Tired of trekking all the way to the English countryside just to perform your druid rituals at the actual Stonehenge site? Do you wish there was a more convenient way? Well your prayers—or chants, or whatever—have been answered with this inflatable alternative.

Created by artist Jeremy Deller to commemorate the Olympic games, and to show that Britain has a good sense of humor, this unique version of Stonehenge is completely inflatable. So all you need is a big enough space, an air compressor, and a bit of patience, and in no time you’ll have your own version of one of England’s biggest mysteries. And maybe next time Deller will create a bouncy castle version of Buckingham Palace—now that’s a tourist attraction.

New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.

CONTINUE READING AT INDEPENDENT.CO.UK …

Hand axes, small handheld stone tools used by ancient humans, could have served as the first commodity in the human world thanks to their durability and utility.

The axes may have been traded between human groups and would have served as a social cue to others, Mimi Lam, a researcher from the University of British Columbia, suggested in her talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting here on Feb. 18.

“The Acheulean hand ax was standardized and shaped, became exchanged in social networks and took on a symbolic meaning,” Lam said. “My suggestion was that hand axes were the first commodity: A marketable good or service that has value and is used as an item for exchange.”

“Humans are unique in their use of tools,” Lam said. “We make stone tools and the stones are durable and become part of our external environment.” These tools, she added, could have been passed down in family groups or traded with other ancient hominids.

As humans became more intelligent, their tools become more symmetrical. “They became standardized as a result of social norms and also utility. Eventually, over time, hand axes were made special to set them apart,” Lam said. “There was a trend to distinguish these common tools that had a standard shape.”

Examples of hand axes from about 250,000 to 700,000 years ago contain some of these special properties, such as being made of pink rock or rock embedded with fossils. Ancient humans also made large axes that stood out from the crowd.

CONTINUE READING AT LIVESCIENCE.COM …

Archaeologists are investigating islands around Britain to find out why our ancestors gave up being hunter-gatherers 6,000 years ago and turned to farming.

Academics from the universities of Southampton and Liverpool are hoping to shed new light on the long-standing debate about whether the change around 4,000BC was due to colonists moving into Britain or if the indigenous population gradually adopted the new agricultural lifestyle themselves.

The experts will be excavating three island groups in the western seaways – the Channel Islands, the Isles of Scilly and the Outer Hebrides – to understand what sailing across this area would have been like in 4,000BC.

Fraser Sturt, from the Centre for Maritime Archaeology at the University of Southampton, said: “How people changed from hunter-gatherers to agricultural lifestyles is one of the big questions in archaeology.

“We know that the first signs of domestication occurred in the Middle East around 10,000BC and reached France by 5,000BC. However, it appears to be another 1,000 years before Neolithic farming activities reached Britain.

“We are investigating why this happened by looking at changing social practices, possible environmental impacts and the nature of maritime technology and communication.”

Recent archaeological findings, such as French pottery in Scotland, suggest that colonisation from the continent could be one possible explanation for this shift in lifestyle.

CONTINUE READING AT INDEPENDENT.CO.UK …

READ ORIGINAL STORY AT THE GUARDIAN

The Neolithic builders of Stonehenge were inspired by “auditory illusions” when they drew up blueprints for the ancient monument, a researcher claims.

The radical proposal follows a series of experiments by US scientist Steven Waller, who claims the positions of the standing stones match patterns in sound waves created by a pair of musical instruments.

Waller, an independent researcher in California, said the layout of the stones corresponded to the regular spacing of loud and quiet sounds created by acoustic interference when two instruments played the same note continuously.

In Neolithic times, the nature of sound waves – and their ability to reinforce and cancel each other out – would have been mysterious enough to verge on the magical, Waller said. Quiet patches created by acoustic interference could have led to the “auditory illusion” that invisible objects stood between a listener and the instruments being played, he added.

To investigate whether instruments could create such auditory illusions, Waller rigged two flutes to an air pump so they played the same note continuously. When he walked around them in a circle, the volume rose, fell and rose again as the sound waves interfered with each other. “What I found unexpected was how I experienced those regions of quiet. It felt like I was being sheltered from the sound. As if something was protecting me. It gave me a feeling of peace and quiet,” he said.

Auditory interference pattern created when two instruments play the same note continuously Link to this audio

READ MORE AT THE GUARDIAN …

A team of geologists from Britain have pinpointed the exact quarry that Stonehenge’s innermost circle of rocks came from. It’s the first time that a precise source has been found for any of the stones at the prehistoric monument.

Robert Ixer of the University of Leicester and Richard Bevins of the National Museum of Wales painstakingly identified samples from various rock outcrops in Pembrokeshire, Wales.

For nine months the pair used petrography — the study of mineral content and textural relationships within rocks — to find the origins of Stonehenge’s rhyolite debitage stones. These spotted dolerites or bluestones form the inner circle and inner horseshoe of the site.

They found the culprit on a 65-metre-long outcropping called Craig Rhos-y-Felin, near Pont Saeson in north Pembrokeshire. It lies approximately 160 miles from the Stonehenge site.

READ COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE

Skyrim is by all accounts a fantastic game. I don’t dare even look at it – I’ve too much to do. My son acquired the game a few weeks ago and hasn’t been seen since. But to the point – apparently there are thirteen standing stones (but not standing stones as we know them, Jim) to be found in Skyrim and this video tells you how to find them and what benefits might be gained from doing so. Enjoy.

A STONE AGE burial chamber in Orkney has yielded a gruesome haul of more than 1,000 human bones, it was revealed June 13, 2011.

Drawing the north cell lintel of Tomb of the Otters. Photo: © ORCA

The 5,000-year-old human bones – numbering at least 1,000, but possibly as many as 2,000 – were found in just one of the five chambers of the Banks Tomb on South Ronaldsay.

The burial chamber, also known as the Tomb of the Otters because large numbers of otter remains were also found there, was discovered last year by a local farmer working the land. In December, archaeologists recovered the remains of eight people from the tomb.

New research, in which two separate cells in the tomb were investigated, has almost doubled this number to at least 14, though it is very likely this number will end up much higher.

The narrow passage of Wideford Hill, one of the many portal “tombs” across the Orkneys, the most famous of which is the spectacular Maes Howe. The bones were preserved in several layers on the bottom of the stone-lined cell, or cist, which were divided by layers of silt, which might indicate that the tomb had been used over different periods of time and fell out of use in the intervening years. Archaeologists now hope that these finds will help them determine how long the tomb was in use. They also hope, through DNA research, to be able to discover more about the people who were buried there. Team leader Dan Lee, projects officer with the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (Orca), said: “To find 1,000 human bones, and possibly as many as 2,000 – there are still layers and parts of the cell to fully uncover – in just one cell, is absolutely amazing. “We have discovered an incredible assemblage of disarticulated human bones. All parts of the human skeleton were represented, including tiny bones such as finger bones, sternums and kneecaps.

One of the skulls recovered from the west cell of the Banks Tomb. (Picture: ORCA)

“They covered all age ranges, from very young children, perhaps even babies, to adults.

“We have managed to identify 14 individuals, but it is very likely that this number will turn out to be much higher.

“This gives us a really good indication of what to expect in the tomb’s other cells and an opportunity to study the people who lived and died in Orkney so many years ago.

“The next stage will be to fully excavate the passageway and the entrance, and we hope to get back to continue working on this fascinating piece of Stone Age archaeology.

“Unfortunately, because the conditions are changing inside as we’ve taken out the mud, silt and water, there is now a real danger that we’re going to lose key information.”

The archaeologists also hope to be able to get more information about the significance of the otter remains found in the tomb – if they have any.

Mr Lee added: “We’ve found otter droppings and bones, which proves that these animals have been using the tomb, and certainly the cell we’ve excavated, throughout the entire life and use of the tomb.

“It doesn’t seem to have been a problem that the otters were living in this tomb at the same time as the Neolithic people that built it, or to those who later used it and buried their dead here.

“The otters used it as part of their territory – they basically used it as their toilet.”

The Tomb of the Otters is just a few yards away from the larger Tomb of the Eagles, where remains of dozens of people were found.

Recent studies concluded that some of the people buried there may have suffered violent deaths.

Some of the human bones found in the Tomb of the Eagles

The Tomb of the Eagles

There is no evidence that this was also the case for the people who found their last resting place in the Banks Tomb.

Mr Lee said: “We really can’t say anything about the use of the Banks Tomb yet.

“There is no evidence that they died of violence, but we only excavated a small part of the tomb, and it is really hard to tell what we will find in the future.”

ORIGINAL ARTICLE AT AXIS OF LOGIC