Perhaps we may still find submerged stone-circles or other
antiquities of the age of Stonehenge beneath the sea-level; but
Stonehenge lies too high above the sea for it in itself to give any
clue as to a change of sea-level. We will only make one suggestion.
It is probable that when Stonehenge was built, a long arm of the
sea extended far up the Avon Valley, so that navigable water was
found not far from Stonehenge. There is in Stonehenge an inner
circle of smaller stones, not composed of the local greywethers but
consisting of large blocks of igneous rock of foreign origin. These
blocks, which are sufficiently large to be awkward for land-carriage,
have been said to be erratics gathered on Salisbury Plain, just as
the greywethers for the main circle were gathered; but there are
no erratics on Salisbury Plain. Large erratic blocks of similar
character occur, however, abundantly on the lowlands of Selsey Bill,
under the lee of the Isle of Wight. Probably a similar erratic-strewn
plain once fringed the coast on the west also, though on the exposed
side the part above the sea-level has now been entirely swept away by
the sea.
I would suggest that the Stonehenge erratics, instead of being
brought from any great distance, may have come from a wide plain at
the mouth of the Avon, then two or three miles further seaward. From
thence they were rafted far up the navigable fjord, not yet silted
up, and were only carried a short distance uphill. Igneous rocks such
as these, found in a country consisting essentially of chalk and
Tertiary strata, would be valuable and probably endowed with magic
properties, hence their employment in this inner circle.
Our next enquiry must be into the length of time represented by
the series of submerged forests and associated deposits described
in the foregoing pages. The newest of them belongs certainly to
the age of polished stone, and the earliest also probably comes
within the Neolithic Period. Within the period represented by the
submerged forests, we have seen that there has been a change of the
sea-level to the extent of 80 feet, or perhaps rather more. If we can
obtain some measure of the time occupied, this should give us some
approximate idea as to the length of the Neolithic period, and of
the rate at which changes of the sea-level can take place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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