Era 8: Later use post 1600BC



The Druids
There is no evidence that the monument was in use after 1600BC. It gradually fell into ruin and the stones were used as building material. The landscape was organised into formalised field systems for the increasing intensity of both arable and pastoral farming. Enclosed settlements appear for the first time. The landscape was open short grassland.

The Druids
Three hundred years ago John Aubrey first suggested that stone circles were Druid temples, and ever since it has been popularly believed that Stonehenge was built and used by the Druids. This is certainly false. Everything we know about the Druids was recorded by writers like Julius Caesar, who tell us that they were a Celtic priesthood who flourished in Britain at the time of the Roman conquest, and perhaps for a few centuries before. By then Stonehenge had been standing for two thousand years, and was probably already in ruins. These accounts make it clear that the Druids did not build their own temples, but held ceremonies in clearings in the forest. It may be, however, that the Druids inherited the knowledge and observations of natural events, astronomy included, of the builders of Stonehenge, handed down over the centuries by word of mouth. We are told that the Druids used verses which may take up to twenty years to learn by heart. Since there is no evidence from prehistoric Britain of any method of writing, this is one way in which knowledge could have been stored and passed on from one generation to the next. We know that in the Pacific today accurate sailing directions for long voyages have been handed down by word of mouth alone over a period of many centuries.

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