Reflection for Unit #1 Understanding History + Archaeology

(1) What did you learn?
I learned different types of ways that archaeologists use to investigate and learn thing about an item like pottery or something else like that.

(2) What did you find most interesting?
What i mound most interesting was when we were learning about the foot prints and cave paintings, because we watch videos for the foot prints and read cool books on them. For the cave painting i wanted to learn more about them since i watch the movie "Brother Bear" and when we started to learn about them i got really excited to go ahead and learn about them.

(3) What learning skills were you able to practice = hw?
When we were doing this project i got a lot better in note taking and i also got a lot better at reading in short periods of time. I also always did my hw because i was interested in it and i thought that it might teach me more.

(4) What did you learn about yourself?
What i learned about my self was that i am not only a sport guy but i also really like learning about the past and seeing what they did in there daily life.

Humanities

Rafaelo Infante

7A

Oct 25, 2010

Stonehenge is located in Wiltshire, England. Stonehenge is a huge set of 3 concentric circles, or rings. The outer ring is filled with the remains of the people of the past, the middle ring has upright rocks, and the innermost ring has blue stones. Archaeologists think that Stonehenge was built around 2500 BC. The hardest part for archaeologist is to find out why Stonehenge was built.

There are numerous theories about the history of Stonehenge. Three of these theories that I am going to show seem to be the most realistic and they are the best supported by scientific research. 

The first theory is discussed in a March 2009 Time magazine article by Dan Fletcher. In his article Fletcher says that one of the most widely accepted theories is credited to astronomer Gerald Hawkins. Hawkins believed that Stonehenge was built over more than a thousand years beginning in 3100BC. He thought that Stonehenge was an “ancient astronomical calendar.”

Stonehenge, Hawkins said, helped ancient people know when an eclipse would come, or the time of equinox (Equal night and day) and solstice (Longest day, longest night). One reason Hawkins and other people think that Stonehenge helped people know when a eclipse was coming is because at the break of dawn on special days a ray from the sun hits right in the middle of Stonehenge and then all the blue stones start to glisten. But if this theory is true then the people of that time must have known where the sun would hit and so they must have known the exact place to build Stonehenge.

A second theory presented by Mike Parker Peorson of the University of Sheffield, UK believes that Stonehenge was a place for the dead. Pearson and other people think this because the outer ring has holes and in those holes archaeologist have found cremated people. Peorson also argues that the fact that  stones are hard and don’t have any life, as compared to Woodhenge, a near by site where the remains of a living community were found. At Woodhenge all the living people stayed and had their homes made out of wood which is a living thing. 

The third theory is presented by Mendhak.com is a website dedicated to information about the paranormal.  According to Mendak.com Stonehenge was a place of sacrifice because in the very center there is a flat stone that has puddles of water at the bottom of which there is red paint or blood. So Mendak.com and other people think that that flat stone might have been used to sacrifice people. The ancient people might have gotten this idea to sacrifice because of the Aztecs, and they might have been sacrificing to send their souls to the gods. 

Conclusion: I think that the most reasonable theory is the dead and living theory because some people do think a rock is as hard and non- living kind of like when somebody dies. So they buried the dead there unlike in Woodhenge where the living lived with things that used to be alive like wood. I also think that it is a good theory because on the outer ring of the Stonehenge they found cremated people which mean there are ashes, so it must have been a place of the dead.