Stonehenge reminders

I watched a documentary about Stonehenge last week. It was probably the 5th special I've watched on the subject. Archaeologists don't really know what to make of the megalithic monument. They have finally excavated enough of it to know how it was made, the stages it took to construct it, and the whereabouts of the stones used. But, I have yet to hear an explanation that definitively tells how it fit into those ancient people's daily lives. It's not a mistake that the lintels of the largest stones align with the summer and winter solstices. But, a whole monument taking years to build would not simply be a meter to read the shortest and longest day of the year by. This last special on TV tried very hard to link the monument to daily activity, but it failed in that the people who lived close by did not live close enough to include it daily - only on special days. There was no evidence shown for daily activity, so the archaeologists were hesitant to go where the evidence did not lead them. That's good science, but not good as an explanation for why the monument was built. So, I await the next special that National Geographic might put out in a couple of more years.



The monument is a good reminder of at least two seeming truths about life however. Some of what people see is transparent, but much of what people see has to have evidence that would lead them to understand it.