This is a photo of the section between the rock face and the recumbent monolith.
Rails? I see no rails.......
Oh dear -- I have just got my long-awaited copy of MPP's latest tome. On looking at the pictures first, as one does, I immediately came across the photo opposite to the base of page 199. There the caption is a classic piece of MPP speak -- "clear evidence of bluestone quarrying" -- "they then moved the monolith...." and so forth. Everything stated as fact, and even a reference to these wonderful stone "rails." Quote: ".... they then moved the monolith from the rock face along stone "rails" on which it still rests."
How do people like him get away with this sort of stuff? Don't publishers have editors these days? Here we go again. Hubris over scholarship, and pseudo-science even before I have read a word of the text. I'm not sure that I'm looking forward to reading the book..... but maybe somebody has to do it.
4 comments:
Brian,
Try as you may you wont dissuade MPP and others from their fantasies. Whereas you and I and others in your blog see in that picture in your post a naturally fallen 'bluestone' from the outcrop just next to it, MPP will see Neolithic quarries and people purposely cutting the stone from the outcrop. And the stones this stone rests on? Clearly more evidence of 'human agency' forming 'transport tracks'. You can counter argue all you want. Nothing will change their minds. Or the minds of all the people that want (need) to believe the fantasy.
My advice? Stick to the scientific evidence that is irrefutable! If the science can show the whole area was a bog or underwater or covered by local ice, the 'human transport' theory will be discredited. By the way, what ever happened to the English Channel stone formations under sea? Now that is evidence to shout about!
Kostas
Brian
When I looked at a copy of this book the photograph was entirely different to the one on your website. There did indeed apprear to be three vertically orientated slabs beneath the stone.Two are in line and the third parallel. Whilst I would hesitate to describe them as rails - a series of vertically inclined slabs require explanation.
Anon,
...your puzzlement re: “a series of vertically inclined slabs”.
These may be that part of the visible outcrop buried in the ground. Certainly the outcrop seen above the ground extends deep into the ground and covers a much greater area in a horizontal extent in the whole region.
That would be my explanation. But Brian can provide us with a more authoritative explanation. Its one of the many reasons why someone like Brian needs to be present at such excavation sites to provide a geomorphologists view on this.
I reiterate what Brian asks. “What are they afraid of?”. My answer? The Truth!
Kostas
Well, we had the exposure of the quarry-stone last autumn. But this year, will we have different kinds of exposure after further consideration by a wider academic audience?
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