Megalithic masons

[Mick Harper]

I have changed all these colours to preserve masonic secrecy.

[Boreades]

Surely If we found Hattie a Ladies Lodge to join the problem would be solved?

[TisILeclerc]

[Boreades]

[TisILeclerc]

[Mick Harper]

How near the river is it and how wide is the river at this point? We have not dealt with this much but such places must have been animal nodal points. Roseberry Topping becomes more and more mysteriously significant. The archaeos of course will ignore it.

[TisILeclerc]

I'm not sure about the distances etc. But I would imagine Eston is about two and a half miles to the river bank and the river is about 220 yards wide. It only gets much wider at the mouth.

What is an animal nodal point?

[Mick Harper]

Well, the argument goes, most of the trappings of megalithia are for long distance trading which is largely conducted by animals or, in the case of droving, is animals. The crossing of major rivers requires either infrastructure in the construction and maintenance of fords or, if the brutes are going to swim for it -- as they often did e.g. the Menai Straits -- then a certain amount of pausing for the big push is required.

Actually, thinking about it, also waiting for other pack trains since, I think I am right in saying, it's more the merrier when conducting animals across water. It follows that there will be some sort of megalithic evidence on both banks, though admittedly I don't see either henges or toppings having a role in this specifically. On the other hand, if this is 'the Tees crossing', then we might expect navigational markers pointing the way to it and henges and toppings do, ex hypothesi, have a role in that.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

Fords do not get nearly as much attention as they should. For instance apart from London Bridge, I believe there were no bridges across the Thames between its mouth and Abingdon until the nineteenth century (somebody check, but it's something of the sort). Actually this is strange, technically speaking, and suggests that fords may have been more profitable than bridges and the latter were deliberately suppressed by riparian landowners. This was certainly the case with London Bridge itself.