Deep Roots

In this picture I can see how the lintels fit across the standing stones and how the lintels fit into each by tongue and groove.  Sticking up behind the joined stones is another even taller stone with a carved protuding peg. The lintels in the picture are held securely in place by a hole in them that fits over that kind of peg.  The large standing stones weigh over 40 tons.  The smaller stones that can be seen past the large stones are about 7 feet high.  It is clear that carving, as well as moving, these stones required some skill that we don't usually associate with Stone Age human beings.
One of the turn-ons for me in England and other European countries I have visited is the age of buildings.  It is one source of the awe I feel as I contemplate Stonehenge.
This time in England is the first that I began thinking about the age of families.  I suppose it is possible that some people living in the Salisbury area today are descended from the people who built Stonehenge 5,000 years ago.  I have been impressed by the fact that my father's mother's family have been in this area since 1790.  While in England I began to imagine what it would be like to live in a town that your family had lived in since the coming of Christianity, or since Druid times, or since the time that Stonehenge was built.  The sense of owning the land would be very powerful.