The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished RacesAllen, Emory Adams
History
The Prehistoric World; Or, Vanished Races
Allen, Emory Adams
Archaeology; Indians; Prehistoric peoples
Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, is a better known ruin, though
not on as large a scale as at Avebury. The cut gives us a
restoration of it. The outer circle of standing stones is one
hundred feet in diameter, and when entire consisted of one
hundred stones. These are of sandstone, and were obtained in the
vicinity. A course of stone was laid along the top. We notice
within a smaller circle of stone. The material of these stones is
such that we know they must have come from a distance. Mr. James
tells us that they are erratic—that is, bowlders brought from the
North of Scotland by the glaciers—and that others of the same
kind are still to be seen lying around the country.29 But the
more common opinion is that they were brought there by the people
from a distance, perhaps Cornwall or the Channel Islands. If this
be true, it is evidence of a strong religious feeling, and a
peculiar value must have been attached to the material, since for
any ordinary monument the stones in the neighborhood would have
sufficed. Still nearer the center were five groups of three great
stones each, and immediately within these a horseshoe of smaller
stones. Finally, near the head of the horseshoe, a great slab of
sandstone is supposed to have served for an altar. The date of
the two structures just described has been a matter of some
dispute.
Stonehenge Restored.
It is worthy of notice that in the immediate neighborhood of both
of them are found a great number of barrows of the Bronze Age.
Over three hundred were erected in the neighborhood of the
latter. In the opinion of many this fixes their date in the
Bronze Age. Stonehenge, in its ruined state, has formed the
subject of no little speculation. Modern explorers, in connecting
it with the Bronze Age, have not dispelled from it the
enchantment of mystery. We must ever wonder as to the nature of
the rites there observed. Our questionings meet with but feeble
response; for though we have learned somewhat of past times, it
is comparatively but little. Ruined columns, crumbling burial
mounds, and remains of stone and bronze will always be surrounded
with more or less mystery—a striking illustration that science is
able to dispel but little of the darkness which unnumbered years
have thrown around the culture of the past.
Ancient Tower, Scotland. REFERENCES
The manuscript of this chapter was submitted to Prof. Chas.
Rau, of the Smithsonian Institution for criticism.
Brace’s “Races of the Old World,” p. 60.
Brace’s “Races of the Old World,” p. 61.
Dawkins’s “Early Man in Britain,” p. 343.
“One mass estimated to weigh two hundred tons.” Dana’s “Manual
of Mineralogy,” p. 291.
Evans’s “Ancient Bronze Implements,” p. 2.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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