For #FindsFriday#Neolithic knives found in the pile dwelling settlement in Niederwil, Switzerland (3900-3500 BC). The blades are made of flint.They were fastened with birch tar in the handles made of poplar wood. Knives like these were presumably mainly used for harvesting.
The Menga dolmen is an ancient burial mound located near #Antequera, #Málaga, Spain. It has been dated to approximately 5,700 years ago and is one of the largest known #megalithic structures to be built in #Europe.
#ArtAdventCalendar Day 3. I am fascinated by #paperArt. #Paper is one of the most versatile materials. It can be cut, shaped, coloured, embossed, and even altered to resemble fabric, embroidered and felted. In a special mixture with plaster of Paris, it becomes a modelling clay. So I can live out my love of #archaeological finds. Inspired by #neolithic#goddesses. Paperclay with hand-grinded ochre and ultramarine
The magical Stones of Stenness circle and henge on Orkney's West Mainland, with the mountains of Hoy in the distance. The stones you see today are part of a ring of 12 tall stones and a surrounding ditch from between 3000BC and 2500BC. More pics and info: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/westmainland/stennessstones/index.html
A stone axe in an antler sleeve and a wooden handle, found in the #Neolithic lake-dwelling at Hornstaad-Hörnle at Lake Constance.
The sleeve absorbed energy from the blow.
Dating 3918-3902 BC.
Capel Garmon Burial Chamber, a well preserved Neollithic chamber near Betws Y Coed North Wales. " A 16ft/5mt passageway leads to a triple burial chamber with a large capstone over the western compartment. Surrounding the structure is a ring of stones marking the outline of an early 100ft/30mt earthen mound which originally covered it". #TombTuesday#PreHistory#Neolithic
A #Neolithic arrowhead made of rock crystal, found in the pile dwelling settlement in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, dating around 3500 BC. The raw material was not available in the region, it came from the Alps.
Part of the Ring of Brodgar stone circle, superbly located between the Loch of Stenness and the Loch of Harray on Orkney's West Mainland. When erected, over 4,000 years ago, 60 stones stood here: now there are 36. More pics and info: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/westmainland/ringofbrodgar/index.html
For #StandingStoneSunday here’s a few more of the stones from Avebury in Wiltshire from my visit two weeks ago today. It’s an amazing place and well looked after by the National Trust, who have the difficult job of making the site accessible to the thousands of people that want to see it each year, but also protecting it from west and erosion and damage. Despite the visitor numbers, it’s a place that maintains its magic. #StoneCircle#Avebury#wiltshire#magic#ancientsites#neolithic
#Neolithic textile production: an amazing find! A charred spindle with a charred ball of flax thread.
Found in the pile dwelling settlement of Sipplingen-Osthafen, Lake Constance, dating 3316-3306 BC. The damp environment has preserved it in good condition.
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Not far to the east of the ridge line, Rodmarton Long Barrow isn't quite as distinctive as some of the others today but you can make out its shape pretty clearly & even some partially buried stones that make up the entrance
3/6 next south west on the beautiful ridge line looking West, Nympsfield Long Barrow, not surviving as high as some of the others but giving a fantastic view of its interior
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More from the Cotswolds-Severn long barrow group & down the road from Belas Knap (though doubtless not appreciating the comparison) - Notgrove long barrow
The magnificent Neolithic settlement at Skara Brae in Orkney. Here you find a magical window through which it's possible to see the detail of the day-to-day lives of our ancestors who lived here 5,000 years ago. More pics and info: https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/westmainland/skarabrae/index.html
#Headhunting is a practice of taking the heads of enemies as trophies. Surprisingly, all of the 41 headless skeletons analyzed by the researchers belonged to women and juveniles, according to #anatomical analyses.
The changing stories we tell about the #Neolithic of West Asia, summed up in one Ngram!
Tell Abu Hureyra was a poster child for new scientific methods when it was excavated in the 70s, and still has some of the earliest evidence of plant domestication.
Ian Hodder chose Çatalhöyük to put into practice his model of a postmodern social archaeology in 1993, and according to this graph it overtook Abu Hureyra in popular consciousness in 2007.
5,500-year-old menhir discovered in São Brás de Alportel, Portugal
A 5,500-year-old menhir has been discovered in the town of São Brás de Alportel, situated in the Algarve region of Portugal.
A menhir is a single upright prehistoric stone monument, often shaped like a phallus, with a religious function and a symbol of fertility during the Neolithic period.
Large-scale warfare occurred in Europe ‘1,000 years earlier than previously thought’
Reanalysis of skeletal remains in Spain suggests conflicts took place about 5,000 years ago in neolithic period, say researchers
The earliest period of warfare in Europe might have occurred more than 1,000 years before what was previously thought to be the first large-scale conflict in the region, researchers have suggested.
Stonehenge under gales & a lowering sky today, sheep grazing on it. Prehistory is more important than ever at times when the roar & clamour of now seems to drown us. To stand with the megaliths and barrows, their cultural urgency in Neolithic Britain dissolved into monumental uncertainty, relic & grazing status, is to understand the absurd futility of lines on maps.