Month: August 2019

Enlarge / Feasts at nearby Durrington Walls drew attendees from all over Britain. (credit: Stefan Kühn / Wikimedia)

For several centuries, modern people have been trying to figure out how prehistoric farmers in southern Britain moved multi-ton blocks of stone into a pair of concentric circles at Stonehenge. Chemical studies on the stones have revealed their origins: the smaller bluestones hailed from two quarries in Wales, and the larger sarsen stones came from 30 km north of Stonehenge.

We still don’t have direct evidence of the engineering behind the famous prehistoric monument, but one popular idea suggests that people dragged the stones on wooden sleds, using pig grease to make the sleds easier to move. A new look at potsherds from a nearby village may lend some support to the idea, but it’s still not direct evidence.

Pigging out at Stonehenge

Durrington Walls, a large village near Stonehenge, often hosted feasts associated with ceremonies at the nearby stone circle. Microscopic traces of ancient fats left behind on potsherds provide some clues about what people ate at those feasts. Animal fats are all pretty similar, but each species has its own unique set of molecules (called lipids), which make it possible to tell which animal an organic residue came from. More than a third of the pots at Durrington Walls had held mostly pig fat.

Enlarge / A killer in training? (credit: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

In the wake of a horrific mass shooting in El Paso that the suspected shooter wrote was "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas," high-ranking Republican politicians are including video games in the list of potential causes they're concerned about.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), speaking with Fox News over the weekend, said, "the idea that these video games that dehumanize individuals, to have a game of shooting individuals, I've always felt that it's a problem for future generations and others. We've watched studies shown before what it does to individuals, and you look at these photos of how it took place, you can see the actions within video games and others."

"But what I'd like to do is get all the facts. Are there indications?" McCarthy continued. "There are times before that we have found this."