Stonehenge has two "cousins" whose function has been a mystery for thousands of years. One we just solved

It turns out that Stonehenge, one of the best-known monuments in England—and the world—has a cousin almost 300 kilometers to the northeast. Two cousins, rather: Holme I and Holme II. They are two circular constructions that date back to the Bronze Age and were named Seahenge due to the resemblance to Stonehenge – and how commercial the name is, why fool us?

For decades, we haven’t known what the people of 4,000 years ago may have used Seahenge for, but a new study He believes he has the answer: they were monuments to try to win the battle against climate change.

The coincidence. The expression “I came looking for silver and I found gold” fits like a glove when we talk about Seahenge. John Lorimer was an amateur archaeologist who, in 1998, put on his wellies to go shrimp hunting with his brother-in-law on Holme beach. They both found a Bronze Age ax head, but had no idea what it really was. Lorimer, being fond of such things, went to the beach on other occasions to see if he could find something else and found a second ax head.

Who wouldn’t love a Bronze Age ax head?

He and a friend of Lorimer contacted the Norwich Castle museum and museum archaeologists examined the tools, dating them to the Bronze Age, but Lorimer thought there must be something else in the area. He went to the beach until he found something: the stump of a tree. The curious thing is that it was upside down and the amateur archaeologist continued visiting the beach which, with the erosion of the waves, exposed a ring formed by 55 trunks that surrounded the stump.

Seahenge. Lorimer was clear that it was the work of humans, so he contacted the museum again. Experts initially thought it could be a fish trap built in the Anglo-Saxon period, but something didn’t add up and, that same year, they began excavating to obtain more information. It was not difficult, since they were working in sand and the only complicated thing was dealing with the tides, but in January 1999, and after a dendrochronological test carried out by the University of Sheffield, it was clear: it was a Bronze Age monument.

Local media titled their stories as “Our Stonehenge under the sea” and, although the monuments had nothing to do with it (except that circular arrangement), as we said… the name had a catch. The curious thing is that there was not one ring, but two. In 1999, during the excavation of Seahenge, about 100 meters from it, trace a second construction. As both were near the town of Holme, the first was named Holme I and the second as… Holme II. They didn’t break their heads, no.

This… for what? After analysis, it was found that the two structures had been built at the same time, sometime in 2049 BC. They were not identical, since the trunks of Holme I had the bark intact, while in Holme II there is no bark and the wood It has another color. There are no roots on the Holme I stump either, so, at first, it was theorized that they had been used for excarnation in a religious ritual.

And, precisely, the theories they pointed that the Seahenge structures were mortuary enclosures or places of celestial burials like those in other parts of the world (quite… curious: the diffuse is placed in the center and the scavenger birds do the rest). No evidence of this was found and, while we – we believe – discovered what Stonehenge was for, with Seahenge the mystery was still in the air. Until now.

Holmes I

A ritual, but not the one we may think. Knowing what was going through the heads of people more than 4,000 years ago is… complicated. There are no written records, so researchers can only throw hypotheses into the air, but a new study by the University of Aberdeen has published a report in which he explains what the two structures could have been used for.

The person in charge of the research is Dr. David Nance, who has cross-referenced the climatic data from the time of construction of the two structures, the folklore of the time, the toponymy, and the environmental and biological data. And his theory is that Holme I and Holme II were built in an extremely cold climatic period and their function was to extend the summer a little longer.

When some parts of Holme I were exhibited in the British Museum

More summer please. “We know that the period in which they were built 4,000 years ago was a prolonged period of reduced atmospheric temperatures and severe winters and late springs that put these early coastal societies under stress,” Nance says. He goes on to state that “these monuments most likely had the common intention of ending this existential threat, but they had different functions.”

Thus, the function was to imitate a featherless cuckoo bird with the intention of keeping it singing to extend the summer. “The summer solstice was the date when, according to folklore, the cuckoo, which symbolized fertility, traditionally stopped singing, returned to the Otherworld and summer went with it,” adds Nance. And it is not something that is taken out of one’s sleeve, but from folklore and the myth of the enclosed cuckoo in which a featherless cuckoo was placed in a thorn bush with the intention of not taking the summer with it.

Holme II was different. For Holme II he has another theory. For him, he points out the legend of the ‘sacred kings’champions who symbolized male fertility, sacrificed if misfortune befell the community in an attempt to appease the gods—the goddess Venus in this case—to restore harmony. “Evidence suggests that they were sacrificed every eight years at Samhain, coinciding with the eight-year cycle of Venus. Holme II’s orientation is towards sunrise on Sahmain in the year 2049, when Venus was visible.”

Caught with tweezers? It may be, but the professor adds that “the best explanation for both monuments is that they had different functions and different associated rituals, but with a common objective: to put an end to the extreme cold.”

They can be visited (also in video games). As is often the case, when Seahenge was wanted to be moved… there was controversy. The locals claimed that they could not take it from the beach, since it was a very powerful tourist attraction. English Heritage, however, took it back to study each piece and carry out a meticulous maintenance process. They built a replica of Holme I and the original can be seen in the Lynn Museum, near its original location.

With all the controversies, they decided to leave Holme II where it is, even at the risk of the sea ending up consuming it (but hey, it’s been there for 4,000 years). And, if you’re interested and can’t travel to the area to see Holme I, you can always do so thanks to video games. In the title ‘Asssassin’s Creed Valhalla’ there is a puzzle that has this ritual center as the protagonist.

Images | Mark Brennand, Museum Collections, -JvL-

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