Stonehenge

I have always been interested in Stonehenge, how it got there? who did it? did people make it? I find it crazy that these huge rocks got there and were put in this form, it makes you think how it was even possible back when it was built.  First of I'll talk about Stonehenge and give some background information.

Stonehenge is estimated to have been created around 3100BC it is found in Wiltshire, UK.  basically it is a circular setting of large stones placed in certain forms.  It is said that Stonehenge was under construction for over 1500 yrs, evidence of this construction is found on and around the monument. 

Stonehenge is said to have been produced by a culture that left no written record, so we will truly never know what this monument was made for and why it was even made.  There is also still no critical evidence showing the construction techniques that were used to create Stonehenge as well as how the stones got there.  There have been suggestions that Stonehenge was a place of warship or that it was a multi usage are, but truly we will not know what it was made for.

Stonehenge is and always has been a great mystery to everyone who has not only studied it but even heard about it.  I find it a great interest and would love to go visit it sometime and see what it is like up close, it is just hard to image people moving these stones and setting them like this before machinery was invented!

Gay Caveman?

A skeleton was found in Czech Republic and dated back between 2900 and 2500 BC, this turned out to be one of the most interesting and most looked at skeletons to date.  Not because of the grave goods, or where he was found, no it was because he was discovered to be "gay" by the way he was buried.

The skeleton was found pointing to the east with many domestic jugs, such burial practices were only found to be related to females before this man was found which made everyone jump to the conclusion that he must be gay (looking at gender and sex)

Sex is looked at biologically but gender is looked at culturally, this is how they assume that he is male based on the skeleton but his gender would be feminine because of the way he was buried. Men in this period were generally buried on their right side with head to the west, women were on their left with heads to the east which is how this man was found. Rather than being buried with weapons like other men, he was buried with jugs which also relates to females. 

I'm not sure if i would jump to the assumption that he was gay, maybe he wasn't even a he.  Many skeletons found have to have a slight guess as to which gender they are so maybe this skeleton was a girl, or maybe he was gay.  I guess we will never really know what this skeleton was, everyone will just assume what they want to.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1374060/Gay-caveman-5-000-year-old-male-skeleton-outed-way-buried.html

More information on the gay caveman can be found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8433527/First-homosexual-caveman-found.html

Ross Bay Cemetery

My group decided to research some monuments (early victorian) at the Ross Bay Cemetery.  We collected many pictures and descriptions of some of the early monuments in the cemetery.  We decided to choose these monuments largely because they were close in proximity but also because they gave us some interesting information about the patterns of variation in death ages and other variations of the grave.  Because of this my research question is:

For monument 1, the dates of the deaths of younger (under 20 years old) family members are close together (1884-5). Could something specific have happened to these individuals that could have caused their deaths to occur so close together?

The bruials in monument one are Bernice, E who died Jan 16 1884 as well as Edwin and Ernest Leigh who died April 19 and 22 1884.  All 3 of these children were just babies when they died, E bernice only being 16 months of age at death.  There is the question as to why these children died at such a young age and why so close together? With further research  should be able to find whether there was a sickness or something like that, but without being there in the past we are unable to answer this question.  Yes there could have been a sickness going around, or the babies could have died of freak accident maybe a house fire for the two siblings or something like that. It is sad to know that these families lost loved ones so young, and its hard to understand because we do not and never will know why they passed. In the sources below we see that there was illness going around at this time a lot of it being in chinese immigrants so maybe this was caught by these children.


link to map: http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?vps=2&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=214005049597555568959.0004b8900ded7fa7ea4ad

sources:
http://web.uvic.ca/vv/student/chinatown/Tongs/CCBA.html

Sunghir Children

http://anthropology.net/2007/05/30/human-sacrifice-in-stone-age-europe/sunghir-burial/

The Sunghir Children are one of the burials looked at in the article "from the Sunghir Children to the Romito Dwarf" by Vincenzo Formicoli.  This burial is looked at in the article because of the odd way in which the children are buried and how old they are and why they were buried.  There are two children in this burial, they are placed head to head wearing elaboratly decorated clothing and jewelery.  The children are only 8 years old and 13 years old, and they were found to be Russian.

This burial along with the others mentioned in the article are making people along with the author wonder if prehistoric people sacrificed other people back in the upper paleolithic.  This also points to the humans of the upper paleolithic believing in relgion and possibly magic.

I think that ancient humans did believe in sacrifices not only from this article but from other papers, and documentaries.  This may be why the Sunghir chidren were burried in the way they were, although they could also have died from a sickness at the same time and their parents wanted them burried like this.  I guess we will never really know.

More information about Sunghir and the children can be found at http://donsmaps.com/sungaea.html

Washington, DC Monuments

If I were to get to go somewhere else to do a grave monument study I would love to go to Washington DC.  It is one of the largest grave yards, with tons of monuments from great poets to politicians and great historical figures.

Washington, DC's monuments are spread out, it is hard to visit all of them on foot so there are sightseeing tours to visit all of them.  Also a lot of them are open at night, I think that would be fun to do. Go visit monuments at night? yes.

I would really like to go here and look because I am interested in large historical figures, and I think some of the monuments here would be really cool to look at and probably interesting looking.