History of Medieval England - Thursday 6th Period: Discussion 1: Introduction and Pre-history to 500

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

Good afternoon, class. Now I get to torture you all by making you all stand up and introduce yourselves to your classmates. This is because I'm sadistic want to get you used to the concept of talking during our discussion sessions. Please give your name and what one thing you'd like to find out in this class.

Your homework, due next Tuesday but to be posted in this post is to pick a topic from the once-optional-now-mandatory reading list I gave you on Prehistoric Britain and Roman Britain and give me ETA a minimum of one hundred Wikipedia words on it. Got it? Good.

[[OOC comment threads are done!]]

[[ETA: OOC: At some point I stopped receiving comment notifications for this post. I'm scanning and trying to jump into discussions. But since I'm trying to foster discussion *amongst* all of you, I try not to jump in everywhere.]]

Comments

DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

Stonehenge? Beaker People? Celts?

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"So," Cameron decided to jump right in with the one million dollar question because really someone ought to ask it, "who build Stonehenge?"

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

"Druids." Parker knows it's more complicated than that, and she grins as Buffy explains, then goes on, "But *why* was it built? That's what gets me. Were they so successful some decade that they thought, 'hey, time to build some standing stones'? Or did someone build it as a monument? And to what?"

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Maybe they were bored and they thought that you can never have too many phallus symbols around?" Cameron might just have no clue. "Or it could be that calender thing..."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

"Maybe both?" Parker cocked her head. "Maybe they'd figured out something about crop rotations, and wanted a consistent calendar to refer to, in order to get the planting done. If the beginning of agriculture in Britain coincides with the building of Stonehenge, this would make sense."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Big if, Parker. I'd have gone for something more pocket sized too. I think if it really was build in so many different stages that it makes sense that it'd be some sort of temple, ritual thingie."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth shook her head. "Unless the Druids had access to time travel, they didn't build it. Stonehenge was completed at least a thousand years before the Celts ever inhabited the region."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

Parker clearly didn't read this part carefully, so she goes back to the print-outs she made to check. "Damn, you're right. And I knew the Druids were into trees, I should have realized they wouldn't want a stone temple." She frowned. "It's so annoying that they didn't leave any writing of, 'hi, we're the Beaker People, we built this during the flood after the great fire after the plague, mostly to tell Dana Earth Mother not to mess with us so much.' Or something similar."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth snickered. "Well, Stonehenge isn't the only henge around there; it's just the most well known. And technically, is the bank and ditch part of it, because the standing stones came after. But there's Woodhenge, and Avebury is a henge as well."

She grinned. "I think we'd get a much better handle on the situation if we actually visited these places. Don't you agree?" She winked at Parker.

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Wait. Who put up all the stones across the channel then?" Cameron is confused.

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[lady-jessica-bg.livejournal.com]

Jessica adds, "Ignoring whether they had a written language or not, there are plenty of lesser known henges. I suspect their reason for building was so well known that they would have been surprised to find that we're absolutely mystified by them."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[forlornslayer.livejournal.com]

"I never realized that Stonhenge was built and then rebuit and added on to for several years."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

"Very few structures survive unchanged from their initial building. Ancient times didn't have the same sense of history that we do. The past wasn't viewed as something to be preserved, it was viewed as material for the present. If Stonehenge no longer suited the needs of the people around it, they had no compunction about changing it."

Methos makes a face. "Which does not explain the Victorians who decided to 'rebuild' the Roman baths or shatter stones in medieval ruins because they were not picturesque enough."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[lady-jessica-bg.livejournal.com]

Jessica laughs. "You know, I've heard a bit about that time in your history, and it sounds to me like nothing explains the Victorians."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[aka-vala.livejournal.com]

Vala raises her hand. "So what's with British and where's that? I thought this was English history?"

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[mparkerceo.livejournal.com]

"Great Britain is the whole island. England is part of it." Parker frowned. "Hey. Are we studying just England, or does Irish and Scottish history figure in here too?"

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[swerval_zero]

"Hey, yeah, good question. Ireland isn't part of Britain, but Scotland and Wales are. Oh, and Cornwall, too."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

"Discussing 'England' at this point in history is fairly useless. As the country develops a political identity, we're going to be focusing on the section known as 'England', largely because it dominated the rest of the area so completely. But that doesn't mean that we are going to ignore the other major political and social units."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[swerval_zero]

"Right, there was no 'England' at the time. Or any of those other places, really."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[leeadama.livejournal.com]

"And is it related to this "Britainia" place I'm supposed to heil or hail on or something?" Lee asks.

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[aka-vala.livejournal.com]

Vala looks over at him and nods. The off-planet and utterly confused students had to stick together!

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[upforachase.livejournal.com]

"So what's with these barrows?" Cordy asks. "I mean, from what I read, they're more than just tombs, and had all kinds of pottery and crazy stuff inside them relating to the seasons and star cycles...But do we know what their real purpose was? And if they were so awesome, what happened? Why did they stop using them?"

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[prof-methos.livejournal.com]

"For all we know, their real purpose was much like Egyptian tombs stuffed with things that the pharoahs might need in the afterlife. Death has always been an overriding interest to humans. When the society was wealthy enough, they tended to put grave goods in with important people, just in case they could be used in the afterlife. When the society couldn't afford to lose those goods, then they stopped putting them into graves."

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[upforachase.livejournal.com]

"Hmm...Good point. Were barrows ever raided later, to get those valuables?"

Re: DISCUSSION 1: Medieval English History: Prehistory the British Isles

[leeadama.livejournal.com]

"Well, as I was reading about Egyptian art history for another class, I can't imagine that any tomb filled with valuables would be left untouched by robbers of some sort through the years," Lee offers.