Origins of Sacred Places

[caldrail]

Some of you might be enjoying Neil Olivers touchingly human investigation of our prehistoric ancestors. Not only are the BBC making interesting television, they're also supporting it with a 'Hands On History' campaign throughout the country. Last night the campaign reached my neck of the woods.

 

At Swindon Central Library we welcomed Bob Trubshaw, a researcher and author on prehistoric monuments. He presented a talk on The Origin of Sacred Places, demonstrating himself to be an accomplished speaker who delivers lectures with a sincere passion for his subject. The subject matter turned out to be a little misleading, not for any dishonesty on his part, but because his audience sees things from a modern perspective and not through the eyes of people who lived in prehistoric times.

 

Our idealism of the countryside is a concept unknown in ancient times. It's a phonemonon that has developed from increasingly sophisticated art and a desire to recreate idyllic renditions of it. We see the countryside as a cultural asset, a facility to be enjoyed, which I admit I'm all too guilty of. A few generations ago, it was no more than a workplace where people earned a living by farming it. If you go back far enough, when the prehistoric monuments were being built, the countryside was a wild and dangerous place.

 

There's been a great deal said about our ancient monuments. The ubiquitous stone circle, typified by Avebury and Stonehenge, carry with them endless explanations of their astronomical alignment, purpose, even connections to mysterious ley lines or alien visitors. Bob Trubshaw has a more grounded vision of sacred places from the most distant antiquity.What he stresses is that stone circles are not built on the landscape by themselves.

 

Surrounding sites like stone circles are other kinds of monument connected with them. If the time is taken to study the relationship between these forgotten places of worship and the situation, their placement is clearly no accident. We find it difficult to set aside the notion that the stone circles were built at places intrinsically important. Perhaps there's an element of that, as Mr Trubshaw admits, given some sites have signs of earlier use. However, there is every reason to believe that sites were planned deliberately to create a sense of awe. That may seem an obvious point. Yet we should realise that these places were not necessarily used as sacred sites all year round, but where sacred rituals were performed on specific days.

 

Have we then spotted an element of how our distant ancestors worshipped? Unlike the modern day, when we attach value to places without a second thought, it appears that prehistoric communities attached more value to what you did.

[Melvadius]

Thanks for bringing this up Caldrail, I agree that there is often a problem with how we perceive ancient monuments although I would personally add a 'where' and possibly a 'when' to the 'what' you have already suggested.

 

Neil Oliver's programme pointed up some of the alignements which can occur, using examples around Maes Howe and the Rings of Brodgar. Here existing structures and landscape features seem to have been 'respected' or acknowledged by later structures in effect building up a sacred landscape. This respecting extending to particular times of the year and locations where the sun crossed the horizon.

 

The Greensands Quarry up in the hills of Cumbria, also mentioned in the programme, provides a slightly different example where there is no obvious reason for the quarrying and roughing out of stone axes occuring in an area remote from nearby settlements where the actual finishing of the stone axes took place. The same stone formations could be found in more easily accessible locations closer to the settlements.

 

I heard recently the suggestion that this seperation of place and function rather than having a 'ritual' origin may simply be an early example of 'men in sheds' travelling away from the family home to somewhere private where they could have a good gossip out of the hearing of their families. If this particular suggestion holds true when coupled with the Maes Howe example above then it could give a whole new interpretation to the origins of 'ritual' activities which now provide sometimes less than convincing explanations for activities and structures at many locations including the well known Stonehenge.