Off your head.

[Chad]

I've started a new thread over on the AEL site to try to stimulate some discussion in Sheila McGregor's work.

http://www.applied-epistemology.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=26365#26365

{I'd love to hear Dan Crisp's take on it.. innit.}

[hvered]

It is surely the case that monks' cells grew out of prison cells.

Our local market place has preserved its prison cell (just one!) which suggests it was an adapted animal pen. Come to think of it, every self-respecting village regularly put people in stocks.

[Boreades]

It is surely the case that monks' cells grew out of prison cells.

Our local market place has preserved its prison cell (just one!) which suggests it was an adapted animal pen. Come to think of it, every self-respecting village regularly put people in stocks.

Ah, animal pens.

Sheila McGregor's work and its emphasis on hunting has helped gather a few stray thoughts in my mind.

These days, we gaily stroll along The Ridgway Trail with our backpack and packed lunch, admiring the pastoral idyll, and maybe pausing to admire the fields of corn, wheat, barley, etc. With little thought of what it really looked like before agriculture changed the landscape.

If Wayland's Smithy was a part of a hunting way-of-life where deer were (at least seasonally) captured and killed, was it unique? Probably not, because deer were all over the place.

What do you do with loads of deer meat after you've killed the deer? First off, have a huge feast. But then what. Meat has to be kept somewhere cool and safe, maybe for a long time to dry it for winter supplies. What kind of place would these people need? Something like a long barrow would be ideal. Sheltered, with openings at either end would help ensure a fresh breeze through to help keep the meat cool.

But even with more than one "deer processing factory", it takes time, and you need some sturdy animal pens to keep these wild animals in pending processing. See the round enclosures.

What do you do with loads of deer antlers? Trade them with those crazy folks over at Silbury, Avebury, Woodhenge, Stonehenge, etc who are digging and reshaping the landscape big-time. They need the tools.

Roll forward a thousand years or more, to when hunting has given way to agriculture and a more settled way of life. Gradually there are more and more unused enclosures and barrows. What a waste of space! Let's move into the enclosures with our domesticated animals in summer time, or when the weather is good enough to live on the high ground.

We can bury the old village chief (or grandpa) in the disused barrow and go and say hello to him sometimes.

[macausland]

Boreades

Or we could pack it with ice in the winter and use it as a meat store?

I remember one in a local park many years ago shaped like an old fashioned domed beehive. I'm not sure when it was built, probably Victorian times or a bit earlier perhaps.

[Boreades]

Boreades

Or we could pack it with ice in the winter and use it as a meat store?

I remember one in a local park many years ago shaped like an old fashioned domed beehive. I'm not sure when it was built, probably Victorian times or a bit earlier perhaps.

A meat store in a local park?
Good idea about the ice though! :-)

[macausland]

Boreades

The park used to belong to a local squire or something and was donated to the town.

[spiral]

All of this "life after decapitation" stuff... brings to mind the very Megalithic practice of coppicing.

It is metal working.

[Chad]

All of this "life after decapitation" stuff... brings to mind the very Megalithic practice of coppicing.

It is metal working.

No Spiro, that would be way too recent... (though it may have added a later layer of stratification).

The roots ('scuse the pun) of this reach far deeper into pre-history... and the Green Man's involvement shows this relates to bush-craft and woodland management.

These are skills which date back to the first Mesolithic settlers... a time when metal working was nowt but science fiction.

[spiral]

All of this "life after decapitation" stuff... brings to mind the very Megalithic practice of coppicing.

It is metal working.

No Spiro, that would be way too recent... (though it may have added a later layer of stratification).

The roots ('scuse the pun) of this reach far deeper into pre-history... and the Green Man's involvement shows this relates to bush-craft and woodland management.

These are skills which date back to the first Mesolithic settlers... a time when metal working was nowt but science fiction.

I think you will find as the green man is beheaded, it was the early stratification, the decapitation comes later.

[Chad]

What distinction are you trying to draw between beheading and decapitation?