Wonderful stuff! This is the most garbled video yet -- what it seems to be suggesting is that the long-distance transport of the bluestones by human beings all the way from Wales to Salisbury Plain is inherently unlikely, and that Bevins and Ixer have been beavering away to find a source for those old blue rocks rather closer to Stonehenge. And bingo! They have found one at Carn Goedog, only 2 miles away from the old monument. Remember -- you read it here first........
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/23/source-of-stonehenge-stones-video_n_4842449.html
On the other hand, the reliability of the source cannot be guaranteed.......
Mind you, I do like the bit about the general public being unable to differentiate between sarsens and bluestones, when shown samples of assorted rock types. The geologists have been conducting some tests on this. No great surprise -- this is what Pete G and I have been saying for years. The stones that were outside the old Visitor Centre illustrated this perfectly. The sarsen was bluish, and the bluestone was greyish. Very confusing. So did our ancestors "value" bluestones because of their colour or some other physical properties? In all probability, no, since not only are many of them not blue, but since there are up to 30 different rock types represented.
By the way, whatever happened to those boulders?
So I take it that the U.S.-based Huffington Post thinks Carn Goedog could be somewhere close to Amesbury town centre - perhaps near the Blue Stone erected asa good will gesture there on behalf of the good citizens of Pembrokeshire during the 20th Century? How fitting that would be. This is getting as good as Richard III under that Leicester car park.....
ReplyDeleteYes indeed -- that's my impression too from the film. As I have always said, what we need is a bit more geography in the curriculum......
ReplyDeletethe two stones have been relocated outside the rear of the new visitors center.
ReplyDeleteI have visited twice since it opened and there are a lot of problems to iron out before the summer chaos starts.
PeteG
Nice link. Classic example of awful reporting.
ReplyDeleteThis could end with MPP being sued by National Geographic to return the money he spent digging in west Wales, which as we all know is nothing to do with Stonehenge! As for that Brian John getting us to buy his book on rocks on the Preselis...!
ReplyDeleteThe Huffington story give credence to this one under the banner 'quarter of Americans think the sun goes round the earth'
http://www.livescience.com/43593-americans-ignorant-about-science.html
Seriously, this is a time when those using science to understand the story around Stonehenge need to come forward and condemn those who report their work in such an inaccurate fashion. If their stories are as poor as this for a subject we know, what are they like for stories further away?
I was reading a similar incredible story only the other day, on the newspaper in which my unbelievably tasty chips were wrapped. I will remember those chips for many a moon. However...
ReplyDeleteLOW ATTENTION- SPAN