The Stonehenge narrative becomes even more bizarre...............

Here we go again! 

https://news.sky.com/story/stonehenges-purpose-may-have-been-to-unify-ancient-britain-after-scientists-make-discovery-about-stones-origins-13276723#:~:text=Professor%20Mike%20Parker%20Pearson%2C%20lead,a%20religious%20purpose%20%2D%20as%20a

I knew this was coming.  It's published in "Archaeology International" -- which is now housed in UCL, which just happens to be the institution in which our old friend MPP works.  What a coincidence!!

A draft of the article has been circulating behind the scenes, and I picked up an unsolicited copy from a contact.  I have looked at it briefly, and I am appalled...........  how is it that stuff like this gets into print?  I will consider the article in more detail when I have seen it in its final published form, but below I make a few comments on the short section about bluestone origins.

=================

Stonehenge and its Altar Stone: the significance of distant stone sources

Mike Parker Pearson, Richard Bevins, Richard Bradley, Rob Ixer, Nick Pearce and Colin Richards

Abstract

Geological research reveals that Stonehenge’s stones come from sources beyond Salisbury Plain, as recently demonstrated by the Altar Stone’s origins in northern Scotland over 700km away. Even Stonehenge’s huge sarsen stones come from 24km to the north, whilst the bluestones can be sourced to the region of the Preseli Hills some 225km away in west Wales. The six-tonne Altar Stone is of Old Red Sandstone from the Orcadian Basin, an area that extends from the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland to Inverness and eastwards to Banff, Turriff and Rhynie. Its geochemical composition does not match that of rocks in the Northern Isles so it can be identified as coming from the Scottish mainland. Its position at Stonehenge as a recumbent stone within the southwest arc of the monument, at the foot of the two tallest uprights of the Great Trilithon, recalls the plans of recumbent stone circles of northeast Scotland. Unusually strong similarities in house floor layouts between Late Neolithic houses in Orkney and the Durrington Walls settlement near Stonehenge also provide evidence of close connections between Salisbury Plain and northern Scotland. Such connections may be best explained through Stonehenge’s construction as a monument of island-wide unification, embodied in part through the distant and diverse origins of its stones.

=======================

Extracts

The bluestones have been geologically identified as coming from the area of the Preseli Hills ever since Herbert Thomas (1923) identified the most numerous of the Stonehenge bluestones as spotted dolerites that could be matched with outcrops in those hills. Although occasional attempts have been made to explain the bluestones’ incorporation in Stonehenge as due to transport by glaciers in a previous Ice Age (Judd 1902; Kellaway 1971; John 2024), there is no evidence that glaciers extended more closely than within 100km of Salisbury Plain (Clark et al. 2022), discussed in some detail in Ixer et al. (in press). Claims that one or more bluestone fragments from Stonehenge and its environs show evidence of having been transported by glaciers similarly do not stand scrutiny (Bevins et al. 2023a; in press).

"........in a previous Ice Age"??  I assume that what they mean is "during a previous episode of Quaternary glaciation".

"....... there is no evidence that glaciers extended more closely than within 100km of Salisbury Plain..."  Since when did Clark et al make that claim?  There is perfectly good evidence, adequately discussed in the literature, of glacial deposits at Court Hill (c 70 km from Stonehenge), Kenn  (c 74 km), Bathampton Down (c 40 km), and Greylake (c 70 km), all of which indicate the presence of glacier ice pushing into Somerset from the Bristol Channel.   And what's this nonsense about Bevins et al and Ixer et al in press?  You cannot cite as evidence material which might or might not get through peer review and which might or might not ever be published.  If and when these papers see the light of day, we shall see whether they withstand scrutiny.

Four types of bluestone have been matched geologically with outcrops in Preseli. The source for most Stonehenge’s spotted dolerites (classed as Group 1) has been identified as Carn Goedog (Bevins et al. 2014). Two sources for unspotted dolerites (Stones 45 and 62; Group 2) are Cerrigmarchogion and Garn Ddu Fach, to the west and east of Carn Goedog (Bevins et al. 2014; 2021; Pearce et al. 2022). Remaining spotted dolerites (Group 3) are thought to derive from an area to the east of Carn Goedog but are not matched to a specific outcrop (Bevins et al. 2014). Of the three types of rhyolite at Stonehenge, Group C is matched to a specific location within the outcrop of Craig Rhos-y-felin, 3km to the north of the Preseli ridge (Ixer and Bevins 2011). Finally, Stonehenge’s two Lower Palaeozoic sandstone monoliths are similar lithologically and in terms of age to strata exposed to the north and east of the Preseli Hills (Ixer et al. 2017). 

Let's be straight about this. Not one of the Stonehenge bluestones has been provenanced accurately to a single precise location.  The geological matches are approximate at best, and there can be no certainty about the locations mentioned above because the geologists do not have anything like a comprehensive cover of sampling points across the various igneous outcrops.  They have "possible locations", but that is the best that can be said. And they really have no idea whatsoever where the Lower Palaeozoic sandstone monoliths might have come from, in spite of claims made by Ixer et al in 2017.

The reality is that the Stonehenge bluestones, and the fragments in the debitage, are geologically diverse.  They have come from multiple locations  -- a point frequently denied by Ixer and Bevins, who have sought consistently over the years to demonstrate that the bluestones have come from a very few carefully selected places where they claim to have found quarries.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-absurdity-of-quarrying-hypothesis.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2021/06/more-on-stonehenge-dolerites-multiple.html

Excavations at the bluestone sources of Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin have uncovered evidence of megalith quarrying dating to the centuries before and around 3000 BC, consistent with the date of Stonehenge’s first stage. At Craig Rhos-y-felin, that precise part of the outcrop with a match for Rhyolite Group C lies directly adjacent to a niche from which a 2.5m long monolith has been removed (Parker Pearson et al. 2015). Quarrying installations include a drystone-revetted, artificial platform at the foot of the outcrop as well as a hollow way or sunken trackway leading from the foot of the platform (Parker Pearson et al. 2019). Quarrying artefacts include three stone wedges still in situ within joints close to the gap left by a removed monolith (Parker Pearson et al. 2022a). Similar evidence of quarrying was found at Carn Goedog, in the form of stone wedges and other stone tools, an artificial platform, niches left by removed pillars, and wedge-holes cut into the joints between pillars (Parker Pearson et al. 2019).

This paragraph is disingenuous and irresponsible.  The so-called "evidence of quarrying" is hotly disputed in print, and it is truly extraordinary that Parker Pearson and his colleagues cannot bring themselves to admit this.  The Rhosyfelin "evidence" was dismissed in two journaal articles by Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd, John Downes and me in 2015, and in a preprint article about Carn Goedog published on Reserarchgate by me in 2019.  The "extraction point" for a 2.5 m long monolith at Rhosyfelin is pure fantasy, and no monoliths made of foliated rhyolite are known from Stonehenge.  The "quarrying installations" are figments of a fertile imagination, and the idea of wedges and "wedge holes" has been dismissed as laughable by Tim Darvill and specialists in rock mechanics.

As for the rest of the article, it reaches new heights of absurdity -- of which more anon.

-----------

The items they refuse to cite:


Brian John, Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes. 2015. OBSERVATIONS ON THE SUPPOSED “NEOLITHIC BLUESTONE QUARRY” AT CRAIG RHOSYFELIN, PEMBROKESHIRE". Archaeology in Wales 54, pp 139-148. (Publication 14th December 2015)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286775899_
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/286927485_Photo_Gallery

Brian John, Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes (2015a). "Quaternary Events at Craig Rhosyfelin, Pembrokeshire." Quaternary Newsletter, October 2015 (No 137), pp 16-32.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283643851_QUATERNARY_EVENTS_AT_CRAIG_RHOSYFELIN_PEMBROKESHIRE

and this paper published online:

Brian John (2019) Carn Goedog and the question of the "bluestone megalith quarry"
Researchgate: working paper
April 2019, 25 pp.

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.12677.81121
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332739336_Carn_Goedog_and_the_question_of_the_bluestone_megalith_quarry
Carn Goedog paper.pdf

Daw's Delusional Denials: the latest episode

The Ramson Cliff epidiorite glacial erratic, at c 80 m above sea level

Yesterday I took a look at our old friend Tim Daw's blog site.  It's worth looking at now and then, since it does occasionally contain items of interest.  Anyway, I was greatly entertained by his latest full-frontal attack on my credibility -- demonstrating yet again his lack of understanding of natural processes and his tendency of shooting from the hip when a little more time might have spent on researching his target.

So what is he on about this time? Well, it's a long piece devoted (as far as I can understand it) to demonstrating that there are no erratics around the Bristol Channel other than those found on the shore platforms between present day high and low tide marks.  He is apparently obsessed with a statement I made about many erratics being found around the Bristol Channel coasts above 100m.  I stand by that, and am more than a little irritated by Tim's selective use of citations and his ignorance of the literature.  My information comes from abundant sources, most of which are cited on my blog and in my published articles.

Some of the erratics are glacial, and some are not.  I have already drawn attention in my blog to the Shebbear and Berry House erratics, which appear to be sarsens.  Ice may or may not have been involved in their emplacement, but they are clearly not in their "original" positions.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/11/more-on-shebbear-erratic-boulder.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-berry-house-boulder-north-of.html

I accept that the Harmer map of erratics does not show erratics in the Ilfracombe area.  Apologies for that.  My version of the map was clearly a copy of a copy, and what I thought was a dot indicating a recorded erratic was in fact a tight contour line just below the letter "e" in "Ilfracombe".  It's interesting that Harmer did not show any of the erratics in the Saunton - Croyde area either -- even though they had been recorded well before 1928 by other geologists. For example:

Pengelly, J. 1892. The granite boulder on the shore of Barnstaple Bay, North Devon. Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 6, 211-222.

Tim claims -- quite falsely -- that there are no erratic boulders at Lundy,  Court Hill or Nightingale Valley, and that the erratics at Fremington, Baggy Point and elsewhere can be ignored because they are under the 100m contour.  I just do not understand why he is so obsessed with the 100m contour nonsense, because I did not claim that there are vast numbers of glacial erratics above this level on the coasts of Devon, Cornwall and Somerset. If you want me to be pedantic,  I referred in my 2024 Limeslade Boulder article to "the shores of the Bristol Channel" without specifying which ones I was talking about.

Anyway, I am not going to waste my time on this  -- but I will simply reiterate that according to Prof Nick Stephens there are high level glacial erratics near Ilfracombe, that according to Rolfe et al there are high-level glacial erratics on Lundy Island, and that according to Gilbertson and Hawkins there are drift deposits containing erratics up to 122m OD at Portishead Down and elsewhere.  The same authors refer to "erratic rich drifts" on the high-level plateau surfaces of the Cotswolds above Bath, and on the Mendips, "at and above 200m." (p 186)  Geoffrey Kellaway and others demonstrated the same thing in articles published around 1971-72.

If ice from the west affected these areas on the southern shore of the Severn Estuary up to and above 200m, it is a statement of the obvious that the ice surface up-glacier (ie to the west) must have been even higher.  It should come as no surprise to anybody that in those circumstances, on at least one occasion, glacial erratics both large and small must have been dumped on all of the shores of the Bristol 
Channel. We know about some of them, and others no doubt are still to be found.

I just cannot understand why Tim Daw, and his dear friends Ixer, Bevins, Pearce and Scourse, should have a problem with that..............

Madgett, P.A. and Inglis, A.E. 1987. A re-appraisal of the erratic suite of the Saunton and Croyde Areas, North Devon. Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 119, 135-144.

Three million page views

 

Suddenly, without noticing, we have roared through the 3 million page views barrier.  So many thanks to all those who have supported the blog over the years and who have expressed their appreciation of its contents.  Not all readers agree with what I have to say, but that's OK -- evidence is often difficult to interpret, and opinions often vary.  But I try to keep an open and critical mind,  and continue to welcome comments from both supporters and opponents!

The great majority of views now come from people who habitually uise the blog for reference and research purposes -- but a significant nember each month seem to come from Google and other search engines, meaning that the algorithms they use are now taking the blog seriously on all sorts of issues, showing links that are high up on the page rankings.

Onwards and upwards.....

The use of local stone in prehistoric stone settings

Pentre Ifan, built of slabs of locally collected volcanic ash.  

Photo courtesy Hugh Thomas

Hugh Thomas, over on the Preseli360 Facebook page, has just published an interesting post which I am very happy to acknowledge and reproduce below. 

Nobody knows the stone settings of Preseli better than Hugh, and I agree with  him that there was apparently no interest at all, in the prehistoric poeriod, in collecting stones from far away and transporting them from A to B just so that you could build them into your friendly neighbourhood cromlech.

Stephen Briggs called this opportunistic, utilitarian and pragmatic.  He could not see in this area any evidence of monoliths of certain rock types being valued above any others, or deemed to be sacred or special.  Some monoliths (like dolerite, hard sandstone, volcanic ash or lava) were obviously better for building with than flaky rhyolite, shale or mudstone -- so they tended to be used if they were available.  

But long distance stone moving expeditions?  No thanks.  Our ancestors were too smart for that sort on nonsense..........

==========================

QUOTE

Just a personal thought that has reoccurred to me a number of times over the years...
There are many spectacular quartz boulders to be found in Preseli, and there is certainly a concentration of them around the Bwlch Ungwr , Carn Breseb and Carn Alw area.

If in ancient times stones were being revered as being special and " being moved about" , then why pick stones that all on appearance alone all looked the same and that only modern geologists can largely REALLY tell apart ? To my artistic eyes the most spectacular stone setting would have been a white quartz stone circle and there were MORE THAN ENOUGH quartz boulders around to create that ...I can not imagine for one moment that our ancestors would not have been fascinated by the white gleaming quartz .

Just imagine a quartz circle gleaming in the sunlight or glowing under a full moon, it would have been stunning .

To me this gives weight to the cold fact that any stone setting found around Preseli is made up of stones that were found in the immediate area for convenience...

I have not yet been shown anything or seen anything in Preseli that tells me otherwise, but if the truth of it IS otherwise I am very open to be shown it, because it would be the truth and not just a romantic belief. But the facts supporting the movement of stones would have to be overwhelming and not just theories being shoehorned into this landscape as has been really all along. ..

Those championing theories of stone movement seem to actually rely on the curiousity of people not looking into things TOO closely from the point of view of practicality , because that is when all the problems begin and an unraveling of the theory means it takes further more colorful claims to hold it together, and begins to become impractical from the point of view of human nature. .

I am happy for anyone to show me otherwise , but as it stands , in 2024, despite all I have been shown or read just demonstrates people were here at that time and not transporting stones over great distances in Preseli , the stones left at Waun Mawn ARE from that area and so on .. Nothing has peaked my curiosity to question further ...Yet ..

I am grateful to those who help to keep a sense of practical balance on all of this ..

The inner reaches of Nordvestfjord

 I found a higher resolution copy of this fantastic image of the inner reches of Nordvestfjord. We are looking down the fjord from above the snout of Daugaard-Jensens Glacier, with ntabular bergs and quite extensive sea ice.  To the left of centre there is a low plateau with a thin ice cap, and higher icefields are shown in the distance to the right of centre.

In the far distance, towards top right, we can see the fjord section where the fjord sides are almost vertical and where the fjord scenery is at its most dramatic.

So why the difference between the relatively gentle ice-scoured and moulded slopes of the upper fjord, and the hugely spectacular fjord landscape in its middle and outer sections, towards Hall Bredning and Scoresby Sund?  Well, we don't really know the full picture, but the simple answer must be that the extent of fjord deepening -- and maybe fjord widening too -- is a function of ice discharge.  As the ice of the Nordvestfjord Glacier moved south-eastwards it was supplemented by the ice flowing in from many tributary glaciers over a distance of c 120 km, leading to a gradual stepped deepening of the fjord floor.  Then, as soon as the glacier emerged from the mountain front into the broad embayment of Hall Bredning, it lost its erosive capacity at the threshold and spilled out sideways via a number of diffluent discharge routes.  Just like Hardangerfjord, Sognefjord and many other big fjords throughout the world.......

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2013/07/nordvest-fjord-east-greenland.htmlhttps://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2013/07/nordvest-fjord-east-greenland.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-nordvestfjord-threshold.html

  

Renland dissected plateau

 

On the southern and eastern ringes of the Renland Ice cap (adjacent to Nordvestfjord in East Greenland) there is a plateau landscape which has been heavily eroded by streaming ice and thus heavily dissected. See also the posts on Grundvikskirken, the most spectacular rock pillar of all...........

This landscape is different from that of the Staunings Alps because of the advanced stage of the highly selective linear erosion, with streaming ice cutting vertically down to create troughs now occupied by water (in the fjords) or rapidly flowing ice (in the dry valleys).

Much work remains to be done on Renland -- but in the meantime we can enjoy the fantastic images being assembled by the climbing groups who are attracted to the area.

This is the Renland ice cap in an oblique aerial photo.  Some of the rocky ridges beyond the edges of the ice cap are heavily dissected into spectacular towers and pinnacles.......

Glaciated landscape types

 

I have been looking at some new images of the Staunings Alkps in East Greenland, in what we might refer to as a classic Alpine landscape.  It's heavily glacierized, with no plateau ice caps or snowfields.  Almost all of the snow and ice is found in hollows or depressions, separated by a multitude of sharp peaks, jagged "sawtooth" ridges and pinnacles.  Slopes are very steep, and frost processes dominate in the destruction of bedrock outcrops.  Avalanches and snow bank collapses are frequent.  

This landscape stratches from hoirozon to horizon, and is revealed in all its glory in footage from a low-altitude (5,000m) overflight in a chartered Airbus aircraft, on its way to the North Pole. 

There are thousands of spectacular peaks here, most of them still unclimbed.  But we can understand why the Staunings Alps are now something of a magnet to climbing expeditions........

One thing that I find particularly intriguing is the transition from "alpine country" to "plateau and fjord country" on the northern, western and southern flanks of the mountains.  Look at this photo:

The contrast is staggering -- within a few miles we pass into an old plateau landscape where most of the snow and ice is found on extensive or broken plateaux.  The plateau segments are separated by deep troughs containing outlet glaciers, and there are many places where ice spills over the plateau edge in spectacular "frozen cascades".  

What is the explanation for the differences between these landscapes?  Watch this space.........

Landscape types to the north of Scoresby Sund.  The red line encloses most of the Alpine terrain.

Satellite image of the Staunings Alps / Werner Mountains area