Ale stenar

[Toroland]

I would recommend anybody claiming that Ales stenar was used as a sun dial a clean shave with Occam's razor. There are numerous considerably easier and simpler ways to build a sun dial than to use chunky boulders weighing many tones and resulting in rather inaccurate readings. In any case, due to the modifications that have been made during the restoration attempts any such hypothesis would be hard to prove today. Does it really matter? Nope.

Regarding dating issues: these pseudo archaeologists seem to have missed what is evident to any professionally trained scientist: that this place has been in use throughout most of times. The use of the site most likely dates back to the Neolithic, certainly to the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. There seems to be evidence that the boulders have been recycled. Even today cultic performances can be observed on the ridge on a daily basis, people hugging stones, distributing rose pedals or smoking funny stuff (not to mention the slagrutegubbar).

This is not surprising since it is a really pretty place with splendid views well worth a visit. However, the most important scientific questions have not yet been posed!

Where did the people live who erected and used Ales stenar? Finding their settlement, pit houses, fire places and graves will for sure answer many more questions than the continued vandalism caused by excavating meaningless peek-holes near the ship. Archaeological excavations in search of the path that was used to drag up the stones are hard to beat in originality. Nutty as a fruitcake.

A large-scale non-invasive archaeological investigation of the surrounding landscape (mapping some eight square kilometres with airborne laser scanning, aerial photography, magnetometry and GPR) is highly likely to result in the discovery of several settlements and numerous graves/grave fields dating to different archaeological periods. Subsequent invasive investigations of these structures would be money and energy well spent.

Very well written. I notice a marked difference in attitude between archaeologists from different Swedish universities. Some archaeologists are very limited to their digging and have problem for interdiciplinary research.
For me they are pseudo archaeologists

[Adils]

Läste på text-tv imorse att man c:a femtio meter från anläggningen funnit vad som förmodligen är en 5.500 år gammal stendös.

[Boreas]

Får en minnas en 5.500 år gammal processionsväg som upptäcktes för något år sen - i samma trakt:

http://www.arkeologiuv.se/cms/showdocument/documents/extern_webbplats/arkeologiuv/publikationer_uv/rapporter/uv_rapport/2012/uvr2

[Boreas]

"Sveriges Stonehenge" får ständigt ny uppmärksamhet:

A Swedish Stonehenge? Stone Age Tomb May Predate English Site

The giant rock monuments suggest that even our Stone Age ancestors had a sense of posterity and permanence, said Magnus Andersson of the Swedish National Heritage Board in an email.

The new tomb also shows that this particular spot, with its dramatic cliffs overlooking the Baltic Sea, has inspired people in many different ages, he said.

"The scenic place on the ridge must have attracted people in all times," he said. "It shows that people over a long period build their monuments and perform their ceremonies on the same sites.”

We recently returned from a trip to Portugal and a similar Megalithic arangement of stones as well as a Dolmen burial site is located outside the city of Evora. The theory there is that the stones are oriented towards to equinox as the axis aligns with the rising sun. The large stones at that site are placed on an eastern slope of a hill and were evidently moved from a fairly long distance away.

http://www.livescience.com/24157-ancient-tomb-ales-swedish-stonehenge.html

ANCIENT TOMB FOUND NEAR SWEDEN'S 'STONEHENGE'

Intrigued by a circular structure measuring about 165 feet in diameter with a rectangular feature in its center, archaeologists of the Swedish National Heritage Board decided to dig a trial trench.

"The outer circle was difficult to prove, but we did find vague traces at the spot, possibly imprints of smaller stones," archaeologist Bengt Söderberg told Discovery News. In the middle, the researchers found "several components" that are evidence of a dolmen, a megalithic portal tomb usually made of two vertical stones supporting a large flat horizontal stone on top.

Oriented north-south, the 65- by 26-foot dolmen dated to the Swedish early Neolithic period, about 5,500 years ago.

"We also found a blade, a scraper and some flakes of flint. This is not unusual when it comes to this type of graves," Söderberg said. "The components consisted of imprints of large stones belonging to a central grave chamber, which was surrounded by large stones and a brim of smaller stones," Söderberg said.

http://news.discovery.com/history/sweden-stonehenge-tomb-121017.html