Rhosyfelin yesterday -- gradually nature is taking over again after being
so rudely interrupted.......
It should not really a surprise to anybody who reads this blog to discover that there is a dispute going on over the interpretation of Rhosyfelin, but there are apparently some who are blissfully unaware of it. In the three years since Rhosyfelin was formally adopted as a RIGS (Regionally Important Geodiversity Site) many articles have been published by MPP and his team, and by geologists Ixer and Bevins, without any mention of the fact that there are some people who do not accept their assertions. Nor do they make any mention of the fact that there are two peer-reviewed papers in print which question the "anthropogenic" nature of the features at the site which are interpreted by the quarrying enthusiasts as "engineering features." They all insist, when asked about differing views, that "there is a consensus" on the matter of quarrying, and that they have it on good authority from their friends who are glaciologists that nobody takes glaciation and glacial processes (including entrainment and block transport) in West Wales seriously any more.......
This is a truly bizarre state of affairs. It is more than a little concerning that academics from two separate disciplines -- archaeology and geology -- have continued to write articles on this site without checking on the basic local authority record. They could have simply written to the PCNPA and asked for the RIGS record, if they were not already in possession of it. The full record is quite long, and includes references, but this is the key bit:
Site Name: Rhosyfelin
RIGS (Regionally Important Geodiversity Sites) Number: 564
Grid Reference: SN117362
RIGS Statement of Interest:
Craig Rhosyfelin is a craggy outcrop of Ordovician rhyolite in the valley of the Afon Brynberian. The rhyolite belongs to the Fishguard Volcanic Group which outcrops along the northern margin of Mynydd Preseli. This site is of particular interest since the rocks are exposed on a series of fracture planes and rhyolite samples from the rock face have recently been matched to “bluestone” fragments in the "debitage" at Stonehenge (See also Carn Menyn RIGS 555). Rhosyfelin is also significant in that it offers an opportunity to examine some of the geomorphological processes and landforms typical of the Pleistocene period in the area. There are examples of scoured surfaces, frost shattered crags and scree, glacial till, fluvioglacial gravels and solifluction deposits. With regard to the rock face, from a geomorphological perspective there is ample evidence that glacial, periglacial and biological processes have all contributed to the widening of joints and the accumulation of rock debris at the foot of the Rhosyfelin crag.
Addendum
Recent archaeological excavations (Parker Pearson et al, 2015), however, have led to the assertion that part of the Craig Rhosyfelin outcrop and some of the stone debris at its base (including a large, roughly rectangular block) are the result of prehistoric quarrying. This suggestion has been strongly refuted by John, Elis-Gruffydd & Downes (2015a, 2015b) who have argued that the features of the site constitute an association of natural geomorphological landforms and Quaternary sediments. Continued research at the site, both geomorphological and archaeological, including the possible application of Terrestrial Cosmogenic Nuclide (surface exposure) dating, may help resolve the relative contributions of natural and anthropogenic processes at the site.
What more does it take for our learned academic friends to accept that not everybody agrees with the story that they feed endlessly to the media? And when will they acknowledge in print that there is an academic dispute going on? Where I come from, in the field of geomorphology, there are disputes all the time, welcomed by all as the means by which scientific progress is made. When a dozen or more academics seem to exist in a state of denial, do they really think that their intransigence and refusal to acknowledge alternative explanations to their pet theories does any good to their academic reputations?
1 comment:
Well, one would certainly HOPE that Mike Pitts, editor of the journal British Archaeology, was aware of Rhosyfelin having been adopted as an RIGS some time ago!
That would explain why, in an important general Stonehenge article he himself wrote in British Archaeology earlier on this year, he did say, somewhat TOO coyly for me, that the interpretation of Rhosyfelin as a human quarry was ADMITTEDLY CONTROVERSIAL.
Just the two words, then, from Mike Pitts. Is it a case of "birds of a feather flock together"? Various of these birds seem to take great delight in preening each other.
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