One of the photos of the 2016 Pensarn dig, showing the Bronze Age cist burial site at Pensarn -- from Emyr Jones's Facebook page
This is an interesting brief report on one student's involvement in the 2016 digs by MPP and his team.
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/archaeology/news/ugbursaries-ayres-1.672001
The diggers have moved back into the area, and news will no doubt filter through about where the 2017 digging is going on. I'm not going out searching -- I have too many other things to do with my time. Anyway, I understand that the diggers plan to dig once again in the Pensarn area, not far from Rhosyfelin -- somebody told me that this year's dig is essentially a "training dig" for students, but we can be in no doubt that the search for the Holy Grail is still going on. These guys will probably not stop until they have found something Neolithic (a passage grave or something similar), maybe with a stone socket hole or two so that they can invest the site with significance. The real search is of course for Proto-Stonehenge -- because MPP is now hell-bent on selling the idea that Stonehenge was really a Welsh monument, put up initially somewhere between Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog, and then dismantled and carted off all the way to Salisbury Plain.
The programme of local talks for late September is already organized. Book your tickets now, folks.......... pay over your money, and do your bit to keep the myth machine in good running order.......
Been out today in wonderful Wiltshire, near the Wyle Valley and Boles Barrow. Two "extra" knowledgeable Englishmen have been helping with MPP's September dig, I have discovered. One is David Field, the other is Martin Green. Both fully capable of independent thought, and NOT part of the SRP/MPP bubble. Thank the Lord!
ReplyDeleteWhat, no Welshmen? More to the point, no Welsh geomorphologists who are familiar with the Pleistocene glacial and periglacial stratigraphy?
ReplyDeleteThey ARE digging adjacent to last year's dig, I understand from a participant who has just returned to England (Wiltshire). He was on a walk/ talk I was also on to do with William Cunnington of Boles Barrow (with its bluestone) and Bush Barrow, etc etc, fame.
ReplyDeleteMartin Green, esteemed farmer/ archaeologist of Down Farm Museum, Cranborne Chase, Dorset, is probably still on the dig, which has another 3 weeks to go, I hear.
Don't get too sucked in by all the MPP hyperbole & hype, folks! Keep an open, sensible, mind. Stay grounded.
No idea. But David Field, recently retired from English Heritage, is highly recommended by me. He understands the geology of chalk and sarsens, for instance. And NOT full of himself.
ReplyDeleteBrian, I hope you're composing a press release/ and/ or letter to the editors of various Welsh newspapers and the like as a counterblast to all the Indiana Jones bu**sh** we can expect as the garbage train spews out its nonsense once again.
ReplyDelete"They ARE digging adjacent to last year's dig,",
ReplyDeleteI forget: Where was last year's dig Tony?
Publicity is to be carefully managed...... but never fear, I have my cunning plans.....
ReplyDeleteTruth will out, and the more the diggers live inside their little bubble, the more absurd their antics will appear to the outside world. Made worse, of course, by the fact they they live in a complete state of denial about the existence of the two papers by Dyfed, John and me. Until they do address the evidence presented, and the issues raised, the more cowardly they will appear. It is appalling practice, academically, simply to ignore two sound peer-reviewed papers and to pretend that they do not even exist, simply because the points raised are "inconvenient." I have spoken to archaeologists who simply cannot believe they they would be so stupid. Their reputations are on the line......
John -- they are at Pensarn, not far from Rhosyfelin. Use the search facility to find the old posts. I hoofed around there a bit last year with Chris. One nice standing stone and a few other foliated rhyolite boulders in the hedges.
ReplyDeleteJohn - approx Sept. last year on t'Blog.
ReplyDeleteThank Brian & Tony
ReplyDeleteFound it: Near Ffynnongroes. Training exercise for younger people perhaps? Hoping to get over your way soon Brian, but it's a long trip so not sure that I'll get over to the area that they are looking at.
I reckon the Proto - Stonehenge is probably on one of the Pembrokeshire islands - good place for future digs and scenic back - drops for the likes of Sir Tony Robinson or that Scottish fellow with long hair and piercing eyes to invest the landscape with meaning as they walk backwards probably towards Ireland like Sir Harry R.I.P. and Spike R.I.P. back in the '50's.
ReplyDeleteGrassholm would be a good place to start. By the way, we had a great lecture from David Saunders at our PENfro Book Festival yesterday -- and he told us that Ronald Lockley and his wife spent their honeymoon night on Grassholm, with the gannets. Not a lot of people know that.......
ReplyDeleteVery big gannet poulation on the remote Scottish island of St Kilda too, mentioned on the Daily Service on Radio 4 this morning. The speaker, Rev Richard Frazer said it was quite a spiritual experience seeing them last week.
ReplyDeleteI suppose if some of us make a concerted diligent effort to encourage MPP and his brethren to visit Grassholm for future Proto - Stonehenge digs, it could be said that we have led them on a Wild Gannet Chase?
ReplyDeleteHowever, I feel they should make LUNDY ISLAND their prime target for future digs. Didn't your friend Mr Heath point out that Lundy is directly due east of Stonehenge; and other links with Preseli, involving triangles (strange encounters of the Third Kind?). I'd love to see a BBC4 programme from Lundy island, fronted by Neil Oliver, walking backwards......on.....and on......
Due EAST? No, no, no. Due west. It's been a busy day and i'm a little disoriented.
ReplyDeleteTony, if Lundy is due east of SH, we're all in a lot of trouble.
ReplyDeleteNever trust a geographer, especially one taught by me!
ReplyDeleteI did correct my mistake late last night, but my message seems to have got lost on its way to Angel Mountain, Preseli, abode of the Blogmeister.
ReplyDeleteEast is eat and west is west, and never the two shall meet.
GENE PITNEY: "MECCA" (in the swingin' Sixties)