Reconstruction of the site of Stonehenge in ‘Phase 1′, before
Stonehenge, showing a rather too liberal scattering of sarsens in the
area (Picture courtesy of David Field at English Heritage).
Thanks to Tony for drawing this to my attention -- it's an interesting 2012 conversation between Edward Pegler and David Field, published on Ed's blog site here:
Reproduced below again, for anybody who might not be familiar with the site -- full acknowledgement as to the source.
Edward and I had an interesting debate on this as well, back in 2010 -- in the context of a chat about bell curves.
Over the last year or two there seems to have been a strong drift towards the idea that the Stonehenge sarsens were collected up in the vicinity of Stonehenge, and didn't need to be transported very far. We have touched on this before, many times, in this blog. I also support the idea strongly in my book, since I have seen no convincing evidence that the big sarsens were collected up and transported all the way from the Marlborough Downs, or from anywhere else more than a mile or two away. Geomorphologists like Mike Summerfield and Andrew Goudie have in general concurred with this.
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The sarsens of Salisbury Plain – A conversation with David Field
Apart from the obvious ones at Stonehenge, are there many sarsens on Salisbury Plain? David Field thinks there are.
I went to see a talk before Christmas at the Devizes Museum,
Wiltshire, England. It was given by David Field of English Heritage, and
was all about the development of the landscape around Stonehenge
through the millennia. After the talk I got into a brief e-mail
conversation with Dr Field about the Sarsens of Salisbury Plain. This
started really due to a question about just how many sarsens there were
at Stonehenge before Stonehenge was built. For anyone who’s interested,
here’s the full transcript.
David: I’m pleased that you enjoyed the talk. Yes, coupled with
the recent work by Mike Parker Pearson and the Stonehenge Riverside
Project there’s enough material accumulating to provide a new platform
for Stonehenge studies for a while to come. I’ve attached the sketches
of Stonehenge. There’s a lot wrong with them as you’ll no doubt soon
notice, not least the missing bluestones, but we’ll work on this in the
coming months and come up with something more precise.
Me: Just having a look at the sketches, they are lovely. Ok so there
are a few details that are odd. But what strikes me as most odd is all
the broken up sarsen lying around the area in Phase 1. I know it’s an
idea that appeals to some but this amount of sarsen is very unlikely for
Holocene Salisbury Plain. The evidence for it would be present as
smaller sarsens not just in the Stonehenge area but widely distirbuted
in the surrounding valleys due to solifluction. But perhaps more
important to me seems to be the absence of large sarsens encorporated
into the long barrows of Salisbury Plain. Comparison with the
Marlborough Downs and the Cotswolds would suggest that such burial
mounds would have used them.
David: Yes, the artist put too many in. I just wanted a thin
scatter with a cluster by the mound. The next version will look a little
different. There are, however, quite a few smaller sarsens around on
Salisbury Plain and some were indeed incorporated into long barrows.
Knook Barrow had a cairn of sarsen, Arn Hill long barrow had a standing
stone, Corton long barrow had a ‘massive boulder’. Cunnington said that
sarsens can be found all over the downs beneath the turf and that
farmers plough them up in the area north of Stonehenge (Larkhill west of
barracks) from time to time. There is a long barrow there (Figheledean
31-see attached) with three in the ditch and another six in a line where
they were disturbed when the military built a rifle range. Quite a few
around Bulford, aside from the Cuckoo stone (attached), Togstone and the
one in the river, there is one from a round barrow that had a burial
beneath an ‘immense sarsen’ and a number of others noted on early maps.
One of the King Barrows formerly had a sarsen circle or kerb around it.
Today the Imber to Chittern valley has many small boulders and cobbles
on the slopes and in the stream and presumably many more were once
visible when the area was cultivated.
As you rightly say, none of these are large in trilithon terms,
but then neither are any of those on the Marlborough Downs where they
rarely exceed a couple of metres – three at the most. The big ones there
seem to have been reserved for the Cove and blocking stones at West
Kennet. The survival of many on the Marlborough Downs can be put down to
lack of agriculture (it’s a degree colder there than Salisbury Plain)
for they get in the way of ploughs and soon get cleared and broken up or
buried. You can trace the clearance process at Overton/Fyfield from
undisturbed sarsens on the summits, to the clearance to field edges to
create ‘Celtic’ Fields in the Bronze Age on the upper slopes, to the
development of lyncheted fields that cover the sarsens around the edge
in the Roman and medieval periods on the lower slopes. If the same
processes took place on Salisbury Plain where there was widespread
agriculture in Roman, medieval and post-medieval times there will be
many other sarsens buried beneath the field lynchets.
So where did the big ones come from?”
Me: Not expecting a reply to this, but I guess the big sarsens must
have been more common in the past in certain areas. This must largely
depend on ?Miocene distribution of groundwater flow during southern
England’s sub-tropical flat phase before the Plio-Pleistocene uplift.
Extensive silcrete development, I guess, would be along natural
fluid-flow pathways in the ground, so it would probably occur in lines.
Once uplift had taken place that variable thickness silcrete layer
would have been broken up by flexure of the landscape, creating joints
along directions related to the stress field. If the silcrete were
thicker in certain places then the jointing would be spaced out further.
Hence thicker stones would have larger sizes.
All this means is that you’d get small, possibly linear, zones where
big chunks of silcrete, appropriate either for Avebury or Stonehenge,
would end up at or near the surface. On highs I should imagine that
they’d be exposed. In the valleys I should imagine they could end up
under alluvium, although the larger ones might tend to move toward the
surface (as happens in debris flows). Overall, many, through natural
processes, would move down slope.
From my own observations of the Avebury area the concentration of
larger remaining sarsens seems to be in the Lockeridge, West Overton
area now, although obviously there are quite a few on Fyfield and in
Clatford Bottom. Trying to work out their former distribution here seems
quite difficult as so many have been broken up, but there must have
been a fair few large ones here as many of the walls are made out of
squared blocks, presumably from larger blocks broken up in the
eighteenth century. I should imagine that the alluvium of the upper
Kennet valley formerly contained possibly the most spectacular ones in
this area and perhaps quite a lot of them. Perhaps some are still there
at the valley edges.
As for the Stonehenge area what interests me is the statistical
pattern of distribution. I think it would be interesting to see a
cumulative frequency plot of sarsen size ranges from the two areas (not
including the stones of each monument).
David: Interesting. I think that regarding statistical pattern of
distribution based on size frequency the Marlborough Downs would have
it as there are so few around Stonehenge. But the difference between a
three metre and five metre sarsen is quite dramatic and I imagine that
just one in either place could shift the balance. Its perhaps worth
noting, though, that the heelstone is not exactly small and because of
its shape few people will argue that it was brought from far.
Heavy mineral and grain size analysis carried out in the 80s on
some of the Stonehenge sarsen indicated that it did not match samples
from Clatford Bottom and Piggledene on the Marlborough Downs. Not that
this really demonstrates much as sandstones can differ in composition
quite dramatically over relatively short distances, except to perhaps
note that, for the moment, it provides no support for the idea of a
Marlborough Downs origin.
Have you seen the valley in West Woods? It was the location of a
sarsen industry. As you walk up the valley you can see the hollows from
where the sarsens were dug along with causeways where the trucks could
load and, higher up the valley, sarsen boulders still in situ.
Me: Interesting too. I didn’t know about the heavy mineral analysis.
Funnily enough me and Steph were walking Fyfield yesterday and I tried
to apply the concepts I had made up to the blocks I saw. I didn’t get
much joy. It’s exceptionally difficult in many places due to the
clearing of blocks from fields but it’s intriguing how adjacent blocks
seem often to have very little obvious relation with each other. I think
they must have been washing around near the surface for millions of
years and who knows what their history was during this time, let alone
how much they were moved or broken up in the last few hundred years.
I remember seeing a concentration of sarsens near the Wansdyke to the
west of West Wood but I didn’t know that there were some in the wood
themselves. Whereabouts is that?
David: Try Hursley Bottom cSU153666
Me: As for Stonehenge, I think it would be good to compare the heavy
mineral contents with those of the Avebury sarsens themselves. But to be
honest I would no longer be surprised it they turned out to be quite
different. I did, I admit, have a
long discussion
over the glacial or non-glacial origin of the ‘bluestones’ with someone
called Brian Johns a while back. Again, the statistical evidence of
size distribution was what swayed me toward a source at least in the
Bristol channel area rather than as a moraine deposit.
(Conversation held between 20th Dec 2011 and 3rd January 2012)
Additional References
Nash, D.J. et al., 1998
Drainage-line silcretes of the Middle Kalahari: ananalogue for Cenozoic sarsen trains? Proc. Geol. Assoc. 109, 241-254.
Discusses the origins of sarsens as non-pedogenic (not formed in soil
profiles) silcretes, suggesting that they may have been formed as
linear bodies in gentle river valleys millions of years ago, not as a
continuous sheet over the entire landscape, as has often been suggested.
The evidence for this is based on petrology, not on their distribution
(however, the sarsens arrangement in the landscape near Avebury, running
NNW-SSE, may indicate the same thing).
Arthur, P. 1961
Sarsen stones of Stonehenge: How and by what route were the stones transported? What is the significance of their markings? Science 133, p1216-1222.
Argues that the sarsens were transported from the Avebury area via
Lockeridge and down to the head of the Avon. I haven’t seen the paper
BUT, nailing my colours to a flag, I think that this is the best story
I’ve heard (maybe I wouldn’t if I’d read it). I’d probably add that I
think the Kennett valley near Lockeridge may well be where the stones
for Stonehenge came from. My route would take them between Adams Grave
and Knapp Hill, down to the Avon at Marden and then down the river. The
obvious problem with this is that you’d have to use the river only when
it was high, e.g. wet winters or exceptionally wet summers.
