Was Stonehenge a giant calendar? Nearby ● Vegetation fires have already started. Spain became the first country to be affected. ● Today’s high temperatures are analogous to 1000 years ago

Was Stonehenge a giant calendar? Not almost

Just last year, a study published in the journal Antiquity, written by a certain Timothy Darvill, a professor of archeology at Bournemouth University, claimed that the famous Neolithic monument at Stonehenge was no more and no less than a very accurate calculation by which prehistoric people could the length of the year is 356.25 days. This is amazing accuracy for the time.

In addition, the aforementioned professor claimed that he could identify all sorts of patterns in this construction that would support his hypothesis (see the 30 pillars that once existed in the center of the circle that would correspond to the days of the month; then the five separate pillars that would represented by the five days remaining after counting 12 months). The model, according to Dervill, would have been taken from the civilizations of the Middle East, perhaps even from Egypt, with the help of travelers who covered huge distances between the mentioned regions.

No matter how beautiful this interpretation seems, it is not isolated, it has nothing to do with reality. At least that’s the opinion of two researchers, one Italian and one Spanish, who responded with a new study, also in the journal Antiquity. And, as these people say, Darvill seems to have set to work with some forced interpretations, with analogies that only he sees, and with assumptions that cannot be supported by evidence.

Furthermore, there is no evidence that the people of Britain had any contact with the eastern population around 4,500 years ago when Stonehenge was built. As for the original pillars, they can be interpreted in this way, but in no case did they establish the duration of months or years.

Most likely, both appellants conclude, the monument was a monument that honored the dead, as evidenced by the funeral rites that continued there for hundreds of years. To be fair, the two also state that they don’t rule out Darvill’s hypothesis from the outset, but that the man also has to provide some physical evidence. After all, that’s how science works.

Forest fires have already started. The first affected country was Spain

Spring has not come well either, forest fires have already started to affect Europe. After last week’s high temperatures, which reached as high as 30 degrees Celsius in some parts of Spain, several forest fires broke out. To date, 4,300 hectares of forest have been affected, and about 1,800 people have been evacuated.

23 planes and helicopters are dropping water on the fast-spreading flames every day, and more than 500 firefighters are battling the blaze in eastern Spain. Although the temperature has plummeted to 19 degrees Celsius since yesterday, March 27, the strong winds that have accompanied the cooling only further spread the fires.

Spanish officials report that thanks to this devastating phenomenon, we have the first signs that fires will no longer occur only in the summer, as they used to. From now on, fires will occur from spring to autumn, in a new cycle under the influence of global warming.

And last year, Spain was the European country most affected by forest fires. Only then, more than 300,000 hectares of forest were destroyed by fires.

Today’s high temperatures have a counterpart 1000 years ago

That the temperature has increased at an accelerated rate in recent years is a reality that no one can deny. Additional evidence is a study published by several American researchers in the journal Climate and Atmospheric Science. Humans collected and analyzed about 600 tree-ring samples from the northern and western regions of the United States. But in addition to the evidence of today’s warming, the researchers found that this phenomenon is not unique.

This also occurred in the period 1028-1096, as indicated by studies of tree rings in the northwestern regions of the United States. Although it was not as warm as today, the period 900-1000 years ago was still close to today’s values. The phenomenon is known as the “Medieval Climate Anomaly” or “Medieval Warm Period” and it affected all regions of the globe, albeit with varying intensity.

It should also not be forgotten that, against the background of massive deforestation, the only thousand-year-old trees that are still accessible are those located in mountainous areas, at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, and there the temperature is very high. lower than in the lowlands.

Despite this, today’s temperature beats records from a thousand years ago. And according to climatologists, heat waves will strike more and more often. So don’t sit back because it’s happened before and it will pass. Now everything is different. Now, climate change is no longer 100% natural, and basically starting in 2050, there is a 50% chance that a massive heat wave will occur each year.

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