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When I was about 6 years old my folks bought an old farm house with a corral where the previous owners kept their two horses and two Shetland ponies. They took their horses with them, and with what seemed as a generous gift, gave me and my older sister the ponies. My sister was the industry standard for the mean older sister. Within a few hours my pony had knocked her face down in the mud and poo with a hard nudge of his nose, he then held her there with his right hoof while giving her a hard bite on the left ear. At that moment I thought ponies were the greatest thing I had ever seen!

Thanks for stopping by.

Hello Acme, we haven't talked in quite awhile. I was not referring to the Laurentide Ice Sheet of the last glaciation period but the Cascade glaciation that occurred during the same time period. There is some good accounts of them by Porter et al. Many of these papers unfortunately are now it seems behind paywalls. A nice study by Porter that is available for free is this paper; https://notendur.hi.is/oi/AG-326%202006%20readings/Beringia%20and%20Alaska/A.%20overview/Kaufman_DevQuatSci2004.pdf Quaternary alpine glaciation in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, Sierra Nevada, and Hawaii Darrell S. Kaufman1, Stephen C. Porter2 and Alan R. Gillespie2 1 Department of Geology, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA; Darrell.Kaufman@nau.edu 2 Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; scporter@u.washington.edu, alan@ess.washington.edu "During their greatest Pleistocene advance, alpine glaciers in the Washington Cascade Range and Olympic Mountains terminated as much as 70–80 km from their sources. During the last glaciation, the largest glaciers were only half as long. In the Oregon Cascades, glacier tongues terminated 10–30 km from ice fields that mantled the range crest" And this reference; http://glaciers.research.pdx.edu/glaciers-oregon "During the Pleistocene (~1.8 million years BP - 10,000 years BP), the Oregon Cascades may have been covered by glaciers creating a small ice cap (Porter et al., 1983)" As I mentioned, the materials had been trucked-in from all over the region, they may have been in the range of glacial flows mentioned above but unlikely to have been planed by multiple glacial movements at widely separated time periods. Definitely not at glacial period time scales. The degree of weathering between sides A and B for example is likely just several thousand years or less.

My occupation sometimes involves my working in the location of new construction where the ground surfaces have been altered to a certain degree, thus giving me a wonderful opportunity to look for any interesting rocks that catch my attention. Several weeks ago I spotted one while on a site that had been slowly filled-in for years with trucked in materials from around the region. There had been a bowling center there since the fifties and it was recently demolished with the total removal of the old parking lot pavement. The rock was just lying with its most reveling side exposed at the ground's surface. This little rock contains an amazing amount information about its past travels. First, a little detail about its structure. It has thin bands of gold bearing quartz running its length. It was formed very deep within the earth where super heated water carried the dissolved gold and its other minerals upwards where they collected together as the materials cooled and the quartz crystals formed. The side seen in the image above and below is the one I saw exposed at the ground's surface. It has been shaped into a double, side by side concave surface through the process of being transported by glacial movement over a very hard sub-straight. I have designated the various sides that have certain distinguishing features as A,B,C,D,E and F. If you notice at location C in the image above and below, the surface has been planed very smooth. Referring to the image above; A ,B and C all have planed surfaces. The ridge at G (below) does not appear to be parallel to B but this is an optical effect caused by the quartz banding. The ridge is actually parallel to B so this means they were likely formed during the same time period as the rock was moved by the glacier. Both F and B show weathering after being shaped while A and C are both remarkably smooth with sharper transitional edges as compared to F and B which show worn edges. It appears they are from two different periods of glacial interaction! That seems almost impossible to have been able to occur given the time span between glacial periods. This is more likely the result of glaciation on nearby Mt. Hood (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hood) that is 80 km to the east where glaciers have advance and retreated since the end of the last glacial period at which time this whole region was covered in Ice. Well worn side B that matches F in weathering (below). Side A (below) that matches C in smoothness and sharp edges. Another interesting feature is this broken chip on side F (below) It appears that as the rock was being moved down the mountain and the double concave surface was being shaped the rock became caught on a fracture in the sub-straight causing the rock to stop and the glacier to continue on moving above it. At some point another rock being carried by the glacier began carving out the top side opposite of F. (below) Eventually the strain was great enough to break that chip off the rock's leading edge. The glacier then at some point retreated and allowed the rock to be weathered by rain, wind and stream flow from the melting glacier. When the glacier advanced again it was once more transported and planed on sides A and C when the rock repositioned. Such a wonderful little rock.

I noticed the same sort of thing back when I was in school. I think it was mostly though that they were never in trouble and I sometimes was. I believe it boils down to discipline at home usually leads to discipline at school. I read a book years ago called The Millionaires Mind, it explained this discipline nicely. These folks, if I recall correctly, were more likely to attended church but in either case the families were very efficient at all levels in their lives. They went to bed early and woke up early 7 days a week. Really expected their kids to spend a scheduled period every night studying. Their families ran like a finely tuned machine. I'm sure the nonreligious successful families do it similarly. But we just didn't notice them as much because they blended in better somehow. I remember one religious guy we went through high school with, he was a 4.0 student. He was tall and handsome like some young executive. He looked bizarre that one day a year walking down the hall, past all the long hair and bell bottoms, wearing his Eagle Scout uniform. His hair was cut above his ears, but very sharp looking. He received an appointment to an academy, I believe it was Annapolis. He died piloting a small plane just a year out of high school somewhere on the east coast, I believe it was in Maryland. Some parents are able to provide this nurturing environment with almost no effort regardless of their income, but sadly that income discrepancy does in many cases work against many student's success.

I feel that in the some of these incidences it is simply that the individuals in question did not know that their Ideas must/will be subjected to what amounts to be a prolonged destructive testing exercise by the forum members. They skipped the introductory threads and are completely blindsided by what appears to them as a wholesale attack. They really don't understand the process of skeptical analysis, and their responses resemble someone who just kicked a hornets nest. Just a lot of running around in circles while screaming and flailing. I wonder if a pop-up warning could be added to new members for when they post in the hard sciences at least.

"Anything in isolation can feel significant" "How can behavior of people during traffic stops, suicidal people wanting to die by cop, and etc be responsible for this overwhelming problem. The trend defies any explanation I have seen. The problem is larger than can be addressed in isolation. In isolation Michael Brown's actions may have XY&Z, Tamire Rice could've should've would've, Dlyan Noble just wanted to die, and etc. Add it all up though and the trend is staggering and defies any explanation that each of the idividual cases can provide. This video is a powerful message about treating violence as a contagious disease. But this is really just clever marketing because violent behavior is a psychological disorder. But the stigma that such terms carry in american society makes it unusable in delivering the message. This is at the core of everything we are discussing here, fear drives people in the most vulnerable communities to arm themselves against the unchecked violence around them (Chicago"s gang murder rate for example). Many of these guns are stolen and further feed the cycle of trauma to the community. Citizens in the surrounding communities feel unsafe and arm themselves. The cycle grows in size as the fear of gun control causes a rush to buy guns and even ammunition "before it's too late". These gun purchases are driven by fear. Almost all of it is irrational. Add to this the stresses of international and domestic terrorism to even further acerbated the irrational levels of fear and it does begin to resemble a mass public mental heath crisis. Every high crime area in the country had its roots institutional racism and feeds the irrational fear of crime and violence to the surrounding region, driving fear, and more importantly, reinforcing racism. How does the police fit into this? 30 years ago most police interactions with the public did not include the public being armed. Now, most cops will come in contact with legally and illegally armed citizens on a daily basis. The fear the police have due to these guns is, although, very rational. This would most likely explain the number of instances in Idaho for example. So, as the video illustrates so well, this cycle begins in those communities that we know, more than any others, have their origins in the historical institutional racism of this country. The resulting violence has spread as irrational fear to the general populace as shown by the mass arming of every community. The increase in police shooting of citizen's correlate to fear that the police have to the armed public in general. If this isn't a public mental heath crisis based on the historical institutional racism then what do you call it?

The brutality of this country's racism has left no marks?

"Anything in isolation can feel significant" "How can behavior of people during traffic stops, suicidal people wanting to die by cop, and etc be responsible for this overwhelming problem. The trend defies any explanation I have seen. The problem is larger than can be addressed in isolation. In isolation Michael Brown's actions may have XY&Z, Tamire Rice could've should've would've, Dlyan Noble just wanted to die, and etc. Add it all up though and the trend is staggering and defies any explanation that each of the idividual cases can provide." Defies explanation until you consider untreated mental illness may be more prevalent in society than in the past.

Sadly, there is technology that prevents vehicles from hitting people, I'm afraid this is how we will cope with such horrors, always playing catch up with technology after the fact.

I just wanted to reiterate my position on this in case anyone may misinterpret my opinions on this subject. I fully acknowledge the roll of law enforcement's official and unofficial involvement in the oppression and even murder in the historical context of racism. But, I believe sincerely that a traffic stop or any other such random and potentially life changing interaction with law enforcement is the wrong time and place to let old or new grievances with the law take away the control you have of the situation. As I related with my own brush with death in Ken's truck, he could have: 1. Informed the officer that there was a toy gun in the glove box. 2. If he had forgotten it was there until he put his hand on it he could have just left it there and proceeded to option 1. 3. If he was going to be so stupid as to take it out, holding it backwards by the barrel would have been preferred rather than the grip like he did that night. Fortunately for both of us his hold on it was low enough on the grip (the bottom half) and pointing up and away from the cop, that it may have prevented tragedy. Either I or ken could have made it more difficult for the cop. What would have happened if we had acted angry or uncooperative when he had first approached us? I could have just put my hand down at my sides or in my coat pockets where he couldn't see them. When I saw ken's gun I could have panicked and tried to flee, the cop could have interpreted that move as hostile, the gun coming out of the glove box in one suspect's hand and the other suspect is trying to get out to ambush from over the rear of the truck, remember he had stepped to the back corner of the cab to be safer. We could have completely screwed ourselves. "Suicide by cop" for dummies! Cops will not tip their hand and ask a suspect who has been reported to have a gun, if he does really have a gun, unless they are so close that they have physical control of him or have taken him down to the ground and want him to tell them where he has it. At that point if he is still fighting with them he, unfortunately, is controlling his own destiny to the discretion of the arresting officers. Those two bailiffs that were just killed by a hand cuffed prisoner makes this rather poignant. So, because of the horrendous misdeeds of the past, we are now in a place in this country where some people are going to oppose the oppression of the system during any interaction with law enforcement. Some of these people are going to also increase by there own actions, irregardless of the present officer's reasons for the contact or their presumed bias, the likely hood that at least two lives will be changed for the worse. Some cops are bad, but most are good. But you can cause your own demise at the hand of either one by not staying calm and being smart about your situation. I once had a concealed carry permit due to a deranged convicted felon that acted, quite convincingly, like he wanted to kill me for giving the authorities a video of him running a stolen bulldozer that he said he didn't have in his possession. But really, I was more afraid at the time that my gun might reveal itself without me knowing. I had more stress worrying about cops pulling me over and going CERT on me before I could inform them of my status then I did about that crazy guy. Though all that was probably because of ken.

The point that both of your arguments miss is that any possible mitigable behavioral risks factors by the general public during police interaction: for example; those who are randomly stopped (tail light out), or reasonably profiled (be on the look out for a red headed bank robber), the general public's behavioral risk factors are subordinate to the officer's actual level of risk (facing off against redheaded armed robbers) or self perceived level's of risk (approaching a car alone with four redheaded young men in a rough area of town at night). Some of these shootings occurred while the officers had perceived a heightened state of risk while the unfortunate subjects assumed quite the opposite. For any member of the general public it is in anyone's best interest to hope for the best but plan for the worst when interacting with any law enforcement personnel. If you were the cop; What would you want people to do? What would make you less likely to react during a perceived higher level of risk? When I was 18 I was out cruising with a friend in his very clean, straight and freshly painted hot rod 1950 Ford pickup. It was at night on the crowded boulevard where a couple of thousand other teenagers were doing the same thing. We were stopped by an unmarked police car, after we pulled into a parking lot the cop, wearing street clothes, carefully approached on the drivers side and flashed his badge while quickly scanning the truck's interior. I had my hands out where he could clearly see them but we were both wearing jackets which attracted his eyes several times as he quickly looked the truck cab over. I could tell he thought we may have stolen the truck! He asked for Ken's driver's license and registration while he shifted to the rear of the driver's window opening where the back corner of the cab offered him some quick cover if things went bad for him. His face and left side of his chest and shoulder were the only thing visible from my position as he kept scanning the cab. Ken handed him his licence and then leaned over and opened his glove box door, I watched his hand go in and then come back out with shiniest 357 magnum pistol you've ever seen! As I was simultaneously pissing and crapping myself I turned to see the cop's face as he was looking up from the I.D. that was in between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand. As fast as a gunslinger the cop's right hand was in his jacket pulling his real 357 magnum out of his shoulder holster. I said real because, as all that excitement was happening, Ken was just sitting back as he held up the gun and announced rather nonchalantly - "This is a toy" Almost simultaneously the cop said: "Are you trying to get your #$%& ass killed!" While I sang backup with "You #$%& dumb ass!! From the cop's perspective the truck was suspiciously nice to belong to just a teenager, so those two guys may have stolen it. He should pull it over and carefully check out the occupants. They may be desperate criminals. While we are thinking; WOW! I hope I don't get a ticket for something. BTW he had no reasons to pull us over, no bad driving or defective lights or anything that would justify the stop.

I was raised in an area of the U.S. where the closest major metropolitan city was considered to have one of the lowest black per capita populations in the country for its size. This time period I'm referring to here is 1966, we lived just 5 km outside the city limits in a unincorporated area between several smaller towns along the river that flowed through the valley. Starting in kindergarten one of my closest friends lived just a few houses away. We spent many hours at each other's home up into high school. My friend's dad was black and his mom was white, they moved here just a few years before we did. We moved from a km away, they came from the deep south, if I recall correctly it was Alabama. His dad worked as an executive for "the" major communication company in the U.S. at the time and transferred here to work at their regional office. My friend's dad was very cordial to me and his son's other friends, and all of the neighbors had the highest regards for him. My parents went to several cocktail parties at their home and would always recount to us kids what great hosts my friend's parents were, and the hilarious quips his dad made. The county D.A. lived across the street from both of our families so the politicking was a favorite subject in these get-togethers, the D.A. had in his earlier law school days traveled to the south and worked on civil rights. But as me and the other boys became older his demeanor towards me and his son's other friends changed, yet he remained as friendly and well liked to our parents as he always had. I started to really not like this man and felt he was completely dishonest in who he really was. Was he that nice guy our parents knew, or the jerk that his son and his friends knew? I didn't figure out this mystery until he had passed away when I was around 30 years old and I had spent the needed time to understand his life. He was born in 1920 in a heavily segregated south, in one of the nation's poorest states where he endured the great depression into and through his adolescent years. He showed his true capabilities when he qualified to be a Tuskegee Airman during WWII and then later became a navigator on Cold-War era B-52 bombers. He was the first black aviator of any nation to fly none-stop around the world. The levels of abuse he had to endure as a highly intelligent black adolescent in a depression era southern state would be akin to walking through a mine field on a daily bases. The abuse would have continued no doubt as he rose through the ranks to become an Air Force major. And most probably into and through out his corporate career. I believe the answer to the mystery about his attitude towards us adolescent boys was that he was not going to be that character he had created to adapt to a heavily racist society, a character that he felt he was required to use to navigate throughout his life, a life that required compromises to his pride and intelligence. We did not deserve that respect that was denied him throughout his life. He was denied the simple act of standing against the abuse he was subjected to during his life. This is where we are at in all this mess in this country. Respect for the law is posed against a suppressed segment of society who's self worth in many ways is weighed in the currency of compromising oneself, for generations, in the face of oppression. And too, the value placed by that segment on, and of, individuals that resist to the point of losing their lives by not simply in many cases following a few basic instructions by police. I suspect my friend's dad felt a certain amount of self loathing, knowing that many in that world he had left behind would view him as a sellout. There has been so much damage done to our society and its segments, that it seems at times to be a hopeless cause.

For crying out loud give it a break!!

Just to add to zapatos' great post; Welcome to the SFN destructive testing laboratory. Where your ideas will be pounded into dust. What is destructive testing? definition and meaning www.businessdictionary.com/definition/destructive-testing.html Prolonged endurance testing under the most severe operating conditions, continued until the component, equipment, or product specimen fails (is broken or destroyed). The purpose of destructive testing is to determine service life and to detect design weaknesses that may not show up under normal working conditions. If you proceed with the testing of your ideas here you will be required to back up your claims with verifiable evidence. This is how SFN compares to the destructive testing procedures described above. You will need to directly answer to the objections raised by the other members. The purpose of these objections is to expose every weakness that your idea has in an attempt to make it fail under its own lack of rigor. You will only have two options in this process, either correct the defects found or admit to its failure. If done correctly either result is satisfactory because the ultimate goal in all this is to find better models that describe the observable, and more importantly, testable world. Ideas that are not testable are not suitable for scientific scrutiny. Are you sure your ideas are suitable for discussion here?

Not wanting to be an art critic, but, those last two, I'm quite sure, are Michael Jackson and Freddie Mercury.

Oh, you mean like some people's obsessive insistence and expectation that everyone else needs to live by their narrow self-righteous standards?

I was rather suspicious of that claim that the oceanic crust was depressed by 6 km. I looked at a GeoMapApp cross section and could not decipher a depression in the image. I imagined the volcanic island sitting in the middle of a large depression, like a bowling ball on a trampoline, but the image did not reveal anything close to what I imagined. So I wondered if it was just a wiki misunderstanding of the original study. Image was furnished through and in no way endorsed by http://www.geomapapp.org using Global Multi-Resolution Topography (GMRT) Synthesis, Ryan, W. B. F., S.M. Carbotte, J. Coplan, S. O'Hara, A. Melkonian, R. Arko, R.A. Weissel, V. Ferrini, A. Goodwillie, F. Nitsche, J. Bonczkowski, and R. Zemsky (2009), Global Multi-Resolution Topography (GMRT) synthesis data set, Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 10, Q03014, doi:10.1029/2008GC002332. Data doi: 10.1594/IEDA.0001000, through http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ I looked at the original source to make sure I understood correctly. http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1557/report.pdf INTRODUCTION Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, both volcanoes that rise more than 4,000 m above sea level, dominate the landscape of the Island of Hawaii (fig. 1). Offshore soundings led early students of the Hawaiian volcanoes (Dana, 1890) to realize that these volcanoes were built on a sea floor 5 km deep and are each, therefore, at least 9 km high. Recent seismic-refraction studies, however (summarized by Moore, 1987), have shown that as these piles of lava accumulated, they depressed the sea floor by as much as another 6 km (fig. 1). Thus, the summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa are approximately 15 km above the down warped substrate, and the volume of each volcano exceeds 32,000 km 3, representing enormous outpourings of magma from localized sources. So now I assume it must be completely filled with debris from the settling of the mountain, to the point it is not detectable at the ocean floor adjacent to the volcano. But, "15 km above the down warped substrate ". . . HOLY CRAP!!!

Mauna Kea is several thousand meters taller (measured from base to summit) than Everest. Mauna Kea is of volcanic origin, so it is unlikely it could support itself to the levels of the sedimentary and metamorphic rocks that make up Everest. Does the hydrostatic pressure of the ocean support the mountain? There must also be a substantial sea water penetration into the porous base materials of this volcanic island. Volcanic Mount St. Helens was substantially weakened by its glacier's melting prior to its earthquake triggered catastrophic landslide that uncapped its magma. Periodic earthquakes in Mauna Kea has probably also induced settling and landslides in its lower portions. It is also interesting that it depresses the oceanic plate below it by a staggering 6 km. That's over half its height. It is undoubtedly a difficult task for the lithosphere to support these massive structures. On the other hand the Himalayas are currently still rising due to the thickening of the continental collision zone that is beneath them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauna_Kea Mauna Kea is over 3,200 km3 (770 cu mi) in volume, so massive that it and its neighbor, Mauna Loa, depress the ocean crust beneath it by 6 km (4 mi).[9] The volcano continues to slip and flatten under its own weight at a rate of less than 0.2 mm (0.01 in) per year. Much of its mass lies east of its present summit. Mauna Kea stands 4,205 m (13,800 ft) above sea level, just 35 m (110 ft) higher than its neighbor Mauna Loa,[3] and is the highest point in the state of Hawaii.[10] Measured from its base on the ocean floor, it rises over 10,000 m (33,000 ft), significantly greater than the elevation of Mount Everest above sea level.

I don't even want to know what the headlight looks like.

Congratulations, you have discovered perpetual argumentation.

My paternal grandparents became bootleggers entrepreneurs during Prohibition. They were city folk, my grandmother liked to drink at the bars and continued to do so when the local speakeasy opened for business. A conversation with a supplier lead to my grandmother garnering my grandfather's skills as a master sheet metal journeyman for the production of stills for the thriving local bootleg industry. This eventually lead to them producing their own alcohol at a farm they purchased outside of town. The local police were given incentives to let them know when the federal agents were closing in, so the still could be dismantled and the pieces hidden around the farm. The condenser coil would be placed behind and under 6 to 10 cords of wood in the wood shed next to the barn. The agents would look around for a couple of hours and then leave. Times were good for those willing to take some risks. Prohibition, like the War On Drugs was a complete failure. All the speeches that lead to these prohibitions sounded solid and well thought out, the projected benefits seamed worthy of the sacrifices to the liberties surrendered. Sadly, we also received for our efforts the unforeseen growth of organized crime that would then later benefit from the War On Drugs. These elements are here now, waiting to fulfill the laws of supply and demand. The winners will be the smart entrepreneurs and of coarse those myriad of drug gangs ready to supply even more guns than they already deal in now. What does a gun bootlegger entrepreneur look like? Probably like this guy. https://www.wired.com/2014/10/cody-wilson-ghost-gunner/ Wilson’s latest radically libertarian project is a PC-connected milling machine he calls the Ghost Gunner. Like any computer-numerically-controlled (or CNC) mill, the one-foot-cubed black box uses a drill bit mounted on a head that moves in three dimensions to automatically carve digitally-modeled shapes into polymer, wood or aluminum. But this CNC mill, sold by Wilson’s organization known as Defense Distributed for $1,200, is designed to create one object in particular: the component of an AR-15 rifle known as its lower receiver. That simple chunk of metal has become the epicenter of a gun control firestorm. A lower receiver is the body of the gun that connects its stock, barrel, magazine and other parts. As such, it’s also the rifle’s most regulated element. Mill your own lower receiver at home, however, and you can order the rest of the parts from online gun shops, creating a semi-automatic weapon with no serial number, obtained with no background check, no waiting period or other regulatory hurdles. Some gun control advocates call it a “ghost gun.” Selling that untraceable gun body is illegal, but no law prevents you from making one. This will not end by writing and passing laws, the citizens of this country are drunk on its freedoms and will exercise them with disregard to any attempts to curtail them. My own grandparents were evidence to that.

Carved images similar to one at Gobekli Tepe are also found in the city of Çatalhöyük in western Turkey. http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/archaeologists-find-12000-year-old-pictograph-gobeklitepe-003441?nopaging=1 "Excavations being conducted at the ancient city of Göbeklitepe in Turkey have uncovered an ancient pictograph on an obelisk which researchers say could be the earliest known pictograph ever discovered." The ‘Vulture-Stone’. Credit: Alistair Coombs “The scene on the obelisk unearthed in Göbeklitepe could be construed as the first pictograph because it depicts an event thematically” explained Director of the Şanlıurfa Museum, Müslüm Ercan, to the Hurriyet Daily News . Ercan is leading the excavation at Göbeklitepe. It depicts a human head in the wing of a vulture and a headless human body under the stela. There are various figures like cranes and scorpions around this figure. This is the portrayal of a moment; it could be the first example of pictograph. They are not random figures. We see this type of thing portrayal on the walls in 6,000-5,000 B.C. in Çatalhöyük [in modern-day western Turkey].” "The artifacts discovered in the ancient city have provided information about ancient burial traditions in the area in which bodies were left in the open for raptors such as vultures to consume. According to Mr Ercan, this enabled the soul of the deceased to be carried into the sky. It was called “burial in the sky” and was depicted on the obelisks in Göbeklitepe. Such rituals were conducted in and around the city around 12,000 years ago." It appears Gobekli Tepe could be a site for funerary ceremonies where the dead were eaten by scavengers. Maybe the dangerous animals depicted on the columns are just examples on how the subjects may have died. Top ten "reasons why you're probably here" list for the dearly departed.

I think we over apply our modern interpretation of what constitutes ancient religious practices in these circumstances. This isn't a simple alter for burnt offerings or a big rock that they gathered around. This shows intent on illustrating something of great importance and/or their best effort in understanding how it works. It also suggest the effort to unravel its possible influence on their lives and of course their hopes on influencing it to their advantage. It appears to be what I would assume the first attempts at constructing an observatory would look like. It would allow multiple people to observe the movement of the stars between the pillars, providing a means to measure time and distance. This is the area of the world where astrology would soon begin to chart the heavens and it would be reasonable to imagine it began in circumstances such as these. The sequence of building "versions" could be the result of the next generation of scholars making an improvement in the state of the art, convincing the ruling party that this will pay dividends in some manner. There may have been some (a lot) of P.T. Barnum salesmanship keeping this place flourishing with activity for many generations. Somewhere in all this there were activities that we would ascribe religious connotations. But without alters or clear depictions of offerings like those in Egyptian and Mesoamerican examples this does not to me show any kind of heavy devotion to something akin to Baal. And I would think it would be buried by those who cherish it to save its technology from falling into the wrong hands. If it had been captured I would expect some defacement and over carving by the conquering culture, some crudely done representation of their gods on and over the pillars before its burial. But then again, wouldn't they have occupied it instead? Turned it into one of theirs with their gods. And then it would have suffered the fate of all the other such sites, built on top of, layer after layer, as was the case with Troy and so many other more recent but still ancient sites.

The purpose of these sites may be of a more simple rather than complex use. Remember that just to the south of this site the people of the Nile valley later built pyramids and so too did the cultures of Mesoamerica. They may have differed in usage, but they also may not have, given both cultures made immense investment in time and labor. Two separate cultures building similar structures increases the likelihood the structure's purpose was more simple and shared a common desire that any industrious culture would fulfill, rather than each having their own widely separate and complex purposes. Stonehenge is close enough structurally and aesthetically to these constructs in Turkey that the reasons for them may be similar. Stonehenge has celestial alignments, the heel stone, and the embanked avenue, are aligned to the sunset of the winter solstice and the sunrise of the summer solstice. There is much debate over other possible alignments. I believe this site is distinct from Stonehenge in one respect. Was this site built to be kept secret for its lifetime and then buried to keep it safe afterwards, possibly from worries about an approaching hostile culture? Or were they buried in sequence as each one's celestial viewing "technology" became obsolete and replaced by the newer and presumed better construct next to it. I remember the first time I experienced a night sky out in the wilderness with a ring of tall firs surrounding my vantage point, it was quite an astounding experience with those dark giants outlined by the brilliant night sky above and beyond them. I can imagine a ceremony or ritual down in that dark well with those pillared giants silhouetted against that brilliant canopy of stars. . . . . . . BREATHTAKING!