THE BOOK
Some of the ideas discussed in this blog are published in my new book called "The Stonehenge Bluestones" -- available by post and through good bookshops everywhere. Bad bookshops might not have it....
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Saturday 19 March 2011

Judd on the stones of Stonehenge


Following on from my last post, I have scanned in some of the key pages from this 1903 article by Prof Judd, contained within the longer piece by William Gowland.  Judd is particularly concerned about the debris or "debitage" at Stonehenge, and his analysis is remarkable for its time.  He also considers the broader issue of the nature of the standing bluestones and stumps, and discusses the frequency of particular rock types, their possible source areas, and the mode of transport to the site.  He is in no doubt that the stones are glacial erratics, and indeed he makes a persuasive case that there was once a far greater quantity of glacial material in the Stonehenge neighbourhood -- subsequently largely removed through human intervention and (for the softer and more flaky stones at least) through the work of frost, rain and weather in general.  Here are the key pages.  With a bit of luck, if you click on them you will be able to enlarge on your browser.


Given that this article was written a long time ago, we will all part company with Judd on a number of issues, and of course he was not too familiar at the time with either the details of regional geology or the directions of ice movement.   But a remarkable article nonetheless....

See also my older post about Sir Archibald Geikie and the other geologists who were trying to work out ice directions in the period 1895-1905:

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