That spectacular article about the Devil's Arrows: six fatal flaws

Brimham Rocks tourist attraction -- somewhere from across a site of around 1.8 sq km, 

they took a sample.........

Satellite image of the Brimham Rocks SSSI, showing rock outcrops 

and the network of paths

The citation:

Clarke, A. C., Leary, J., & Kirkland, C. L. (2026). Deliberate prehistoric sourcing of the Devil's Arrows. Proceedings of the Royal Society A. [rspa.2026.0504].

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspa/article/482/2345/20260504/483254/Deliberate-prehistoric-sourcing-of-the-Devil-s

I have now had a chance to go through this paper in more detail, and to discuss it with other experts.  So here we go.  Let's discuss the technical deficiencies in sampling symmetry, statistical sample density, and logical consistency in provenance attribution.   It's a bit complicated.......

There are serious doubts about the empirical validity and logical framework of the recently published paper by Clarke et al. (2026) regarding the provenance of the four Devil's Arrows monoliths [rspa.2026.0504]. While the application of high-resolution U-Pb isotopic testing on accessory minerals is a welcome addition to archaeological science, a critical examination of the raw data structure and methodological parameters reveals significant vulnerabilities that undermine the paper’s primary conclusions and indeed its spectacular title. The article has been widely promoted via the media, and the record must be set straight.

The peer review process used by editor of this prestigious Royal Society journal has apparently failed to pick up on six severe methodological and logical flaws:

1. Severe Asymmetry in Sampling and Provenance Controls

The paper compares an undocumented, crushed bulk rock sample from a single, prominent modern tourist location (Brimham Rocks SSSI) (Fig. 1) against non-destructive, surface-adhesive "sticky tape" scrapings taken from the heavily weathered faces of three monoliths and the fresher face of another [rspa.2026.0504] (Fig. 2). The authors fail to present any spatial control sampling across the lateral extent of the target stratigraphic layer. We have no idea where the sample came from within the 30m thick sedimentary sequence, or within the SSI which has a surface area of 1.84 sq km. We are not told whether the rock sample represents the upper or lower boundaries of the sequence, or how the mineral concentrations shift vertically through the 30-metre thickness or laterally across the site. This is an absolute failure of scientific protocol. It means the experiment is completely unreproducible.The Kinderscoutian Brimham Grit is a continuous, sprawling sedimentary formation which occurs across c 140 square kilometres of the North Yorkshire Pennines. Because detrital mineral suites reflect continental river systems, the mineral "barcode" match to this formation must apply to the entire regional sheet, not to a singular geographic coordinate (Morton et al., 2005). 

Two of the Devil's Arrows monoliths, from which rock samples were taken with sticky tape.  Yes, you heard that correctly.........

2. Violation of Minimal Grain-Count Statistical Thresholds

To achieve an acceptable 95% to 99% confidence level that minor mineral age populations have not been missed, established sedimentological protocols dictate an absolute minimum of 60 to 117 individual grain analyses per discrete sample (Vermeesch, 2004). While the authors aggregate a total pool of 236 dated zircon grains from the monuments across Figure 3, their comparative breakdowns in Figure 4 expose a fatal lack of data density. The authors split the monument data into two age-segregated sub-panels: a 90-grain subset mapping the deep-time spectrum (500–3500 Ma) and a 146-grain subset mapping the younger spectrum (300–600 Ma) [rspa.2026.0504]. In doing so, they reveal that their primary geographical point-control—the comparison baseline sample for Brimham Rocks—relies on an astonishingly small pool of just 29 grains [rspa.2026.0504]. Attempting to verify an exclusive geographic match to a massive regional sedimentary unit using a sample that fails to reach even half of the industry-accepted minimum threshold is unacceptable.

3. Artificial Variance Dilution via "Phantom" Data Aggregation

Rather than executing a robust point-to-point comparison (individual monolith vs. specific outcrop candidates), the authors combine their low-yield, heterogeneous grain counts into a single, pooled composite "blob” to smooth away internal variance. Furthermore, the Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) diagrams are heavily packed with distal, irrelevant regional "noise" datasets (e.g., Precambrian basement terranes and distinct Triassic strata) [rspa.2026.0504]. This mathematical dilution dramatically compresses the relative variance of the graph, artificially forcing the visually distinct raw histograms of the Arrows and Brimham Rocks into an unrepresentative, close cluster.

4. The Dismissal of the Glacial Transport Option

A fatal flaw of the paper’s internal logic lies in its selective deployment of Late Devensian (LGM) ice-flow models. In the results section, the authors explicitly acknowledge that a literature search yields a lose match between the Devils Arrows samples and the Langsettian sandstones of the Pennine Basin Lower Coal Measures (PLCM) at Binchester Crags [rspa.2026.0504]. They choose to ignore the fact that reconstructed complex ice flow directions (Thorpe and Williams-Thorpe, 1991; Clark et al., 2022) point to a strong possibility of glacial erratic transport from the southern part of County Durham to the Boroughbridge area during several glaciations (Livingstone et al, 2012) (Fig. 3). The Park Farm borehole record, from a site near Boroughbridge, reveals the Vale of York Formation, a glacial diamicton laid down during the Dimlington Stadial and carrying abundant Carboniferous sandstone erratics from the north. But Clarke and his colleagues then use the ice-flow direction map to demonstrate the “impossibility" of glacial erratic transport between Brimham Rocks and the Devils Arrows site, and invoke speculative human transport instead. This demonstrates a powerful and unacceptable bias in their analysis. What is good for the gander must be good for the goose: a model cannot dismiss a statistically superior northern match based on ice direction constraints while simultaneously throwing out those exact same glaciological constraints to protect a highly speculative “human transport" alternative. 

Northern England -- simplified LGM ice directions (after Livingstone et al, 2012).  

Note the complex ice flow swings in the Lower Tees and the upper Vale of York.  Similarly complex oscillations must also have occurred during earlier glacial episodes.

5. The Lack of Evidence for the Human Transport Option

Having discarded the ice-flow model, they invent a highly speculative 11-mile human transport route to explain the presence of the Devil’s Arrows monoliths. They present no evidence in support of the human transport hypothesis but instead cite unproven claims of long distance stone transport from Ireland and Scotland — partly based on citations of their own hotly disputed work on the Stonehenge Altar Stone.

6. Inadequate Zircon Age Analyses

Independent analysis of the zircon age data by a specialist geologist suggests the foillowing: (1) the zircon age pattern for stone 1 looks different from stones 2 and 3 — there is a larger group of Archaean zircons and a difference in the structure in the mid-Proterozoic age range — all suggesting at least two different sources for the monoliths; (2) given that problem, it is not appropriate to merge all the data into a single “representative” sample; (3) there is a good match between the Brimham Rocks sample and the samples from stones 2 and 3, but the Early Palaeozoic group appears bimodal, unlike any of the monoliths; (4) the Plumpton Rock ages do look different; (5) the dismissal of the underlying Sherwood Sandstone Group is premature, based on a marked contrast with the Triassic, but the papers quoted by Clarke et al use samples in the Wessex Basin, over 150 miles away; (6) the most important point to emerge from this new analysis is that a number of other published data sets do not look very different from Brimham Rocks. For example, a Marsdenian sample looks very similar to Stone 1, and Yeadonian, Rough Rock N and S samples are not dramatically different to Stones 2 and 3. It must also be borne in mind that there are extensive outcrops of Millstone Grit that have never been analysed by zircon specialists. In summary, the conclusions of Clarke et al are highly questionable in terms of the zircon data.

Conclusion

Ultimately, the central thesis of this paper rests on a suspect, shifting statistical strategy. The authors choose to aggregate data when they need to mask individual sample failures, throwing low-yield, weathered monument surface grains into a collective "phantom blob" to fake a robust, unified monument profile [rspa.2026.0504]. Conversely, they choose to split data when they need to disguise a visual mismatch, slicing the continuous age spectrum into separate sub-panels to hide an unviable control sample size [rspa.2026.0504]. This dynamic manipulation allows the authors to bend a chaotic geological footprint to fit a pre-packaged public relations narrative. By substituting tactical statistical smoothing for rigorous field controls and geomorphological fieldwork, they have published a localized point-source attribution that completely collapses under basic sedimentological review.

Thus Clarke et al. have confirmed that the Devil's Arrows have probably come from a Carboniferous deltaic sandstone sheet [rspa.2026.0504], as previously suspected. However, the data presented is statistically incapable of pinpointing a precise geographic source or ruling out local glacial transport from the extensive northwestern outcroppings of that same layer or from the PLCM formation that provides a better match.

It is vital that published conclusions remain strictly bound to their empirical evidence. The authors of this deeply flawed paper must provide a formal clarification, displaying their raw, unaggregated individual monolith histograms side-by-side against a true, non-diluted matrix of Pennine Basin gritstone candidates. Only when they sample for like-for-like similarities and differences across a large range of localities can they expect their work to be taken seriously.

If the authors cannot provide the data requested, I consider that the paper should be retracted.

References

Clark, C. D., et al, BRITICE-CHRONO Consortium. (2022). Growth and retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet, 31 000 to 15 000 years ago: The BRITICE‐CHRONO reconstruction. Boreas, 51(4), 699–758.

Clarke, A., Leary, J., & Kirkland, C. (2026). Deliberate prehistoric sourcing of the Devil's Arrows, Britain's tallest stone row. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 482(2345), 20260504. [rspa.2026.0504].

Livingstone, S.J., Evans, D.J.A., Cofaigh, C.O. et al. (2012) Glaciodynamics of the central sector of the last British-Irish Ice Sheet in Northern England. Earth Science Reviews, 111 (1-2). 25 - 55. ISSN: 0012-8252

Morton, A., Hallsworth, C., & Moscariello, A. (2005). Stratigraphic evolution of Carboniferous sandstones in the Pennine Basin: Heavy mineral provenance constraints. Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society, 55(3), 163–185.

Thorpe, R.S., Williams-Thorpe, O..(1991) The myth of long-distance megalith transport. Antiquity 65, 64–73.(doi:10.1017/S0003598X00079308)

Vermeesch, P. (2004). How many grains are needed for a detrital zircon age spectrum? Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 224(3-4), 441–451.

Williams-Thorpe, O., Potts, P. J., & Thorpe, R. S. (1999). The provenance of archaeological gritstone monoliths in northern England: A geochemical approach. Journal of Archaeological Science, 26(2), 145–161.

Clarke and Kirkland: sampling chaos and statistical manipulation as substitutes for sound science

Three recent studies by Anthony Clarke, Chris Kirkland and colleagues regarding prehistoric megaliths in Britain have faced significant criticism from geologists and archaeologists due to compromised geological sampling protocols and sensationalized claims. Their basic problem is a lack of field research and a consequent over-reliance on statistical data manipulation. I have already been strongly critical of their work on this blog, but by briefly evaluating each study separately we can highlight methodological shortcomings ranging from the use of commercial rock shop samples to unverified adhesive-tape rock surface sampling.

1. The Altar Stone Paper (August 2024)

Full Reference: Clarke, A., Uysal, I. T., Kempe, D. R. C., Drost, K., Ixer, R. A., Bevins, R. E., ... & Kirkland, C. L. (2024). A Scottish provenance for the Altar Stone of Stonehenge. Nature, 632, 570–575.

Analysis: The study claims the 6-tonne Altar Stone at Stonehenge originated in the Orcadian Basin of northeast Scotland rather than Wales, implying transport over 750 kilometres. Critics point out that the authors relied on convenience sampling of museum archival fragments and hand-specimens purchased from a commercial rock shop in Whitby rather than core samples taken within adedicated field research programme. Furthermore, a coherent Scottish match was allegedly achieved only by artificially pooling disparate datasets to smooth out local geological variations. There is an ongoing debate with Nash and Ciborowski on the significance, or otherwise, of the research.


2. The Salisbury Plain Sediments Paper (January 2026)

Full Reference: Clarke, A., Kirkland, C. L., et al. (2026). Detrital mineral fingerprinting of Salisbury Plain drainage systems: Constraints on the glacial transport of Stonehenge megaliths. Journal of Quaternary Science.

Analysis: This research analyzed microscopic mineral grains from southern English riverbeds to argue that ancient glaciers never reached Stonehenge, thereby reinforcing human transport theories relating to the bluestones in particular. Methodological critiques focus on the decision to take bulk samples from just four modern, active riverbed sediments—which continuously shift and erode—to reconstruct deep-time geological and glacial activity. Treating dynamic 21st-century river sandbanks as a pristine archive of ancient glacial movement introduces fundamental geomorphological errors.


3. The Devil's Arrows Paper (September 2026)

Full Reference: Clarke, A., Leary, J., & Kirkland, C. L. (2026). Deliberate prehistoric sourcing of the Devil's Arrows, Britain's tallest stone row. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 482(2345), 20260504.

Analysis: The paper asserts that Neolithic builders hauled Britain's tallest standing stones 18 kilometres from Brimham Rocks while intentionally bypassing identical closer outcrops. Lacking permission for core drilling, the researchers employed an experimental protocol of pressing adhesive tape onto the exterior of the megaliths for five minutes to gather surface grains. Critics argue this captures weathered outer crusts contaminated by atmospheric dust and biofilms rather than un-weathered bedrock, compounded by an absence of precise GPS coordinates or replication data. They then committed the fundamental error of comparing their standing stone data with the data from a 1 kg bulk rock sample collected from somewhere on Brimhan Crags.

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Here we have three textbook cases of extreme cavalier disregard for scientific protocol. However, because these studies were paired with aggressive media campaigns to announce spectacular "discoveries," this disregard crosses the line from simple carelessness into a profound breach of scientific ethics. We can recognize three corrupting behaviors:

Gross Methodological Recklessness: Deploying an entirely unproven field method (adhesive tape) on a scheduled monument, failing to document the exact sample locations with photos or grid references, and relying on commercial rock shops and dusty museum samples as baseline proxies isn't just cutting corners. It is a reckless abandonment of the basic data-gathering standards required to make any scientific claim verifiable.

Weaponised Sensationalism: By rushing to feed these spectacular, headline-grabbing narratives to the global press before their fragile, unproven methods could be independently scrutinized or replicated by the wider geological community, the authors used media hype to bypass standard scientific scepticism.

The Deceptive Illusion of Precision: Presenting highly speculative conclusions derived from corrupt, unrepresentative data—like surface dust, modern river sand, and unverified museum scraps—as "precise, high-tech breakthroughs" creates a deeply misleading illusion of certainty. It actively misleads both the public and the academic community.

I wouldn't mind betting that here are more dodgy papers on the way........... and more banner headlines in the media.

While it may not technically meet the legal definition of data fabrication, treating legally protected national monuments as experimental playgrounds for media attention—while ignoring the absolute baseline rules of field documentation and sample collection —is an unforgivable failure of scientific accountability.

How to build a stone circle

 

The 1975 / 1976 Gorsedd Circle at Netpool, Cardigan

The Gorsedd Circle dating from 1975 for the proclamation of the 1976 Eisteddfod,  now installed at Netpool, Cardigan.  The tall stone nearest to the camera is the only one that stands over 2m.  All the stones are dolerites.

I rather like this Gorsedd Circle, erected first of all at Brondesbury Park in 1975 for the proclamation of the 1976 Cardigan National Eisteddfod, and then moved in 1995 to its present site at Netpool -- a stone's throw from the River Teifi.  It's set in a verdany public park, with adjacent parking, very close to the town's largest cemetery.

There are 11 stones and one inlier, set around a central group of large recumbent stones at the "node".  Thbiggest slab is called the Maen Llog or Logan Stone.  The inlier stone is due east of the circle centre, creating an approximate alignment with the rising sun at the midsummer solstice.  This is all part of the formula invented by Iolo Morgannwg many moons ago.

The Maen Llog at the centre of the circle, used for ceremonials involving the Gorsedd bards and the druids.

As for the stones themselves, they are all igneous, and all appear to be dolerites.  One or two are spotted, but the majority are not.  We have to assume that they originated on Preseli, but I have not been able to access infon as to the actual location.  I imagine that they will not have been taken from the common, but from land belonging to a friendly farmer -- most likely on the north flank of the upland.

The circle is made from a weird and wacky assortment of stones, all except one under 2m tall.  It's rather appealing because of its sheer eccentricity!  the shapes are irregulat blocks rather than tall pillars or slabs.  I am sutrre they have just been picked up from recumbent positions either in hedge banks or in stony ground.  Most surfaces are heavily weathered and most edges are heavily abraded, so this speaks of some glacial transport and long exposure to the elements.  There are some surfaces which are very fresh -- caused by breakage during collection and transport. On some stones you can see changes in the surface patina that must have coincided with ground level where stones were partly buried or embedded in till or surface soil.  There are abundant deep gouges and chain marks on nearly all the stones -- the result iof rough treatment by mechanical diggers and otherc machines employed during stone collection.

Serious damage was done to this stone during collection.  Note the machinery scars on the left face: these are notv very fresh, suggesting damage many years ago when the stone may have been dragged from an inconvenient poosition and set into a hedge.  Note that on the same face we can see the old ground level.

The most colourful stone in the circle.

On this stone, two faces with differing degrees of weathering.  There is comprehensive machinery damage; some of the grooves and scars are old, and some are new, suggesting at least two phases of stone movement.

Another stone which is heavily abraded, probably by ice action. Again there is heavy surface damage from machinery.  The lower part of the stone has previously been embedded in the ground somewhat more deeply.

It's somewhat ironiv that Iolo Morgannwg, in laying out the rules for Gorsedd Circles, specified that the stones used should be "unhewn" -- so as to remain uncontaminated through contact with iron.   But all of these stones have been seriously bashed about by heavy machinery........  that's progress for you.

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

The definitive guide to the modern Gorsedd Circles of Wales:

https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/18th-and-19th-century-stone-circles/gorsedd-circles/

Michael Freeman has done great work on this, and his beautifully illustrated blog is well worth a visit.

Seec also:

https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/18th-and-19th-century-stone-circles/gorsedd-circles/list-of-gorsedd-circles/

The preposterous pretence of precision provenancing

The Brimham Grit formation crops out across an estimated 150 sq km of countryside, covered in part by glacial deposits.  Then we have the Lower Coal Measures................  

 I am more and more intrigued by the apparent obsession -- on the part of assorted geologists and archaeologists -- with taking a lump of stone from an archaeological context and claiming to have found the exact location, to within a few square metres, of the spot from which it was taken   I choose my words carefully -- because there is an underlying assumption that said lump of stone must have been selected and fetched by human beings at its place of origin and then carried across land or sea to its final resting place.  Underpinning this assumption is the belief that naturally transported stones (such as glacial erratics) were somehow deemed inadequate, and that the fetching of the stone from a faraway location was a superior activity within the Neolithic belief system.  All very weird when we consider that in glaciated parts of Northern Europe burial chambers and stone settings generally were always made of glacial erratics if they were available and from broken bedrock slabs and pillars if they were close at hand -- as at Callanish.   But nobody carried stones across country for great distances, as pointed out many years ago by Geoffrey Kellaway, Stephen Briggs, Olwen Williams-Thorpe and others.  There is no sign at all that glacial erratics were considered inferior for megalithic building projects. Indeed, we can make a case that they were more highly valued than "quarried" stones:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2026/08/the-special-status-of-unhewn-rocks-and.html

And yet Parker Pearson, Ixer, Bevins, Clarke and many others persist with their illogical conviction that monoliths needed to be FETCHED in order to be deemed useful.

All this comes sharply into focus because of the latest offering from Clarke et al on the origins of the Devils Arrows stones.  I was forcefully reminded of how easy it is to sell an idea through the careful choice of the method you choose for the portrayal of your data.  As I have mentioned in another post, their basic problem is a lack of data.  That may sound strange, given that the article looks hugely impressive, packed with technical complexities, tables and graphic representations.  But in attempting to assign an origin to the megaliths in question, they have only ONE serious "candidate" sampling point -- Brimham Rocks.  On that basis alone, the article should be laughed out of court.  But let's look at their Figure 6, which is a "multidimensional scaling plot" based on 60 comparative data sets.

Deliberate prehistoric sourcing of the Devil's Arrows, Britain's tallest stone row Open Access
Anthony Clarke, Jim Leary, Chris Kirkland, Proc. R. Soc. A (2026) 482 (2345): 20260504 .
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2026.0504

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspa/article/482/2345/20260504/483254/Deliberate-prehistoric-sourcing-of-the-Devil-s

The Devils Arrows "field" or blob on the map  is an artifice -- it appears to be an aggregate obtained by amalgamating the sample results from the 4 monoliths.  So it is a phantom.  It does not represent any of the real world monoliths.   This is completely unacceptable in an article that purports to have discovered that monoliths A, B, C and D have all come from point source E.  Statistical manipulation gone mad.

The authors of this paper have not demonstrated that the 4 sampled monoliths that constitute the Devil's Arrows have actually come from the same place.  Three of the sampled monoliths are incorporated into Fig 3A, but there is no trace of sample 4. It might be wildly different from samples 1, 2 and 3, or it might look rather similar.  But it is incorporated into an amalgamated sample anyway.  That is completely unacceptable.  The number of grains analysed (total 146) is also unacceptably low for a study of this type. 

Another fundamental flaw in this study relates to sampling methods.  The samples for the 4 monoliths were taken with sticky tape, which introduces a massive bias that should have been spelt out.  At best each sample should be spelt out as being "partially representative" of the real world situation.  This might have been acceptable if the Brimham Crags sample had been taken in the same way.  But we learn that the the sample from this potential source area was taken from a whole rock sample knocked off a bedrock outcrop (no actual location provided) and weighing c 1 kg.  So you are not comparing like with like. No matter what statistical wizardry you employ in your defence, this invalidates the whole study.  On this basis alone, the study should have been rejected outright by the publishers.

Figure 3A looks very impressive, but we have no idea how similar, or how different, the 3 chosen samples look when seen alongside samples taken in the same way from comparative or control sites. To make matters worse, later in the paper, these sticky tape sample results are compared with multiple samples analysed by Andrew Morton and others from across the Millstone Grit and Coal Measures outcrops which were NOT sticky tape samples.  Again, unacceptable.

In Figure 4C the authors claim that "Zircon concordia ages older than 510Ma showing shared peaks between these datasets and divergence from Plumpton Rocks, supporting a Brimham Rocks source." The visual match is not very close at all -- you do not need a computer to tell you that.  And because there is a poor match with a "straw man" sample (Plumpton Rocks), that does nothing whatsoever to strengthen the claim of a Brimham Rocks source.  That's a bizarre and utterly biased interpretation of what the diagram shows.

Brimham Rocks -- spectacular, but that does not mean it was a source for distant monoliths

Back to Figure 6.  The extra data sets portrayed on the diagram were of course carefully chosen from the literature. The scale of the graphic representation is very small, with the samples for Brimham Rocks and the Devils Arrows shown close together in the middle. The closest match to the Devils Arrows is not Brimham Rocks but a sample from the Pennine Basin Lower Coal Measures, in an article by Morton et al, 2024. (This is a Langsettian sandstone  from the Pennine Basin Lower Coal Measures at Binchester Crags, approximately 70 km to the north.)  But there is no proper discussion of this as a possible source for the Devils Arrows, apart from a cursory dismissal on the grounds that the Late Devensian or LGM ice flow directions were not deemed suitable for ice transport.  Again this is completely unacceptable, since as the authors acknowledge, erratic monoliths might have been moved multiple times during a number of glacial episodes. 

Thorpe RS, Williams-Thorpe O.1991  The myth of long-distance megalith transport.  Antiquity 65, pp 64–73.   (doi:10.1017/S0003598X00079308)

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/myth-of-longdistance-megalith-transport/F16F6E44F8B8E1040E705748E4DCF9D0

 

If we eliminate all the "noise" from this graphic representation, and use a large scale instead of a small one, we see that Brimham Rocks is NOT a perfect match, and on this basis alone the authors should have undertaken much more comprehensive sampling across outcrops of both the lower Coal Measures and the Kinderscoutian Brimham Grit  to the north and west.

It's all too easy to forget, in this obsessive hunt for precise provenances, that in nature we have continuums and gradations and not neatly packaged boxes of rocks that can be given different labels.  Obviously, in our search for order and in the quest for knowledge, we do use labels (sandstone, limestone, dolerite, rhyolite etc) but the parameters that we use are man-made artifices, including all the units of measurement, and there are endless gradations between one rock type and another.  Hence the debate between me and Ixer and Bevins about the number of rock types represented in the Stonehenge erratic assemblage.

One of the big lessons I took away from my doctorate research in West Wales in 1962-65 (on the Quaternary sediments and glacial chronology of North Pembrokeshire)  is that it is easy to create labels -- Irish Sea till, Lower Head, Upper Head, Raised Beach, Blown Sand etc -- but remarkably difficult in the field to identify these strata because the gradations are so subtle.  I spent hundreds of hours in the lab weighing, drying, sampling, sieving, and identifying stone shapes and sizes so that I could convince others that I knew what I was talking about, but I knew that the methods I chose for the representation of my results were those that best suited my purpose.  But I had to be prepared to face the challenges of others, not least in a long face-to-face scrutiny session with my examiners.

One of my triangular plots from 1965, showing particle size distributions for key sediment types in the Quaternary succession in North Pembrokeshire.  The labels are of course subjective and arbitrary, and there are overlaps and gradations everywhere........ 

One of my triangular plots from 1965, showing the particle size distributions. No statistical manipulation.   Useful, but what the plots show is that nature is very messy......

Map of glacial and related deposits around Rhos-y-Clegyrn.  A lot of fieldwork went into this, but the boundaries are invisible in the real world, and are at best educated guesses.  You cannot sample every square meter of territory, or improve reliability by statistical manipulation.

When I was trying to demonstrate the particle size distributions of samples from different stratigraphic units I used triangular diagrams, and indeed they did show considerable lithologiocal differences between Irish Sea Till,  fluvioglacial and other deposits......... But while nature is very organized and obeys the laws of physics, to us it often appears disorganized;  and within the Irish Sea till group of exposures there were some samples with an unusually high content of gravels, and within the fluvioglacial group there were some samples with a high clay content.  The same variability is found within solid rock formations, and it is thus very frustrating when Clarke et al claim to have represented the Brimham Grit after collecting just one sample.  That sample might just be wildly unrepresentative, and a much better match might be found elsewhere.

If somebody was to present me with a 2 kg bag of Irish Sea Till and ask me to tell them where it comes from, my response would be "Man, you must be joking...."

We do not know everything about everywhere.  The claims by Ixer and Bevins to have found the precise source for the Stonehenge spotted dolerites at Carn Goedog and and for certain Stonehenge foliated rhyolite fragments at Craig Rhosyfelin are simply absurd, since they have no idea where the same rock types may exist in the unsampled landscape. Besides, they have never produced any perfect matches.

Precision provenancing is a fantasy, sold to the media and a gullible public by academics who should know better.

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

PS.  Of course, the fatal flaw in the MPP narrative and the Ixer / Bevins provenancing work is that it is all based on a single premise -- namely that the glacial transport of the bluestones is unsupported by any field evidence, and that it therefore could not and did not happen.  The premise is false.  Glacial transport was perfectly possible and indeed probable, given the wide range of supporting evidence presented in the literature.

The Archdruid of UCL

The Archdruid of UCL: Mike Parker Pearson and the Neolithic Gorsedd of Bards


For over half a century, the mainstream archaeological establishment has treated the ghost of 18th-century antiquarianism with steadfast derision. Generations of university students have been taught to laugh at William Stukeley and John Aubrey for looking at Stonehenge and for inventing a romantic "Druidic Temple." We have been told, with immense scientific gravity, that the Iron Age Druids lived thousands of years after the stones were erected, and that any talk of a secretive, white-robed, elite intellectual class possessing "sacred knowledge" of the stones is nothing but a modern, fabricated delusion.

Fast forward to four years ago, when Parker Pearson initiated and drove a multi-disciplinary paleoenvironmental investigation in the Preseli Hills, fully expecting the pollen cores to rubber-stamp his grand "Exodus Theory”. He needed the pollen analysis and other data to show that West Wales was “emptied” around 3000 BC, proving that the local population had packed up their stone circles and marched off to Wiltshire with them. Instead, objective science did what it should do: it refused to print the script. The pollen analyses came back showing unbroken agricultural and pastoral continuity [Spencer et al., 2025]. The people didn't leave. They stayed put, farming their fields, grazing their livestock and putting up assorted megalithic structures such as burial chambers, straight through the 3000 BC horizon. Further, the environmental data proved that the lowland valleys were choked with a dense primary deciduous swamp-forest that would instantly defeat any overland stone-transporting convoy.

This story of stability and slow evolution is essentially what we already know from the work of Darvill and Wainwright and from the painstaking record keeping with regard to West Wales archaeological sites by Dyfed Archaeology.

The language used in the article by Spencer et al is extraordinary, desperately incorporating multiple gratuitous references to Stonehenge, stone quarries and stone transport and throwing in so many unfounded assumptions and speculations that the integrity of the study is seriously compromised. That’s a pity, since the basic science seems quite sound and even important.

What we now see is that Professor MPP,  in a series of increasingly bizarre sociological pivots, has inadvertently resurrected the spirit of Iolo Morganwg. To save his human-transport dogma from the unyielding realities of Quaternary geomorphology and palynology, he has been forced to invent an invisible, multi-regional, prehistoric elite secret society.

So, faithful blog followers, welcome to the Neolithic Gorsedd of Bards.

Because he cannot abandon the human-transport narrative without discrediting a vast output of academic publications, MPP has had to  rewrite the social structure of the Neolithic. Moving the stones is no longer a broad, communal, societal migration involving a whole tribal society. Instead, it has been re-interpreted as an exclusive, top-down corporate enterprise involving a select few, driven by powerful leaders who used public symbols to impress and manipulate the masses. We are not talking about tribal chieftains and the ruling class; we are talking about something much more subtle involving belief, not strength or power.

According to this new narrative, this highly specialized, elite lineage of prehistoric project managers and logistics experts—also possessing some esoteric knowledge of ancestral connections—somehow held the absolute political and spiritual authority to command delegations of workers to commute across Britain to build Stonehenge, leaving the regular peasantry back in Wales to tend the cattle.

It’s more complex than that, since MPP now seems to be suggesting that 80 bluestones were passed from one community to another in a sort of megelithic relay (like the one that carries the Olympic flame) through dozens of different tribal territories over many generations. If true, this must have required an immense bureaucratic machine, with a high level of managed infrastructure, enforcement, and policing. There would have been permanent or seasonal base camps along the route to house, feed, and manage thousands of labourers. But MPP faces a problem. There is absolutely no trace of any such infrastructure along the proposed coastal or overland routes between Pembrokeshire and Wiltshire. The archaeological record shows nothing but scattered, normal domestic debris from local farming and hunting as people went about their humdrum daily lives.

The MPP hypothesis depends on a "pan-British alliance" where different communities willingly cooperated or were forced by this mysterious "elite" to haul heavy stones for a distant monument they would likely never see. But tribal societies are notoriously territorial and protective of their resources. To suggest that dozens of decentralized, independent communities along the Bristol Channel or Welsh borders blindly submitted to some outside elite who wanted them to act as a transport service defies everything we know about tribalism and human behaviour. There is no evidence of any Neolithic organization capable of enforcing such back-breaking labor across tribal lines.

It is one thing to imagine a single tribal community bringing a "prestige stone" as a one-off diplomatic gift. It is a completely different story to coordinate the movement of 80 bluestone boulders of assorted shapes and sizes. The logistical nightmare of scheduling, labor rotation, food supply, and boat/sledge maintenance for a continuous multi-stone conveyor belt would rival the logistics of the Roman Empire. Yet, we are asked to believe this was orchestrated by a ghost elite who left behind nothing but modest traces of their habitations, assorted small stone settings on burial sites, and simple pottery in West Wales.

By framing this gigantic enterprise as a "unification project", the narrative uses comforting, modern metaphors to mask a total vacuum of physical evidence. When you strip away the storytelling, the sheer lack of administrative and material traces proves that the "grand relay" is a logistical fantasy simply and rather blatantly designed to keep the human-transport theory alive.

If this sounds familiar, it should. It is the blueprint of the Gorsedd of Bards, dreamt up out of thin air in 1792 by Iolo Morganwg (Edward Williams). Iolo, a brilliant stonemason and romantic myth-maker, forged "ancient Druidic triads" and constructed an imaginary, elite intellectual class who held sacred control over the landscape's stones and who kept alive their language and cultural traditions. Similarly, the British Druid Order and the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (1964) are neo-druidic groups whose origins go back no further than the early 20th Century. The Ancient Order of Druids was established in 1781. See Cusack 2012 for a fascinating history of the relationship between Druidism and Stonehenge……..

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259926084_Charmed_Circle_Stonehenge_Contemporary_Paganism_and_Alternative_Archaeology

In modern Druidism, the Ovates are responsible for "calling the Ancestors" -- and MPP seems to be assuming this function on the part of his stone-moving Neolithic elite.  They are the "walkers between worlds," delivering prayers or invocations to the spirits of the land and the ancestors who walked it before.   In the good old days they would of course have known about the spirits of the ancestors embodied or buried within certain sacred stones...........

Back to the stones. The comedy turns to farce when MPP attempts to explain how this Neolithic Gorsedd actually moved the bluestones through a dense, primeval forest without leaving a single sledge track, broken or abandoned stone, or cleared route through the forest. His current working hypothesis is that the stones were lifted onto simple wooden lattices and physically carried on the shoulders of scores of men.

Let’s apply a basic, common-sense cost-benefit analysis to this engineering proposition. Let’s say that a standard bluestone weighs around 3 tonnes. To build a timber grid or "stretcher" rigid enough to bear a concentrated load of this size without instantly snapping across the middle, you cannot use light saplings. You need thick, seasoned oak trunks configured into a structural, cross-braced frame.

By the time you build a timber apparatus large enough to distribute that weight across 80 or 100 carrying positions, the wooden lattice itself would weigh up to 2 or 3 tons. it is no longer simple, but highly complex. The elite Druidic commuters (or their slaves or faithful followers) wouldn’t just be carrying the stone; they would be carrying an additional dead-weight of timber that effectively doubled the load. Combine that with the ergonomic nightmare of packing dozens of men shoulder-to-shoulder on rough, hummocky and boggy terrain, where a single trip or misstep by one carrier triggers a catastrophic domino effect, and the "carrying lattice" exposes itself as a structural absurdity.

When antiquarians and modern Druidic groups erect man-made replica stone circles for the National Eisteddfod, they are practicing a recognized, modern, romantic tradition. We can call it the ultimate form of institutional pageantry. All perfectly harmless……

The MPP research team has boxed itself into a corner. Those involved are willing to violate the fundamental laws of engineering, human biomechanics, and their own funded environmental data rather than admit a simple geological truth: Neolithic builders were essentially pragmatists and opportunists. They didn't need a secret society to conquer Wales or Scotland or to unify a vast array of different tribal groups with their own cultural traditions and preferences. In the real world they simply gathered a mixed, heterogeneous assortment of stones that an ancient glacier had already dropped either on the undulating chalk terrain of Salisbury Plain or very close to it.

Occam’s Razor rules. As Hitchens and Sagan have said with reference to all scientific work, if you want to propose extraordinary and eccentric events or intentions, you must at the same time present incredibly powerful and incontrovertible supporting evidence. This applies to hypotheses relating to Neolithic culture, just as it applies to everything else. Such evidence is entirely missing, and the narrative can therefore be dismissed out of hand.

So where does the Archdruid of UCL go next in his campaign to invent yet more bizarre Neolithic behaviour and to disempower the earth sciences? A Neolithic Eisteddfod with the Preseli Male Voice Choir winning a famous choral competition, cheered on by family and friends? The re-establishment of the REALLY ANCIENT Order of British Druids? A nice little cult, with the Archdruid at its centre? But don’t we have that already, in all but name?

NOTE

“The vast literature on Stonehenge offers the widest conceivable range of answers, or guesses. Various authors have attributed it to the Phoenicians, Romans, Danes, Saxons, Celtic Druids, British aborigines, Brahmins, Egyptians, Chaldeans, and even . . . the Red Indians, Giants, dwarves and supernatural forces, Atlanteans and extra-terrestrials. It has been called a temple, an observatory, a memorial, a parliament, a necropolis, an orrery, a stone-age computer, and much besides. One might almost suppose that it was specifically designed to accommodate every notion that could possible be projected onto it. For at Stonehenge no antiquarian cause is ever finally lost.” John Michell

REFERENCE

Carole Cusack . 2012. Charmed Circle: Stonehenge, Contemporary Paganism, and Alternative ArchaeologyJanuary 2012 Numen 59(2-3):138-155

DOI: 10.2307/23244956

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

 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259926084_Charmed_Circle_Stonehenge_Contemporary_Paganism_and_Alternative_Archaeology

The Devil's Arrows: more smoke and mirrors from Clarke and Co

Natural rectangular gritstone blocks in the woods at Brimham Rocks

Brimham Rocks -- a tourist hot spot........

I may not be a technical wizard, but after many years of scrutinizing papers in many different fields I know when I am confronted by pseudo-science, and I know how to ask the fundamental question: Are the conclusions reached in the paper on the desk (or on the screen) justified by the evidence presented?

Well, I have been taking a quick look at this new article, just published with a good deal of marketing hype and gullible media coverage:

Deliberate prehistoric sourcing of the Devil's Arrows, Britain's tallest stone row Open Access
Anthony Clarke,  Jim Leary,  Chris Kirkland,  Proc. R. Soc. A (2026) 482 (2345): 20260504 .
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2026.0504

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspa/article/482/2345/20260504/483254/Deliberate-prehistoric-sourcing-of-the-Devil-s

I will come back to it with a more detailed discussion, but these are my initial thoughts.

1. Stratigraphic Continuity & Sampling Overreach

The paper conflates an extensive sedimentary feature—the Kinderscoutian Brimham Grit—with a prominent modern landmark (Brimham Rocks) .

The authors have failed to run control samples across the full lateral extent of the formation, meaning that they cannot mathematically distinguish the famous crag (or crags) from either prominent or unspectacular outcrops or  strata many miles away which are now buried beneath glacial deposits.

Sampling of the Brimham Grit was restricted to a single location -- a prominent, easily accessible tourist viewpoint, substituting modern human landscape perceptions and preferences for a rigorous sampling programme.

2. Glacial Dynamics Blind Spot.     

The authors appear to be completely naive about the processes of glacial entrainment.  Their simplistic ice-flow objections assume glaciers must have plucked stones from the modern topographic 

high points such as Brimham Rocks.

The Brimham Grit is mapped by BGS across an extensive area  to the west and northwest of Boroughbridge, sitting directly in the path of Devensian ice flowing south and east through the Dales margins. Ice flow during earlier glaciations will not have been significantly different.

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/517034/1/Brimham%20field%20guide.pdf

The Vale of York is a thoroughly documented glacial depositional zone; the paper fails to demonstrate that streaming ice cannot have entrained the Devil's Arrows and other prominen gritstone blocks and dropped them nearby as convenient erratics.

3. Visual and Statistical Disconnect Histogram Mismatch: 

In spite of the claims in the paper, the raw, unmanipulated zircon age histograms presented look visibly distinct to the naked eye, indicating different physical proportions of mineral grains.

Further, there is statistical masking; the multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) models are highly susceptible to being flooded with irrelevant regional "noise" data (e.g., distant Scottish or Southern English formations), which artificially dilutes local variance to force a tight, artificial cluster match.

Finally, the paper relies on the technique of "telling rather than showing," claiming there are no better matches in the region without actually showing us the evidence accumulated over the years by Andrew Morton and other heavy mineral specialists.

I don't know the field, but it seems to me that the papers by Andrew Morton and his co-authors (in classic papers mapping the heterogeneous sediment routing of the Pennine Basin) are strictly used as "decorative authority".   Clarke and his colleagues are saying "We know the literature.  Trust us....."  Other authorities are cited generically in the introduction to establish that "the detrital zircon spectra of siliciclastic rocks across the Pennine Basin are highly heterogeneous", giving this paper a veneer of geological respectability.  However, when it comes to the actual analysis, Clarke et al completely sidestep the profound implications of previous research. Instead of meaningfully confronting it, they treat it with disdain.

All in all, this is extremely poor science from a team which is getting an unfortunate reputation for making spectacular claims on the basis of very limited fieldwork and totally inadequate sampling protocols. This is the third highly controversial paper from  the Australian "Curtin University school" of geo-archaeology—led by Dr Anthony Clarke and Professor Chris Kirkland.  Their high-profile papers, including the Stonehenge Altar Stone Scottish origin study (Nature, 2024), the Salisbury Plain stream sediment study (Communications Earth & Environment, 2026), and now the Devil's Arrows paper (Proceedings of the Royal Society A, 2026), tend to dazzle the media, and parts of the academic community, because of their high-tech nature.  

Clarke and Kirkland have access to some of the world's most advanced LA-ICP-MS (Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) equipment at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. When a paper is packed with complex U-Pb isotopic data, core geochemistry, and mineral-scale physics, it creates an intimidating "black box." Archaeology peer-reviewers often lack the highly specialized geochronological background to dispute the numbers, assuming that spectacular machine precision equals geological accuracy.  Instead of publishing in strict, traditional field-geology journals (where regional specialists would immediately question stratigraphic continuity or lateral lithological variations), they target high-impact, multi-disciplinary, or rapid-communication journals (such as Nature, and Royal Society Proceedings). These platforms prioritize groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting narratives and spectacular "discoveries" over cautious, regional field mapping.  And they don't come cheap for those who do not have a publishing budget to tap into............ 

Pedestal at Brimham Rocks

So, to conclude:

Clarke et al have shown quite effectively that the stones referred to as a group called the Devil's Arrows have probably come from the Kinderscoutian gritstone in the Millstone Grit group.  They have NOT shown that the tall standing stones came from the same precise location -- namely Brimham Rocks.

They have NOT shown that the standing stones were transported by human beings.

They have NOT shown that glacial transport was impossible.

They have NOT ruled out multiple other locations to the west and north-west of Boroughbridge from which the stones might originally have been transported by ice.

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

PS.  More detailed analysis of the paper is contained within this post:

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1228690739485734684/7410705160202181000

PPS.  The extraordinary rock formations at Brimham Rocks lie within a designated SSSI and stretch across  several sq km of land now managed by the National Trust.  Because of the grotesque shapes of the pillars, pedestals and perched blocks there are -- perhaps inevitably -- assorted ancient tales of ghosts, spirits and weird activities on the part of the druids. Almoist 1 km south of the rocks, on Hartwith Moor, there is a single standing stone on Standing Stone Hill.  It's massive and rather intimidating -- bulky rather than tall.  It seems to have been erected precisely where found -- there is no reason to assume it was taken by humans from the Brimham Rocks outcrops.  It could be a glacial erratic.

The "druidical connection" at Brimham Rocks may of course have stimulated the interest of Clarke and his fellow authors..........