Thanks to Tony for alerting me to this little radio report:
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/documentary-podcast-achill-henge-stonehenge-mayo-ireland.html
Achill Henge is starting to get popular. Just over 12 minutes of wonderful radio......... and three cheers for Joe!
18 comments:
what happened to the Bluestone moving experiment this year?
They called me all excited about it starting in August but I've heard nothing since.
PeteG
Sunk without a trace??
Bottom of Milford Haven harbour?
They could not get any geologist to talk to them I hear.
M
Not sure that they even tried. Maybe, when they realised that people had their beady eyes on them, and that there was more than one side to the story, they lost interest?
I understand that Colin Richards is currently conducting an excavation at Carn Turne in the Preselis, if I heard the name correctly. The name is familiar; no doubt it may well be mentioned in Figgis' fairly recent book on Preseli's archaeology.
Now find that it's correct name is GARN Turne. To quote MPP's new book [page 331]:-
"From earlier periods there are larger megaliths, both in Britain and northern Franve. In Pembrokeshire, south of Preseli, a collapsed portal dolmen at Garn Turne [meaning, please?] supports a massive capstone wighing about 60 tons; it may actually have collapsed the tomb's chamber when it was hauled on top of it from its quarry about 100 metres away."
I see Brian gave some credit to Colin's work there in his later notes about THAT talk at Newport last Autumn following excavations etc.
What's this about the Garn Turne capstone being hauled from a quarry about a hundred metres away? What is the evidence for that? All those who have looked at Garn Turne say that the 60 tonne bock has simply been levered up and used in situ -- or that the burial chamber was simply dug out underneath the big recumbent block. That was the impression I got when I listened to Colin Richards talking about it last year.
By the way, my earlier post is here:
Oops -- went missing!
http://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/recumbent-stone-circles.html
Thanks, Brian - I just tracked down your earlier post independently through the wonders of Google.
Do you know what "Garn Turne" means, out of interest?
There are some very good shots of views of,and from, Garn Turne, at:-
http://www.landscape-perception.com/preseli.html
.......and of other places beyond, and within, Preseli [including, e.g. Avebury area and Carreg Samson].
These eager archaeologists hunt their quarries wherever they can........ rather like Tory farmers with "bring back fox hunting stickers on the backs of their 4 x 4's!
BRIAN FERRY
The Royal Commission calls the site "Old Coldstone" for some reason. That doesn't have much relation to the Welsh -- Garn or Carn means a rocky outcrop, and Turne is a corruption of the old Welsh name Twrn -- which probably means a pile or a heap. So there we are then.
There is evidence that two capstones were lifted directly above their source Pentre Ifan and the hybrid portal tomb/passage tomb Carreg Samson all the others from Ireland , Cornwall and Wales are usually considered to have been transported no more 200 metres including Garn Turne . Thorpe &Thorpe 1991 mention the the Garn Turne capstone as being close to an outcrop ,at 60 tons and 100 metres it's hardly a difficult job compared with the 160 tons of the capstone at Kernanstown that also had to be lifted onto the portal stones .
I wondered when you would come in on this one, Geo! We have been all over this before. I'm afraid that the argument "this would have been easy here because that was done over there, and that was much more difficult" does nothing for me. It's a lousy substitute for evidence.
There is no direct evidence for the capstones of Pentre Ifan and Carreg Samsom having been lifted from ground immediately below but it is seen as being a likely explanation .It is conceivable that the capstones of both were brought from some distance but it is accepted that they were not due to the nature of the pits below them . There is no evidence to show that any of the other capstones were simply lifted or quarried from the ground below from the ground . We use our common sense in the absence of evidence , if a glacier can move an erratic we assume , in the absence of any direct evidence that an erratic may have been moved by a glacier . Similarly appreciating that the movement of large stones by humans is accepted as the most likely explanation for many examples in prehistory there is no need to imagine the locals of south Wales would not be up to the physical capabilities of their Irish cousins across the water . There is no evidence in any of this stuff , no evidence for glaciation to Salisbury Plain , no evidence for human transport , no evidence for how the lintels were erected at Stonehenge , no evidence for the source of the sarsens . Do you really find it difficult to believe , in the absence of any direct evidence , that the the really big capstones were not moved by human transport or erected over the supporting stones ?
Been over all of this before, Geo. We'd best avoid a sterile debate on what constitutes "evidence." This terrible phrase "there is no evidence" is used far too often. I'm as guilty as everybody else of using it! In the meantime, Occam's Razor is the thing to use...
I use "there is no evidence " , unashamedly , all the time too .
Occam's razor like "common sense " which I ashamedly used earlier are more problematic .
Even MPP quotes Occam's Razor in his new book, in a chapter entitled "Why Stonehenge Is Where It Is", on page 255 [though it is not indexed]. He relates how John Hill, a research student at Liverpool Uni, demonstrated that Stonehenge could be laid out much more simply using lengths of rope, the sun's shadow and basic counting on fingers, than by some much more complicated means.
As a student of history I used to be a big fan of Occam's Razor. Nowadays I am more careful. Often it is one assumption on the vague periphery which turns out to be crucial.
When things are uncertain then all assumptions should be viewed as suspect. Finding the way forward is not a matter of finding the hypothesis which requires the fewest assumptions. It requires finding and testing the assumption that is most interesting and likely - but now I am speaking as a marketing consultant.
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