Boles Barrow, near Heytesbury, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain, in 1979. Much battered by the Army. Was the Boles Barrow bluestone the one that got away?
Referring back to one of my earlier posts:
Geoffrey Kellaway argues strongly that the bluestones which were used in the stone settings at Stonehenge were all stolen or removed from earlier stone settings -- monoliths, dolmens, long barrows -- as part of the Stonehenge enterprise. That would of course accord with the MPP theory of the Bluestonehenge stones being removed (with reverence or irreverence) from that place to Stonehenge itself. Geoff argues that the reason for this "stone stealing" was that the bluestones always were in short supply, and that they never had enough of them to finish the job (whatever that might have been....) Maybe there was a lot of "stone stealing" happening with the sarsens as well......
He thinks the Boles Barrow bluestone was "the one that got away" -- maybe because it was a bit too far from Stonehenge for the builders to bother with. He also thinks there were bluestones (large and small) all over the place, including the Stonehenge neighbourhood, the Cursus, the Boles Barrow area, and Normanton Barrows. He says that Cunnington found a piece of bluestone in the Normanton barrow that had previously been examined by Stukeley. He also reminded us of Cunnington's conclusion that "these pieces (of bluestone) were scattered about on the plain before the erection of the tumuli under which they have been found." Not sure what the stratigraphic evidence for that is -- you would need to find in situ or undisturbed sediments beneath made-up ground with an archaeological identity.
What independent evidence is there that pre-Stonehenge burial mounds / long barrows have been destroyed or interfered with during "stone stealing" excavations?
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