explain the sacred
> atmosphere touching this location, and its
> suitability
> for (later) barrows?
>    
>   The thing about the palisaded enclosures was that
> the offerings in the post holes was pig, not cattle,
> Ric - a feasting ritual complex, with an awful lot
> of young pigs slaughtered?  Pigs will not be driven
> ;), woodland creatures are'nt they.... Josh Pollard
> in Writtle's book(Silbury Hill) on the subject has a
> drawing of the 'sacred landscape' around Silbury -
> the palisaded enclosures are a pretty strong feature
> of the landscape he speculated that thy represented
> conflagration (they were burnt down) and renewal,
> but their ritual (seemingly from the archaeological
> record) a large asymetrical post in one of the
> enclosures and a trackway, lined with posts, up to
> the entrance, almost temple like.  Given that there
> can be hundreds of years apart on all these
> monuments, The Sanctuary, Avebury and Silbury, one
> wonders if there is no defining one theme - say
> water - but at different periods the 'divine' nature
> of water, or indeed the fertility of the earth -
> Pollard saw Silbury as
>  a symbol of earth, is picked up...Not entering into
> the Silbaby discussion, though I agree with Nigel
> and his leyline,  straight line thro
> Silbury/Silbaby/ Sanctuary, maybe......... even thro
> the palisaded enclosures taking into account the
> large asymetrical totem pole ;) 
>   Thelma