These are the four assessments which I have made of the recent paper by Parker Pearson et al which is published in "Antiquity" journal.
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-from-megalithic-quarrymen.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-from-megalithic-quarrymen-2.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-from-megalithic-quarrymen-3.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-from-megalithic-quarrymen-4.html
The paper itself:
"Megalith quarries for Stonehenge’s bluestones", by Mike Parker Pearson, Josh Pollard, Colin Richards, Kate Welham, Chris Casswell, Duncan Schlee, Dave Shaw, Ellen Simmons, Adam Stanford, Richard Bevins & Rob Ixer. Antiquity 2018, issued as a pre-publication PDF by Southampton University (not in final format)
https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/421631/1/Megalith_quarries_Antiquity_REVISED.pdf
I have made many other comments on the Carn Goedog research over the past few years -- use the search facility on this blog to find them.
This paper is so seriously defective, in almost every respect, that I find it bizarre that it ever found its way into an academic journal published by Cambridge University Press. It is not a research paper; it is piece of unabashed marketing. I have asked this before, and I ask it again -- where is the scrutiny from within the archaeological establishment? How is it that so many serious and senior archaeologists -- and two senior geologists -- have allowed their names to be attached to it as co-authors?
And the most serious issue of all. If I, as a local person with a detailed knowledge of this site and with an academic background, had not been around at this moment in history, and had not been able or willing to look at the excavation site and to scrutinise the research output from the MPP team, everything in this article would have been accepted as THE TRUTH. Just think about it..........
And think about this. If this is the level of non-scrutiny applied to Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog, how many other British archaeological sites are there which have been wildly misinterpreted and which have had nonsensical narratives attached to them?
Rhetorical questions, I know. But sometimes they are needed. Actually, rhetorical questions don't need answers. Maybe these questions do.
There are plenty of sensible archaeologists around. But when are they going to speak up? Quite seriously, if they do not, archaeology will become a standing joke.
11 comments:
You are right. The archaeologists ought to respond and ought to engage in debate. This blog is a reasonable place to start and protected from trolls. At the very least the evidence should be presented. I still have to read a report on those dozens of white plastic buckets of lovingly scraped earth and bits from Rhosyfelin, never mind some close ups from Goedog. The years go by and nothing is published and still the orchestra plays.
I fear that the casual regard for the truth is becoming an aspect of UK culture. We see in the Brexit debate an unwillingness to engage with detail on both sides of the argument. It should not take the BBC, for example, long to find out how WTO works and what it does and does not do. Entertainment is all, not information.
Much appreciate your keeping the pressure up. It is a superhuman effort.
They (the archaeologists) appear to be unabashed, yet trapped in their own bunkers - that is, for those of us with eyes, and minds, to see and understand. They huddle together and don't even try to blind us with Science. They are ducks all in a row.They do not move.
Are they all going down with the Titanic, to extend Chris's metaphor?
Future generations will marvel at their ineptitude. Is there no lone voice from WITHIN the ranks of the archaeologists? The Emperor and his minions have no clothes.Someone from within the ranks needs to call their bluff. Can't, perhaps, a few of them band together and become a united voice of dissension?
I would really appreciate some other opinions here -- please read that paper, folks, and tell me what you think. Is it really as terrible as I think it is?
"I would really appreciate some other opinions here -- please read that paper, folks, and tell me what you think. Is it really as terrible as I think it is?"
Soz, bro. You've completely destroyed this fairy tale. I can't add to your argument. Not that I'm qualified, anyway.
I tried to read the paper but couldn't get past the first page where it waffles about how many quarries are needed: "...the fourth source," ..."other volcanic tuffs," "...altar stone". That's six by his count.
I'm still hung up with your list which requires 10-30 quarries to be found.
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-many-bluestone-quarries-are-needed.html
And the shapes. Hard, tall, valuable pillars, I can swallow being quarried, hauled 140 miles - sort of. But wobbly, soft, short, scraggy lumps? Nope.
The unification of tribes with a 'bring a stone party' is magical thinking, founded on a dream and an acorn.
And now that you've accurately labeled Mike Parker Pearson as 'fanciful,' the rest of his work around Durrington, 'Bluestonehenge' is in question. As well, editors, collaborators and enablers.
You hit on a perfectly valid point, Steve. They cannot possibly argue that all of the bluestones came from quarries. That would involve up to 30 quarries. So they will have to admit that some of the bluestones must have just been picked up in the landscape. If some, why not all? As I have consistently argued, who needs quarries anyway, in a landscape littered with pillars, slabs and boulders of all shapes and sizes and lithologies? And why would you want to quarry monoliths from remote and inaccessible places anyway, other than to satisfy a wacky narrative?
Chris, I take the point. Truth, increasingly, is whatever you want it to be -- and there is no point in working hard to convince your readers / listeners because they have very little time to give you, and their attention span is extremely limited anyway. Those articles I have been going after on this blog. How many people actually read them? Very few. The great majority of people -- and I suspect this even includes professional archaeologists -- probably just read the press releases and newspaper reports........
I was paid to be an information librarian in 3 different local government contexts, 2 in SE Wales, the 3rd here in Wiltshire. I regularly precised local government news so that the L.G. Officers knew something new and relevant to their work had appeared and may require their attention.
That didn't absolve the Officers from reading in full the Newspaper, or Journal, articles highlighted in the briefings we issued.
So I think all specialist archaeologists or archaeology students should similarly study in some detail, if their specialism is likely to be Neolithic or Bronze Age archaeology, and that Stonehenge matters are relevant to their work or studies, the Research Papers that Parker Pearson and colleagues are producing.
"Parker Pearson promptly produced a peck of pickled Papers".......try saying it as fast as you can read them!
Where is Myris these days?
We had a rather deep disagreement which I will not go into. As a result of this I will not publish any more of his comments, and indeed he has not submitted any in recent months under any of his pseudonyms. I assume he has gone off to pastures new..........
Is that Boris Johnson underneath the "D" cap"? Certainly hope so, though one of several senior archaeologists - or Geologists - linked to the Preselis would be even better.
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