Dark Earth is found around the world, during the same time scales people around the earth decided to use ash, charcoal and create raised "middens". Are the burning mounds just an area of cooking/midden or were they used for a more natural cooking or power process?
Farm Mounds are found on the
Island of Sanday, OrkneyThe Terramare culture in Italy built thier houses over great middens or mounds.
Burnt MoundsSupposedly used for cooking but little evidence, if any of cooking materials or utensils. Usually a mound in a shape like a kidney or a round shape, sometimes with a "water trough" attached or slightly underneath it. The idea being that the cracked stones found around and in the Burnt Mounds were heated up, put in water and then the hot water used for cooking.
This is a sensible idea and they may have been adapted for this purpose but was that how they originally worked and their purpose?
If you consider the idea that natural power flows through the earth and depending on the amount of power being created by the earth its energy amount will change. If this was higher back in the day then the peoples of the earth may have been able use natural power. The great ancient "temples" of the world may have been more about converted or channelling the natural energy than the worship we have guessed they were used for. No body has ever been found in an Egyptian pyramid. Why build those immense structures and especially not decorate the burial chamber? This may include Dolmens, barrows and Cursus.
Moseley Bog Burnt MoundsThe
Moseley Bog Burnt Mounds found in Birmingham are located with
a stream running through them. One side is physically different to the other, with one having much lower electrical resistance than the other. Maybe a design for natural battery, capacitor or resistor?
Foula (Shetland Islands)The Burnt Mounds on this small island have been mapped and photographs are were available on the
foulaheritage.org.uk site. It was a fantastic little site but due to issues is in reduced circumstances, which is a great shame.
The "Moder Dye" at the bottom of this archive page is worth a read (copied below). Wayback does not have images if they are no longer online so you can not see the image! I know its not to do with Burnt Mounds but it info like this might be useful to someone.
I have read somewhere else that sea going people could find there way to land using the direction of the waves, when out to sea and with no compass.
"The Moder Dye has no direct connection with archaeology, but needs to be recorded somewhere! It was used by Shetlanders, before the days of compasses, to find the land in times of fog. The radar photograph below shows how this was done. The photo was taken the day after the night hurricane Flossie passed through Shetland in September 1978. The heavy westerly sea swells were about 250 yards apart and show up well on this photograph. The swells reflect around the north and south ends of Foula (left centre) to produce an overlapping pattern which continuously broadens out until it reaches the Mainland of Shetland (top right). Any line drawn through the points of overlap, where the two swells peak, leads from the Mainland to Foula. It must however have been rare that the Moder Dye was as easy to interpret as in this example. Andrew Henry (1910-1965) of the North Biggins, Foula, was the last Shetlander known to have been able to use the Moder Dye."
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Abandonment and Charcoal Catastrophe - further posts about catastrophe and soils/charcoal