Stonehenge was 'giant concert venue'

[Oisín]

Stonehenge was 'giant concert venue'
A university professor who is an expert in sound and a part-time DJ believes Stonehenge was created as a dance arena for listening to "trance-style" music.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01215/stonehenge_1215704c.jpg
An academic from Huddersfield University believes the standing stones had the right acoustics to amplify certain sounds

The monument has baffled archaeologists who have argued for decades over the stone circle's 5,000-year history but academic Rupert Till believes he has solved the riddle by suggesting it may have been used for ancient raves.

Mr Till, an expert in acoustics and music technology at Huddersfield University, West Yorks., believes the standing stones had the ideal acoustics to amplify a "repetitive trance rhythm".

The original Stonehenge probably had a "very pleasant, almost concert-like acoustic" that our ancestors slowly perfected over many generations

Because Stonehenge itself is partially collapsed, Dr Till, from York, North Yorks., used a computer model to conduct experiments in sound.

The most exciting discoveries came when he and colleague Dr Bruno Fazenda visited a full-size concrete replica of Stonehenge, with all the original stones intact, which was built as a war memorial by American road builder Sam Hill at Maryhill in Washington state.
[Continue reading] (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4108867/Stonehenge-was-giant-concert-venue.html)
Don't know what to make of this, but I have heard stranger theories.

[Beorn]

Stonehenge as part of a ritual landscape

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Stonehengesunset.jpg/250px-Stonehengesunset.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehengesunset.jpg) http://upload.wikimedia.org/skins/common/images/magnify-clip.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stonehengesunset.jpg)
Sunset at Stonehenge


Many archaeologists believe Stonehenge was an attempt to render in permanent stone the more common timber structures that dotted Salisbury Plain at the time, such as those that stood at Durrington Walls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrington_Walls). Modern anthropological (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology) evidence has been used by Mike Parker Pearson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Parker_Pearson) and the Malagasy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar) archaeologist Ramilisonina (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramilisonina) to suggest that timber was associated with the living and stone with the ancestral dead amongst prehistoric peoples. They have argued that Stonehenge was the terminus of a long, ritualised funerary procession for treating the dead, which began in the east, during sunrise at Woodhenge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodhenge) and Durrington Walls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrington_Walls), moved down the Avon and then along the Avenue reaching Stonehenge in the west at sunset. The journey from wood to stone via water was, they consider, a symbolic journey from life to death. There is no satisfactory evidence to suggest that Stonehenge's astronomical alignments were anything more than symbolic and current interpretations favour a ritual role for the monument that takes into account its numerous burials and its presence within a wider landscape of sacred (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred) sites. Many also believe that the site may have had astrological (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological)/spiritual (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural) significance attached to it.
Support for this view also comes from the historian of religions, Mircea Eliade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade), who compares the site to other megalithic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalithic) constructions around the world devoted to the cult of the dead (ancestors).
"Like other similar English monuments [For example, Eliade identifies, Woodhenge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodhenge), Avebury (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury), Arminghall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arminghall), and Arbor Low (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_Low)] the Stonehenge cromlech (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromlech) was situated in the middle of a field of funeral barrows. This famous ceremonial centre constituted, at least in its primitive form, a sanctuary built to insure relations with the ancestors. In terms of structure, Stonehenge can be compared with certain megalithic complexes developed, in other cultures, from a sacred area: temples or cities. We have the same valourisation of the sacred space as "centre of the world," the privileged place that affords communication with heaven and the underworld, that is, with the gods, the chtonian goddesses, and the spirits of the dead."[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_about_Stonehenge#cite_note-9)
In addition to the English sites, Eliade identifies, among others, the megalithic architecture of Malta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta), which represents a "spectacular expression" of the cult of the dead and worship of a Great Goddess.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_about_Stonehenge#cite_note-10)
Dr. Anthony M. Perks, a retired professor of obstetrics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstetrics) and gynaecology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynaecology) at the University of British Columbia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_British_Columbia) and Darlene Marie Bailey offered "a theory based on the resemblance of the henge to the human (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human) vulva (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulva), with the birth canal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina) at its centre" - "Because Stonehenge was a place of life and birth, not death, a place that looked towards the future".[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_about_Stonehenge#cite_note-11) Dr. Perks and Darlene Bailey's "Earth Mother and Sun Father" theory is commonly referred to as Stonehenge "human vulva" or "birth canal" theory. When viewed aerially, Stonehenge does somewhat represent the petals of a flower (a long-used symbol for the vagina).

Source: Wikipedia: Stonehenge_as_part_of_a_ritual_landscape (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_about_Stonehenge#Stonehenge_as_part_of_a_ ritual_landscape)


When I initially got over my laughter (:D) it did indeed sound very plausible.
Especially when you take into consideration the above theory.

The procession, the drums and the music; the chanting and the shouts of the shaman/religious elder, would all make the acoustics vital to reach the perceived afterlife, or "otherworld".

[Treffie]

Last time I read, it was a place of healing, I wonder what next? Perhaps it was an all-purpose stadium?

[HawkR]

No no no... You're all wrong. You see, there was once for many many years ago, that Aliens came to visit earth, they had their turn with the pyramids, stonehenge and other stuffs and thangs. Stonehenge itself was use as a pillar for the spasceship to land on, in other words: A landing spot^^:p

[TheGreatest]

No.
It was a cannibalism site. Bon Appetit :D

[Oisín]

Old story but relevant:

Stonehenge Was Cemetery First and Foremost, Study Says

Stonehenge stood as giant tombstones to the dead for centuries—perhaps marking the cemetery of a ruling prehistoric dynasty—new radiocarbon dating suggests.

The site appears to have been intended as a cemetery from the very start, around 5,000 years ago—centuries before the giant sandstone blocks were erected—the new study says.

New analysis of ancient human remains show that people were buried at the southern England site from about 3000 B.C. until after the first large stones were raised around 2500 B.C.
[Continue reading] (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/05/080529-stonehenge-cemetery.html)