WHY ARE THINGS WHERE THEY ARE? We explore some unusual perspectives.

[Music] hello everybody uh welcome welcome to the gcle tap to Stonehenge podcast I'm Michael bot and I'm Rupert saskin welcome the gockley tap at the Stonehenge uh podcast um I know if you used to the rest of our Channel we probably find ourselves doing things about things you know that we're reporting on news or even making films go back up to Stonehenge podcast is a place where we think there might be some value in US just chewing the fat and uh pondering issues that have come up from stuff we've leared over you know through uh the GC tap Stonehenge project so it's it's a much more sort of conceptual and and philosophical uh bent to what we do with h with this podcast so uh apologies if uh pictures and illustrations and maps all things those won't be popping up um yes we've got other stuff on the on the channel for for that uh but we've yeah so to the to the point of today's conversation this one um places of pilgrimage um that's what I'm calling it anyway and it was inspired by uh a paper or an article that you came across Rupert which is from way way way back you know this is uh it it is right in deep time isn't it it's lower Paleolithic we're going back hundreds of thousands of years and it's it's fascinating the way this connects really and basically a team of researchers from Tel Aviv University uh have been researching a couple of areas in Upper Galilee and they've been researching here for 20 years is um and basically uh the question arose because they found uh rock outcrops where uh that where uh the stone was good for Tool making and there was evidence that stone tools had been made at this site for ever but just a little way over there there's more Rocky outcrops of the same Rock perfectly good for stone uh for Tool making but nothing no signs of people doing anything there at all are we talking about how many how many eons ago were we talking here we're talking about so um so lower Paleolithic and and forward so we're we're talking about hundreds of thousands of years ago to begin with and then people using the site the same site for thousands and thousands of years yeah um and that's the thing that makes it interesting interesting because uh they they the idea of the research was to find out why people were using this site and not these other sites that were nearby and what analysis of the research has shown is that it's all to do with it's these three things coming together of elephants water didn't see that one coming did you no why you it's amazing that uh and so basically elepant sorry elephants water and stone yeah the Holy Trinity yeah um so basically uh this Rocky outcrop uh was on an elephant migration route now obviously if you can bring down an elephant you are going to feed your family and your uh your tribe very well thank you very much and and it it seems that that was the the driving Factor here that uh because it was on a a migration route that they were making stone tools here because they're adjacent so they can butcher uh their their prey on site now what makes this interesting is that people continues to use the same site and not the others so they still weren't making tools at the other sites they continued to uh use this site for thousands upon thousands of years don't know how many generations now at what point but the point is you know after the elephants have disappeared after those those migration routes have uh have become irrelevant and it's not only using the site but it's bringing offerings to the site depositions are being made at the site so yeah so getting their tools probably still from that site and not from the others but also honoring this site in some kind of special way boom you know now you now the title probably makes sense as far as places of pilgrimage is concerned and if anybody knows how to turn off all the stuff I've activated in my video stream let me know I'm on Apple I apologies for those of you who are only listening every time Mike sticks his fingers up or does something then his machine bursts into confetti or fireworks or balloons or Lord knows what and I sit here trying not to giggle but um yeah yeah there's a celebration going on in Mike studio just wave me hands about too much obviously [Laughter] that's H but it is the thing about this it's it's so profoundly fascinating because how many times uh in relation to prehistory and archaeology how many times have we talked about artifacts that appear to have been uh sacred because they came from specific places now whether it was because they came from the high mountains or it doesn't matter take you know take your pick but the point is that the original reason for something's importance could be lost in the midsts of time and it just becomes a thing that you're doing it because your ancestors did and a site becomes sacred uh for we know not what reasons um and we can apply that to so many sites that we we know about I'll tell you what rer as this is the gbec tap stonee podcast why don't we sort of test it out on those two extremes on those two bookends uh of what what we're talking about um I've never seen I've never seen that Cascade of stuff before I'm sorry about my waving my hands about um you know because gobec de Stone Henge podcast oh by the way why the GC Stonehenge podcast is because we're um making a film about gck Stonehenge telling the story of the Neolithic from Anatolia right through Europe up to the um up to the Wilshire Plains uh in a nutshell uh there's a link to what more about what that's about down in the description below if you fancy having a look sorry back on topic um there are some we could we'll test it out you know little bits of thought experiment with what we know about gbec and see if some of we can if it's just we not without saying that's what we believe you know but just looking at geke and other sites through this lens of of repeated pilgrimage um and can sites take on a completely different complexion to their original purpose or original reason reasoning so um gcle tapping what comes up uh first there do we think do we know um other reasons you know what's the trifecta at geke that has people be there at that place um well it's it's got to be hunting grounds hasn't it yeah it's gazel in the gazillions yes uh yes and and we know that uh at gbec teepe and carahan teepe we know that they were efficiently using water so they must managing water that more to be more precise uh extraordinary systems and waterways uh doing that the third bit of the trifecta there is the raw materials um and this stands for the gck teer and the other teer sites is they wouldn't be there if they weren't built on this uh particular Limestone uh these Limestone beds out of which it is relatively I'm not going to say easily but relatively relatively easy easy for them easy for them uh to uh prize great slabs out of the ground that could become the uh the tea pillars tea pillars would not be there anywhere else in the world I can think of um but uh there you are so so you know location location location it's not random it's so dependent on uh the resources that are available um to to to a site and uh I mean now Quebec Lae we can say with a large degree of security definitely is a pilgrimage sign my goodness the numbers that go up there when we were back there back in uh uh November you know think out of season there were hordes of people going up there on what can only be termed a pilgrimage I guess but I don't think GC is is an example Exemplar of what we're trying to express particularly here part maybe maybe not not I I I don't think it's irrelevant to uh to look at a lot of the prehistoric sites and and and make the point that people are still visiting them today the the actual purpose may have changed in people's minds but nevertheless we've still got sites of pilgrimage and and if in uh 10,000 years time people are analyzing the archaeology and analyzing the tourist aspect now would they separate it completely from from its purpose of how of many thousand years before us maybe maybe not no I have to say in a lot of people's minds we will have created you you'll love this pun an elephant in the room Christ well because in in many people's minds gobec tapy was already a pilgrimage site way back in the time that it was built you know because there's this meme around it that it was hunter gatherers so therefore they couldn't have been settled there they must have be coming um back to this place as a temple to do whatever they had to do you know so in that sense I think in people's minds it already existed as a pilgrimage site but as we've you know uh tried to illustrate you know it had been so shoved in our faces you and I uh from our visit in November and we've tried to express through our recording of our our visit that gbec was a settlement site um and uh yeah the folks had got that aspect of it uh um pretty nailed down and the um the special buildings that we so used to seeing you know were yeah um special buildings um there were but there were places that were part of a community um uh whe what they were used for by that Community we don't know we can only guess and we do of course um but I I just thought I better put that bit aside because uh it wasn't necessarily A pilgrimage site uh back then no um and any of the Tash sites you know all the other T pillar sites uh you know clearly this was a a thriving culture uh back then you know there there's nothing uh you amazing as it is to us today there was nothing inherently unique about uh Glee back in the day uh you know when we know about the hundreds literally of other sites that they have found or they have pinpointed in the region they know where they are whether they'll ever get excavated is another question altogether but um but clearly you know none of these sites were uh inherently unique if you see what I mean um it's interesting though isn't it it's interesting when you look at people today so we've commented many times in the past about um so there are places that we know historically were animal pounds and yet people today still go and tie their prayer ribbons in the Shrubbery around them because they perceive any megalithic sight as somehow inherently spiritual or sacred or what have you um and uh how things morph over time uh it's interesting how things get absorbed um or reclaimed don't they things get reclaimed throughout history I think there's better value though in talking about the other book end and that's stonehand because I think there is something related to what we're talking about and what we haven't um sort of it's a what the thing is about it's the repeated visit it's the imprinting on this is what we do forgotten why we do it but we're still doing it um because that's what we do because because because well there's no reason we just do it it's what is done um anything else would be an anathema to do not do it would be an anathema and to question it would be an anathema because that would mean upsetting the the apple cart rocking the boat all those kinds of things well yeah one of the unavoidable aspects here is people wanting to do things together because if you take Stonehenge as uh you know as the astronomical calendar that uh uh that it is uh well you know you can step outside your your own door and you can watch the solstice nobody needs to go anywhere to to view the solstice the point is that people wanted to come together and still do wants to come together to share this moment in in time now whether it was a spiritual thing a sacred thing or whatever or whether it was just a time of year when people got together for whether it was feasting or whatever it might have been the point is that it was people coming together and that's probably what's most significant about any of these places well what I was going to suggest is that that Stonehenge and the Stonehenge landscape has much more connection with the original story of the the the the the elephants water uh and the stone um than any many other sites I can think of um because you thanks to the efforts of it's David David Jakes isn't it at black me um that you know Stonehenge doesn't begin and end with the uh SASS and Stone uh on the on the horizon there um there's a deep deep history to that that area uh and going back to into the misthic we've got incredible archaeological record of people's comings and goings at Blick me which is just two miles from under two miles something like that from uh Stonehenge and yeah we've got this thing going on you know because me Meade it's water it's on the stream I can't remember the name of the waterway that it is that passes not far from Stonehenge itself but you've also got this whole Stonehenge uh landscape it's a great hunting ground back then that landscape was full of orox I've stood on the side of the excavation at Blick me and looked down into a trench where they were just revealing yet another orox footprint how awesome was that but at this same sight humans were coming as well and the the the sheer number scale of the lithics that were deposited at this uh site you know so you got this image of of human beings utilizing this place coming down to this Watering Place but also being utilized by orox now uh David Jake um you won't I don't think he's officially sort of put it forward as in hypothesis or whether he's written it down but if you do a search on Blick me Dave Jake uh uh of him doing find him doing a lecture on YouTube one or two of them he does does mention as a sidebar this little thesis of his this little hypothesis of his that stone henge area became famous a because it was not that wooded so you've got herds of cattle or ocks exposed in in that area but it was a also a migration roote and it was a happy hunting ground for misthic uh you know forbears of the people that were later inhabit the Stonehenge landscape it was just a wonderful happy hunting ground because the topology of the landscape it it there was something special about it enabled people to be able to observe must uh and and guide orox in the landscape so that they could more easily be hunted and if you got a place like that that draws people to it for those very reasons um that and it's quite particular aside from you know the landscape and the rest of England uh for these particular qualities you know having the landscape right having the the not as much trees as we were led to believe once upon a time um it was still wooded but much more sparsely than you think it was open open Woodland uh and then couple that with the fact that we know that the the um Palisade of of for four huge uh uh trunks uh Timber poles found in the in underneath the car park at uh Stonehenge which um you know dates to round about that time as well and uh and slightly after which we suspected to to do with hunting anyway and the management of of animals something like that so the stone henge landscape would become somewhere just people were coming out of habit anyway and it would know if you got that then it's no surprise that it becomes something special and then you got another stage where Stonehenge is nothing to do or doesn't seem to be anything to do with what we see in the landscape now when it was a burial site yeah the first iteration of of uh you know beginnings of Stonehenge as we know was a ditch and bank and uh uh well at least some holes in the ground but probably some things in those holes in the ground so more akin to a uh an embanked Stone Circle than the monument that we see today and inside that um you have uh you have uh burials it was a burial site it was there was a lot of it going on that came to a an end you know you about 400 years later when the um arrived in the blue stones if they were already there as we um have been it's been indicated it looks like there was a change of use which in itself is not uncommon is it I mean I'm sure there's there's quite a few sites we can think of and bring key the in on angle brings to mind of how many phases of of reuse did that go through yes you know new people come in change the change the shape of it change the function of it it seems to be uh what what people do I mean we still do it today don't we where we desanctify churches is that the word deconsecrate we deconsecrate churches and turn them into buildings you know apartments and all sorts so on the outside it looks the same confuse the hell out of future archaeologists and who was it and when was it that first uh uh recognized ized that there's there's a a glacial there's a scrape a glacial scrape in the stone just underneath the uh Stonehenge landscape there which aligns um with the winter solstice I've got that right hasn't I yeah I think so I think so it certainly aligns with something and that must have uh uh that must have appeared as hugely significant to the people at the time mustn't it but when was it it first detected because now the first bit of the Avenue if you at the Stonehenge in the first bit of the Avenue is aligned directly on that uh glacial scrape is that the right word glacial scrape apologies for the phone interference that's somebody else I can't do anything about that and what was the The Avenue for you know um was it a a processionary walkway now is is this another Rabbit Hole down which we wish to dive um probably not right now well we've we've made no bones about the fact oh another bad pun um uh We've made no bones about the fact that we think that so much of the prehistoric apparently sacred landscape is all to do with animal husbandry and hunting um I'm uh I'm also intrigued by the notion of so you talk about herds of animals that uh Oro aren't necessarily uh aren't weren't necessarily hurting uh animals but Red Deer certainly are yeah and uh and you can imagine herds of enormous numbers going back then yeah um that uh you know directing a a a herd of Red Deer across a landscape and then driving them into a curs as where you can pick them off uh that well that would have fed people for quite a long time and as many Stags as you get in there you've got a whole load of tools coming out of uh you know all those ant lipics all in one go you never know GAC taper to Stonehenge uh it's how many miles is it and how many years is it well it's about 8,000 years isn't it yeah um how many miles is it we did calculate that and I've forgotten I think it's about 2 thousand yeah um but that's uh by the by because one of the interesting things in the gap between gbec laer ston depart from the time thing is the the the geography that once you leave uh uh behind I mean I mean Quebec really doesn't count as far as the beginning of the ne iic it but that's another story uh but there's nothing there's no Monumental building until you get you know well into uh the the the Mediterranean you know around about um well Malta say uh and um and um yeah southern Spain um uh megalithic work great monuments uh go out the window people are just concerned with living their lives it seems as best they can they doesn't seem to be any urge to put up great works of stone and it's only in the latter bits of the progress of the Neolithic package across Europe that you start to get these uh big SES which draw all our attention and suck all the oxygen out of the air and it's only these places really that we can talk about as being potential places of of pilgrimage you know what's the nearest megalithic site or place of pilgrimage that you could say people were definitely going there in the ne lithic on mass uh you know or paying great attention to between Anatolia between turkey and uh you know and and France or or the that's a good question isn't it there's um Italy maybe there but there are there I mean there are major sites in Armenia for example yeah sorry I if you're going the other way yeah that's that's a different matter if you're taking the other end of the scale and going the other end of the Fertile cresant yeah I mean the Sumerians were well into huge huge bu that going that direction absolutely yes but gobe Stonehenge we're we're concentrating on the the Westerly uh direction of things uh well obviously you build things with uh with what you have at your disposal yeah come back to that again yeah and uh I don't think we should ever lose sight of the fact that Timber is generally not going to last in the archaeological record yeah and uh you know we only have to look at some of the Chinese temples for example that are made entirely of wood with uh with you know no no metal involved in you know there's no nails or anything it's just beautifully crafted uh carpentry and uh where these things are slotted together and wedged together and what have you uh and so stunningly beautifully carved as well that none of that would remain in the archaeological record there could have been amazing Timber sites around the place that'll never no very and we look at sites uh you know so you you take anything take somewhere like pomela in in Germany that they will call the German Stone ede because why wouldn't you um and we know that it was a huge site of uh Timber posts concentric rings of Timber posts uh you know whether its function was anything like the same or not we will never know yeah but um but it it I can't really think of that many sites where huge numbers of people where we know that they would have been congregating um well I mean the the lbk the linear band caramic people up up the danu they left their houses or the remnants of their houses are well known they're extraordinary huge um uh L houses but they don't seem to have left any monuments alongside or in in that we know of uh you know so we've got great detail about way ways they were living but nothing really in s sort of organized how they were organizing in those kinds of terms were they no indications of organized religion or uh no it's intriguing isn't it it really really truly is and and while it's tempting you know places like capela which that's much later goic is probably earlier as better example um while it's tempting to see them as ceremonial sites it's not a given no not given um it really isn't it's it's a really curious thing isn't it um I don't know if we're going off on one here but it's a really curious thing that if you go uh further east uh that you have all the signs of houses and no signs of uh of ceremonial building and you come to uh to Britain and you have every sign of ceremonial building and hardly any signs of daily life whatsoever that's right it's a curious thing but um yeah yeah uh another place on Route is is CIT and this way of looking at stuff does pose an interesting question about creit because creit has the earliest uh record of farming outside of Anatolia apart maybe from Cyprus um that that that there is but they only found the evidence of the earliest farming um where're actually digging deep deep deep down underneath the courtyard of kosas so he thinking well is that a coincidence or is that um I is is that um sort of uh consequential is that completely accidental that earliest farming was found well they happen to be digging down down down at canosos or is it to be expected because um the earlier signs were at a special place and it stayed a special place all all through the ne lithic and and the Bronze Age up until the the building of the great palace um yeah and well it is that old thing isn't it that and we've said it a 100 times you know that uh that successful settlements uh uh don't disappear they just get bigger over time yeah and you know if if you have everything that you need then why would you move um particularly when we know that uh that all the farming that we know of uh all the roots of farming that we know of as it as it spread West you know we know that the earliest farmers were based in in Greece really predominantly yeah um so yes why why would it not be under canosos going back to the original premise though uh this application of uh imprinting of people forgetting while they were were where why they were going places or uh what the purpose of going to a place or honoring a place is I don't think it's universally by any way by any means uh applicable but it's just a useful perspective to look at things cuz it re it reveals other things underneath the surface uh which aren't necessarily to do with um you know human beings uh getting imprinted with the idea of of stuff oh I tell you what you didn't mention that's the experiment which you can see I'll put a link in the description below uh which is a link to the experiment in imprinting that was done it's ony experiment yes yeah the the waiting room experiment thing yeah just describe that briefly it's it's a fascinating thing uh it's it's a piece of research that's been repeated a number of times and uh yeah so there is a link you can follow H it's in itself I got to be honest it's not the best example of the experiment that there is but it's the only one that we could readily find uh basically what happened uh in this research was you had a waiting room full of people and so I'm talking about the original research the there were a fewer people involved in the second one but there was a waiting room full of people all of whom were primed uh in this was a game that we were playing and uh and then a a person would a new person would come into the waiting room and this new person knows nothing about what is about to happen and then a a buzzer will sound and everybody stands up and a buzzer will sound again and everybody sits down and this new person looks around the room thinking that everybody is completely bonkers um but then a minute goes by and the buzzer goes off and everybody stands up buzzer goes off everybody sits down and the person clearly thinks that everybody is totally crazy but the third time uh they just do it as well because everybody else is doing it they're feeling uncomfortable now that they're the only person who isn't doing it uh so they start to do it as well and then what happens is one by one somebody will come in and and call a person out as if you know it's time for their appointment and a new person will come in and and the buzzing will continue and people will stand up and sit down and this carries on as people are taken out of the room and a new person comes in it carries on until all the Stooges are now gone and all the people in the waiting room are the people who came in knowing nothing about the game but the buzzer goes off and everybody stands up and the buzzer goes off and everybody sits down and it's just people continue to perform this bizarre act just because the original people had done it because now they feel that this is what they they must do and it it's an extraordinary illustration of how humans are hardwired really to conform to the status quo and the people around them um and it does make you wonder doesn't it you know when you you look at whether it's a can on a on a Hilltop where some you know a walker was there and they put a couple of bits of stone down and then everybody else who's come along does the same thing until you're left with a significant sized can that anybody traveling up there would think that this was a was a demarcation of something significant something must have happened on this spot but no it's just people sharing yeah people doing what they do and you know feed into that you imprinting um there's a evolutionary advantage to that surely yeah absolutely we we thrive in coming together yeah except when we set out to kill each other we're very good at that too but it's often the imprinting that causes us to not Seven Bells out is is painfully true your imprint is different to my imprint yes yes yes uh so where else can we apply this to anyway I'll tell you what you we use this the word pilgrimage didn't we uh cuz you're very keen oh I am too but the opportunity has arisen to go to Grimes Graves um in um wherever it is where is it is Grimes gra Cambridge Norfolk nor it is norfol okay so could we describe what we're doing because we want to go and make a film there of some sort is it could you describe what we're going to do as pilgrimage Grimes gr it could be a pilgrim I've wanted to go there for a very very very long time and uh and have never managed it just because yeah it's uh it's just the wrong place we just say what Grimes Graves is Grimes Graves is uh is basically it's it's Flint mines uh it's good quality Flint too and uh the nodules from Grimes Graves were obviously of a sufficient size and quality that they have been found all over the place in fact it's not that many years ago is it only a couple of years ago that a nodule of uh of Flint from Grimes was found in was it in Wilshire um yeah it's near the West kennet uh palisaded enclosure just down the road from Avery uh and the thing is that clearly the the volume of Flint here and the quality of it was was sufficiently highly prized that people were mining here for a long time um and you can still uh you know you can visit this bizarre landscape this created landscape uh where people have been extracting flints and and the older galleries going deep into the ground as well uh you know they they were mining there I don't actually know off hand how long they were uh they were quarrying there but and Mining but it it's a long time yeah uh and uh the the thing about Grimes apart from the fact that it would be a pilgrim pilgrimage for me uh one of the interesting finds at Grimes Graves is they found a greenstone ax there and and the greenstone came from Cornwall and that raises all manner of questions as well you know um is it that green stone being a highly prized Stone uh and a much higher value Stone than Flint so did this person bring a greenstone flint ax to Grimes Graves to trade it for um for large numbers of uh Flint nodules don't know absolutely no way of knowing or did they bring it and leave it there on their own pilgrimage because Grimes Graves was an important place to visit how would we know yeah um actually another interesting fact about Grimes Graves um that kind of Fe feeds into what we're talking about um I don't know if you you talk with Jennifer directly but I remember talking with Jennifer Wexler I think it was when I was at the um um archaeology um Institute Place uh and she was saying that in latest uh research at Grimes Graves tells us that they weren't making life easy for themselves at Grimes Graves they could they could and they knew where the Flint was they could have gone it in in from a different place in a different angle and not had to do anywhere where near so much work to extract the Flint they were get getting out of there so there seems to them being either a kind of uh imposed they were creating Flint of more value because it took more eff to get out of the ground either that or there was another kind of imprinting going on is no we do we we get flint by doing it the hard way yes going on so there's a there's an anomaly there it's a anomalous you know what I I it's never really struck me before uh but you describing it like that makes me think of you look at the situation we had in uh in Britain in the coal mining communities um going back over the last couple of hundred years and certainly you know even into last century be before we closed down most of the uh most of the mins that there was this attitude of your grandfather was a minor I've been a minor you're damn well going to be a minor and uh and even when children did not want to go down the mine they were uh if you like emotionally blackmailed into you will continue the family tradition uh and who knows I mean maybe that was a a a thing as well who knows human beings there's no accounting for them there is no accounting for we're a weird Bunch really and we haven't even talked about Mont viso Langdale uh and cumbrian circles all sorts of stuff potentially uh going on there about uh uh Habit and uh uh rep repeatability of of stuff uh however I think for the moment we've uh I've got nothing to add to the conversation is what I'm trying to see say at this particular moment I don't think the only thing I could add to the conversation would take us off on a tangent be sit here speaking for another hour let's not do that maybe maybe let's save that for another time yeah I think so but I I just hope um you know the last 40 minutes or so has just opened up another perspective on ways of looking at things and hopefully it'll um put throw a new light on uh um you know maybe you've got a favorite uh Monumental site or Stone Circle or or something and maybe um putting this query upon it uh could open open stuff up yeah we could talk about dartmore we could talk about Stone row we could talk about you know the stone circles on on dartmore you know ah what they were for ETC and and what sort of rhythms of behavior patterns of behavior they may have set up in people um that echo down the ages who [Music] knows who does know I don't think we do but I hope you'll forgive us as said before folks if I hadn't said it before uh do uh like and subs subcribe and pay a visit to uh our buy me a coffee page and our patreon page uh see if you'd uh like to find a way of uh supporting what we're up to in different ways uh and on that note I think it's time for me to say a bye-bye from me and a bye-bye from me thanks again see you soon bye-bye

Channel: The Prehistory Guys

Views: 7,199

Keywords: the prehistory guys, the prehistory guys youtube, michael bott, rupert soskin, ancient history, prehistoric archaeology, prehistory videos, archaeologist interviews, ancient mysteries, prehistoric man, gobekli tepe, göbeklitepe, stonehenge landscape, blick mead, avebury henge, langdale axe factories, places of pilgrimage, knossos crete, gobekli tepe stonehenge podcast, gobekli tepe podcast, grimes graves

Id: ZpdGp60fYZk

Length: 44min 55sec (2695 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2024