Druids and Avebury Reburial

[Steven]

quote:Originally posted by Oddie

quote:

Peace Steven. All good points.

The Human remains of our Avebury ancestors have enjoyed the embrace of the earth for thousands of years. The soils at Avebury assisted in the skeletal remains remaining, and will continue to do so for thousands of years in the future. Reburial threatens no one's jobs or authority. In this way, our reburial request sets a precedent for the Avebury complex. In comparison, the ancestors at Sutton Hoo decayed very quickly, leaving only stains upon the lower stratigraphy. They have been fully blessed into the Earth.

Science does a fantastic job in its 'stewardship'. Druids, and pilgrims to Avebury represent the spiritual site. Council believe that many (but not all) Avebury pilgrims agree.

Retention on the basis of non-existent research techniques that may or may not be developed is a weak argument for dis-respecting the spiritual beliefs of Council (we have NEVER claimed to speak for anyone else. This is very different from 'discounting research'.

Despite years of study in academe, and the many benefits I read concerning archaeological research, I never fully understood ancestral landscapes until I went into the field, stood by a burial mound and called to and honoured the pregnant Goddess and her children. This, I believe is the best way to understand the relationship between ourselves and the ancestral landscapes.

Peace /|\


Oddie

Hi Oddie
You dodged the issue by simply saying my argument was "weak" in comparison to disrespecting the council.

So it doesn't matter that I can prove that new techniques have been, and are being developed (DNS, Isotope analysis etc) because the most important issue is respect for the council?

I'm not really sure that discussion on this issue is possible if you refuse to accept facts because you consider the council's feeling more important.

Steven

[BAJR Host]

I dislike the concept of been called biased on the basis that we don't (in general) agree with your view. Are we only unbiased if we agree with you?? YOu have come here to find out what people think, and there are broad ranges of view. There has been discussion about the meaning of respect, the concept of respectful storage and the duty of care. You have a faith.. a single view in many ... respect other views

?When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend.?
William Blake

[Oddie]

Hi Steven. Didn't mean to infer your arguments are weak. Just that if one world view fails to consider other views, then disrespect is implied. (I guess you could argue that disrespect may not be implied.) Council do not believe our views are more impoprtant than the needs of scientific research. CoBDO think suggest that science is just as important a system of thinking and equal to those of Council.

I agree that reaching a concensus suitable for all is very difficult. This can be seen on many of the responses to the avebury reburuial consultation on various web sites where people I know who favour reburial seem to be attempting negotiation and compromise prematurely. Lots of other stuff is available by googling 'avebury reburial consultation response'. Perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree, essentially, the debate is good. This is, after all, an on-going discussion that will conitune around the country well after the consultation has finished

Paul Davies
Reburial Officer


Oddie

[Oxbeast]

"CoBDO think suggest that science is just as important a system of thinking and equal to those of Council."

If you're saying that science and faith are equal, then why not retain the status quo?

I think that your views have been considered on this thread, they just (largely) haven't been agreed with. Your views are the reason for this public consultation. I also don't really hold with the idea that religious belief systems should be automatically respected just because they exist. I have very little respect, for example, for evangelist christians in America who have succeeded in banning stem cell research.

[Talisien]

quote:Originally posted by Oddie

(we have NEVER claimed to speak for anyone else. This is very different from 'discounting research'.

[/quote]

You may gather from my user name that I have some sympathy with the pagan position. Yet, I have never and can never claim to speak for the dead from many millennia ago. We have about as much knowledge of their belief system as a we do of life on exo-planets. I appreciate this may be seen as trolling or being deliberately argumentative, but the CoBDO speaks only for itself and their beliefs. The appropriation of the long dead and their assumed beliefs by the CoBDO is nothing more than cultural theft. Respect for the deceased is something, in my experience, that all professional and amateur archaeologists and curators, and pagans, is something that has never been in doubt. If, for the sake of argument, we did discover the Neolithic/Bronze Age - Iron Age equivalent of the Rosetta Stone that enabled to have insight into the belief system(s) of the past, will the CoBDO support the disinterment and reburial of skeletal remains that they are requesting to be reburied?

[Oxbeast]

Taliesin, this particular group of pagans believes that they have already found their Rosetta stone, from a combination of supernatural powers and oral tradition (presumably oral tradition which reaches back to the Neolithic or EBA). Not quite as convincing as the actual Rosetta stone....

[Arddhu]

quote:Originally posted by Oxbeast

Taliesin, this particular group of pagans believes that they have already found their Rosetta stone, from a combination of supernatural powers and oral tradition (presumably oral tradition which reaches back to the Neolithic or EBA). Not quite as convincing as the actual Rosetta stone....

Could you please point out to me at which point I stated that I represent or speak for "this particular Group" as you put it Oxbeast??
I am simply stating my personal views on the subjects raised and do not speak for the Council, although I am a member of the joint reburial committee which has a divers number of members including an archaeologist.

And in response to your post bajr Host, it is most obviously the Archaeological and scientific community that are most apposed to the re-internment of our ancestors, as most disregard anything that is not fully explainable, at this present time at least! and we would expect more opposition here than on other sites and it is nothing personal, as there are some here who are a bit more open minded than others.

[RedEarth]

quote:Originally posted by Arddhu

I very much doubt that any consensus on this contentious issue will be reached on this somewhat biased (for obvious reasons) forum, as would a similar discussion on a pagan forum, lets just hope that those making the decisions about the future of our joint ancestral remains make a fair and unbiased one.


...we would expect more opposition here than on other sites and it is nothing personal, as there are some here who are a bit more open minded than others.

Which does rather beg the question, why bother posting on this forum then? In response to the second quote, I can only note the irony of that statement...

[Plautus]

Arddhu, I am not attempting to stir the pot here as I feel some poster are becoming rather heated, but I have noticed that you (and others) tend to refer to these human remains as "our ancestors." I question the validity of this, as the vast majority of brits are geneticaly a soup of various invaders who turned up long after the avebury buriels were intured. Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Normans etc. really the list is endless. Now I am not saying that due to the extreme distance of our connection to these buriels that they should not be respected, just that refering to them as our ancestors is needlessly emotive. We are really linked to these bones by the landscape we inhabite not genetically.

[Arddhu]

For more of an insight in to my perspective and feelings on the call for reburial please have a read of this:

http://www.quantonics.com/Level_7_QTO_Re..._Worm.html

It go's some way to explaining the theory of universal connectivity and that our ancestors are as present and meaningful to us today as when they where first buried, and that we do not need bones and archeology to tell us how they lived, as I have said science is still in the proses of understanding the 'bigger picture' through quantum mechanics and other similar branches of science.

Continue to mock if you care to....