They are a tough lot, these diggers. I admire their fortitude -- the last few days of the dig threw very challenging conditions at them in this exposed location, with driving rain and very strong winds. The famous "Turdis" was apparently blown over at least twice, and one hopes that nobody was inconvenienced or harmed while sitting on the throne.
Since the digging team involved in Waun Mawn 2018 is having to deal with a close shave from Hitchens's Razor, we are not going to take very seriously anything that is said -- or reported to have been said -- in popular evening talks. After all, an experienced lecturer can spin his talk any way he likes, and probably get away with it, since members of an audience are generally reluctant to question things that they have not seen for themselves. Furthermore, hardly any of them will have read the "learned papers" on which the talk is based.
So the only evidence that really matters is that which is presented in field reports (which we will probably never see in this case) or in peer-reviewed journals, where scrutiny can properly be applied. We probably won't see anything in print in a serious journal for at least a year -- although I suppose there is still a possibility that there might be press releases, banner headlines and spectacular claims made within the next few weeks. They have done it before, and will they do it again? Maybe not this time, and I'll explain why.
There are seven conditions that have to be satisfied if Proto-Stonehenge is to be proved at Waun Mawn:
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/09/proto-stonehenge-waun-mawn-and-burden.html
1. Prove that around 80 bluestone monoliths were arranged in a giant circle here, and that they were later taken away in a concerted fashion over a short period of time.
2. Prove that the putative stone circle was Neolithic, not Bronze age.
3. Prove that the stones were all placed here around 5,600 yrs BP and all taken away around 5,000 yrs BP.
4. Prove that the stone circle was not made of dolerite and meta-mudstone monoliths picked up in the neighbourhood, but of spotted dolerite monoliths from Carn Goedog, foliated rhyolite from Rhosyfelin, sandstones from the Afon Nyfer headwaters near Pontglasier, and unspotted dolerite from Cerrigmarchogion.
5. Prove that any "sockets" discovered really did hold monoliths, and that they are not simply extraction pits marking places from which stones have been collected for use elsewhere on Waun Mawn. They must also prove that they are not simply natural hollows in the surface of the broken bedrock / till layer that lies beneath the thin surface peat and soil layer.
6. Prove that any so-called traces of human activity on this site really do relate to settlement and "engineering work" and are not simply natural phenomena related to glacial and periglacial processes.
7. Prove via control digs that any features exposed during this dig really are exceptional and significant, and that they are not just typical of what occurs beneath the peat across a wide swathe of countryside.
Rumour has it that there was much despondency among the diggers this year since -- after all that hype -- nobody found anything that was remotely exciting or spectacular, in spite of herculean efforts. As I have pointed out in a previous post, about 1000 sq metres of turf were stripped away and the ground beneath minutely examined. There will have been detailed surveys, and many samples will have been taken away for radiocarbon and other analyses. We hope to carry a report from somebody who attended one of MPP's Castell Henllys talks, but it seems that the key points from the recent talk at Bluestone Brewery are as follows:
1. The bluestone "quarries" at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog are established as fact, and are not disputed by anybody.
2. No mention of the fact that there are two very "inconvenient " papers relating to the quarrying hypothesis in learned journals that he chooses to ignore. No mention of the glacial transport hypothesis. (Correction; apologies. I am informed that MPP did mention both the human and glacial transport theories in one of his talks.) No mention of the complete lack of evidence relating to the human transport hypothesis.
3. The strontium isotope work on cremated bone fragments gathered in that Aubrey Hole at Stonehenge "is consistent" with at least some of the Neolithic people at Stonehenge having come from West Wales.
4. The radiocarbon evidence from the "quarry sites" points to a multitude of quarried bluestones being parked up somewhere for maybe 400 years before being carted off to Stonehenge.
5. A few empty stone sockets with packing stones in them have been found on Waun Mawn, from near the existing standing stone and recumbent stones, and one from the southern part of a possible circle.
6. It is likely that there was a large stone circle here, similar to other elsewhere in the UK but substantially larger, with a diameter of c 112m (my correspondent was a bit uncertain on this) (this is now confirmed by others).
That's all very fine. Let's forget about the first four points (we have dealt with them before) and try to check points 5 and 6 against the things which I observed when I visited the site one peaceful evening.
1. One correspondent told me that MPP presented FULL scientific evidence confirming the presence of bluestone monolith sockets. Forgive me, but I will take that with a pinch of salt. They are not at all convincing. The ones that I saw (there may be others, but I doubt it) are relatively shallow hollows up to 30 cms deep with irregular shapes, no contained packing stones (I admit that they might have been removed by the diggers), and jagged stone edges projecting out from the pit sides. This does not happen in proper stone sockets; such sharp projections would be broken off either in placing the stone into the socket, in forcing down packing stones, or in removing the stone for use elsewhere. (This was, I suspect, why the proposed big stone socket at Rhosyfelin, initially flagged up as important, was quietly forgotten about when the "final story" was being put together.) My impression is that most of the "sockets" are artifices created by the diggers, who find a soft surface more or less where they would like it to be, and who then happily scrape away with their trowels until they have a nice little pit -- at which point they say "How splendid! I have found another stone socket!" and are rewarded with an extra Mars bar. Too cynical? Maybe, maybe not...... and of course, some of the pits I observed may simply have been created by the diggers in order to obtain soil samples or in search of charcoal fragments for radiocarbon dating.
2. I can't be certain of this without access to the full site survey, but it seemed to me that the "sockets" are not located with any degree of accuracy in the places where they should be. They seemed to be away from the circumference of the proposed giant circle, irregularly spaced, and separated in places by very large gaps. If somebody tried to convince me that this was once a carefully measured and constructed Neolithic stone circle, set up for ritual or astronomical purposes, I would not be impressed. I might be similarly unimpressed if somebody was to try and convince me that something way off the circumference was deliberately placed as a significant "outlier".
3. The stones (and there are many of them) exposed in the open pits are of all shapes and sizes, as one would expect in this area of glacial deposits and periglacial slope accumulations. They are mostly made of local dolerite (maybe 85%), meta-mudstones (maybe 10%), and ashes, rhyolites and some sedimentaries of local origin. In spite of quite a careful search, I did not find a single fragment of spotted dolerite, foliated rhyolite, or Palaeozoic sandstone. If this had been a "parking place" for monoliths quarried at Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog and Pontyglasier there must have been fragments left behind in or around the so-called stone sockets. In my mind this spells instant death for the "proto-Stonehenge" hypothesis.
This deeply embedded dolerite boulder in the eastern quadrant is still where it always has been, at least since the last glaciation......
4. The archaeologists need around 80 monoliths to have been parked here and then taken away to Stonehenge if their theory is to have any credibility. On my visit to the site I saw maybe half a dozen shallow pits that might be interpreted by some as sockets -- and even allowing for the presence of some hollows in dig pits that have already been reinstated, there is no way that the evidence on the ground provides support for the hypothesis. (The one part of the circle that has not been investigated this year is the SE quadrant; but even if there are another dozen little pits there, still under the turf, the evidence would be far, far short of what is needed for hypothesis confirmation.)
Above: These are all views of "big pit" -- an extensive area stripped of turf and clearly subject to intensive investigation.
5. I predict that there will be some emphasis, in descriptions of the dig by MPP and his colleagues, on a large excavation just beyond the SW quadrant of the putative giant stone circle. The diggers have stripped away the turf from an irregular area which is at least 10m x 25m in extent, revealing a very typical surface of what I suspect is Devensian till, full of rounded, sub-rounded, faceted and subangular boulders and cobbles of all shapes, sizes and lithologies. Oh, for the time to examine it properly, in the company of a few experienced glacial geomorphologists........... the surface of the till is gleyed, with a typical red, buff and bluish colouring, and in places there is a distinct foxy-red crust or ironpan where minerals have been precipitated out. This is all typical of soils in the Preseli region -- we saw the same thing at Rhosyfelin. In places there appear to be traces of ash and bits of charcoal -- so this looks as if it might be a human occupation site where there have been camp fires. That's very interesting -- I look forward to seeing the evidence from the archaeologists, when it has been analysed. Should we be surprised and even amazed by this discovery? Not really -- we already know that Waun Mawn has signs of human occupation -- including ring cairns, hut circles and stone settings -- so we know that people lived here, lit fires here, killed animals (and maybe each other) here, ate meals here, and undertook all of the other activities typical of our jolly Neolithic ancestors. All that having been said, I might risk a few quid on a bet that MPP will be flagging this up to the world as the camp site or settlement place of the proto-Stonehenge builders, or the guardians of the sacred stones, or as an entrance to a sacred site, or some such thing. Look what happened with Vince Gaffney and Durrington Walls............
I predict that there will be much debate about whether these are man-made, organized features associated with a settlement site, or just random assortments of boulders and cobbles typical of glacial deposits. This is reminiscent of the so-called "hollow way" or "export trackway" which featured heavily in the latter stages of the Rhosyfelin dig. There, as here, I see nothing which looks like human interference. Some people keep on seeing faces in tree trunks and elephants and angels in the clouds.......
6. If this was a sacred giant stone circle which was dismantled and hauled off to Stonehenge, why were so many stones left behind? We already know about the three recumbent stones which make an arc or a rough alignment with the one remaining standing stone, but there are others too, still embedded in the ground and apparently left behind. Were they the wrong shapes or the wrong sizes to be "desirable" for the builders of Stonehenge? That doesn't hold water, since the bluestones that are still standing or are embedded in the turf at Stonehenge are of all shapes and sizes, including many that are boulders just like those still embedded in the turf at Waun Mawn.
7. It looks as if no control digs were conducted away from the Waun Mawn "mega-circle" site -- and so there will be nothing on the record which relates to how unique -- or how ordinary -- the revealed features from the 2018 dig actually are.
Apparently, at the talk MPP said that he and his diggers hope to be back again next year, if funding can be obtained. But for how much longer can he maintain the pretence that something big relating to the Stonehenge "Welsh Connection" has been discovered and just has to be confirmed by one more dig? He has been saying that for the last six years. And at what point will the funders of the work (and the editors of glossy magazines) finally run out of patience and say "Enough is enough"?
=============================
Sorry, chaps, but the Proto-Stonehenge thesis is rejected. Not one of the seven conditions outlined above is satisfied. Surely it's not too much to ask that MPP and his colleagues should now admit that they got the story all wrong, and that there is no Stonehenge link here on Waun Mawn -- or anywhere else -- after all. While they are about it, it would be nice if they were to admit that not everybody accepts their story about "bluestone quarries" at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog.
Instead of all this grandiose story-telling, perhaps they could just concentrate on showing us that they are competent archaeologists who have uncovered some interesting things up on this bleak mountain side, and who can now tell us a bit more than we knew before about settlement history and landscape change in this fascinating prehistoric landscape? Then we can all be friends and concentrate on picking the last of the blackberry crop.
====================
PS. In deference to Hugh and various others who feel that the original heading to this article was too provocative, in retrospect I agree that it probably was. I did ponder on it before I posted it. It certainly got a few people worked up! Anyway, I have changed it to a question and hope that this will be more appropriate in the circumstances. I have also made a few other tweaks in response to info received. My opinions are unchanged, and I am very happy to see vigorous debate on this site, so long as it remains civilised........
55 comments:
“I might risk a few quid on a bet that MPP will be flagging this up to the world as the camp site or settlement place of the proto-Stonehenge builders, or the guardians of the sacred stones, or some such thing. Look what happened with Durrington Walls............”
Could you clarify, what do you think happened with Durrington Walls?
I would, as a historian, be fascinated to read an analysis of all the material removed. I would also like to read an analysis of the contents of hundreds of buckets removed from rhosyfelin. Nothing is forthcoming, unfortunately.
I am disappointed nothing significant is revealed at Waun Mawn, although not surprised. Brian and I explored the area a while back and Brian was very scientific, pacing around and counting dimension while I examined the lie of the land and the horizons. Neither of us found anything significant either and we were both glad of a cup of tea later.
Peter -- ah yes, Durrington Walls. Remember that giant stone circle that turned out never to have existed? And the tales about Durrington Walls being the place where the Stonehenge builders lived and had their jolly barbecues? I'm still not at all sure that any direct link has ever been proven between the one place and the other. I'm expecting the same style of thinking here -- "there was a giant circle here, so somebody must have built it and looked after it. So where did they live? Close by, in all probability. So if there was a village or large encampment, we must surely be able to find it...... and this might just be it...."
Hi Brian,
To be fair, I don't recall anyone of consequence saying it was a 'Giant Stone Circle' at Durrington. Many thought it was a stonerow composed of +/-90 uprights. I'm not the only one who thought they were posts put in place before the ditch was dug. Turns out they were posts put in place before the ditch was dug.
The tip-off with Durrington v Stonehenge is that they were actively contemporary during the Stone Phase. Plus, they're less than two miles apart, which is a pretty easy walk, speaking from experience. Plus they both have Avenues to the River, so there's a water connection. Winter Solstice Sunrise exhibited at both sites. South Circle is the same size as the Sarsen Circle. Dense, seasonal population at Durrington. Utterly No population at Stonehenge -- because it was a job site.
If there's no connection between them it would be astonishing.
Neil
Some more feedback from site visits. Hugh has posted this on his Preseli360 Facebook page:
"They filmed it ,I am sure you will be able to see that at some stage . A 112 meter circle with confirmed sockets along its northern flank , the south eastern and south western appear to be less well defined . I was shown on site where the entrance is ,but we had already worked that out some time ago as it is still visible . They found a very sizeable stone hole on the southern flank on the mid winter sunset bearing ."
Alternative Truth, Alternative Facts, Fake News… (here’s one for Tony) All lies and jests still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest..
The Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project proposed from their Geophys a large stone monument under the later bank of the henge, i.e. an arc of large stones. (Cue Some rather boring visuals)
Importantly for this discussion it was Prof MPP who (along with Neil) thought that the Geophys showed postholes of removed large posts, the dig a few months later showed exactly that, not fallen stones or stone holes. The implication that MPP is going to repeat the finding of a giant stone circle with related features or in the Durrington case wanted to find one is way off the mark, wrong archaeologist. The posts of considerable size however would have needed as much effort to source, work, move, erect, (decorate?) and then within months it appears remove, as any stones.
The links are not just between Durrington and Stonehenge but between the monuments in a landscape stretching miles and over thousands of years, but the evidence for those between Stonehenge and Durrington/Woodhenge including the ones given by Neil, are very strong and have been recognised as far back as the 1920’s. See Maud Cunnington on Woodhenge.
Someone lived at Durrington, the present dating evidence suggests at around the time of the Sarsens being erected and the bluestones rearranged, and they did have substantial meals, making a joke out of it doesn’t make the evidence false and you not being at all sure about the links is, I am afraid, neither here nor there just look at the evidence.
However I agree with you that the evidence for where some of these people came from is not definite, they may have come from SW Wales amongst other areas and the headlines are often ridiculous and misleading. I am not commenting on the validity or not of goings on in Pembrokeshire over the last few years I haven’t taken much notice, but bringing up Durrington doesn’t help your case.
Like Tony I wonder if Humble Pie is on the menu, it always is at my house, Performance Rockin’ The Fillmore, perhaps a bit heavy for Tony but the evidence is weighty.
Oh and was no one interested in that F ing stone near Everleigh from a few months ago?
Peter, I didn't claim that MPP was responsible for the hype about the giant stone alignment at Durrington. I know that others -- Vince Gaffney et al -- were responsible. What was in my mind was the manner in which researchers get a story into their heads and then sell it for all it's worth, in advance of proper research. We all remember the media coverage. Maybe they think they have to grab massive media attention with spectacular stories in order to raise the money they need for the research.. That's a very dangerous scenario. Perhaps you would agree with me on that......
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-hundred-standing-stoones-ar-durrington.html
I forgot -- I did this post too:
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2016/08/durrington-red-herrings-and-red-faces.html
They are all at it!
Would it not be nice were MPP to have filmed one of his talks and put it up on Youtube. We are living in 2018.
I am intrigued by the news that there was filming going on up on the mountain this year. National Geographic? Thousands of extras in a dramatic reconstruction of something or other?
Hello to Peter,
Regarding the 'False Stone' at Everleigh, first of all let me thank you for visiting the site, it was appreciated and I should have thanked you sooner, sorry.
I have since visited the location, and had a thorough search along the fence line running west from the junction and (possibly due to the extra warm summer) found some relatively large-ish lumps of rock that looked different. They've been examined by those that know, and they turn out to be limestone.
So, perhaps lumps of 'limestone' in amongst bedrock that is 'Chalk with Flints' at the spot where Ogilby indicated on his map could justify the term 'False Stone'.
Peter, I preferred "Cream" to "Humble Pie",
And that is why
I contribute to this Blog Site....
Which is full of integrity, not sh***.
We ALL did our bit to help Phil with his interest in the False Stone at Everleigh. You live much closer than most of us, after all? Have you tried Wiltshire Museum's Director David Dawson?
As regards MPP and Waun Mawr, and, as Brian has just said "researchers get a story in their heads and then sell it for all its worth, in advance of proper research", MPP and associates were sponsored by the American Rust Family Foundation. e.g. "You Couldn't Make It Up" Sept 5th 2018; "Unfinished Business?" Sept 11 Sept 2018.
So there we are then. I have just spent a very interesting evening communicating (if that's the right word) on a Facebook group page with the moderator and assorted very angry people who are not at all happy with the fact that I have expressed some disquiet about the Proto-Stonehenge hypothesis. It was all rather futile, and went endlessly round in circles, largely because those involved have not read the Antiquity papers and have no intention of doing so, but nonetheless cannot abide the idea of somebody daring to criticise all those eminent archaeology professors. I think I was actually threatened -- but don't worry -- when I posted the link to this blog page I knew exactly what to expect. One has to laugh. It reminded me yet again of the famous Molesworth episode in which the psychopathic Magister Kurdling gives Molesworth a thrashing and says: "That will teach you, Master Molesworth, not to try and alter the ignorance of a lifetime!"
As a little aside and a bit of name dropping, perhaps I should say that I live in Shropshire and it is a bit of a problem to get to historical areas of Wiltshire for I have difficulty driving after dark, may be I should move south.
Name dropping for Tony ------ in my, south Wales, youth I played guitar in several bands and a great night was had when we were the support band for Cream, interesting exchange of thoughts and music in the dressing room.
Jack Bruce never did give me my plectrum back.
(Google Jack Bruces' diary for the Municipal Hall, Pontypridd, 1967 (I think).
MPP & HIS LINKS WITH THE RESEARCH FINANCIAL BACKERS THE AMERICAN RUST FAMILY FOUNDATION
Reminds me, uncannily, of this wonderful Joan Baez song, DIAMONDS & RUST, apparently a nostalgic link with old boyfriend Bob Dylan. Check it out as a recording, but here are the words and the background:-
https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/8663
I had forgotten this:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/archaeologists-dig-welsh-burial-ground-11438966
“Why dismantle an original monument? We’re wondering if it actually might have been a tomb with a surrounding stone circle which they dismantled. If that were the case they were basically carting the physical embodiment of their ancestors to re-establish somewhere else. Their idea of packing their luggage was rather more deep and meaningful than our own. They are actually moving their heritage, and these stones represent the ancestors. They are actually bringing their ancestors with them.”
If there is one thing you can't say about MPP, it is that he is short of ideas. Did he really think there might have been a burial tomb with a stone circle around it?
Now for something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT......in the COMMENTS to do with the hypothetical use of Megalithic Yard [Thom and others], at the END of this Post of 6 May 2018 on Tim DAW's Blogsite......
The actual Post is a repeat of the Rust Foundation Waun Mawr MPP Report:-
www.sarsen.org/2018/05the-welsh-origins-of-stonehenge.html
There are comparisons between various major henges in Wessex and what may be at Waun Mawr
Don't see any of that, Tony. But anyway, I though hat in the Neolithic burial sites and stone circles were more or less mutually exclusive?
Thanks Phil I had forgotten you initiated interest in the area, I don’t think I was much help I didn’t venture into the heavily nettled areas with tons of old straw in and was thrown by the area which appeared likely to be where a pond was/is on the opposite side of the track to where shown on the 19th C maps. I did give up after my chat with the farmers and finding I had forgotten to take any wate,r it was very hot. Is the finding of limestone bits significant? Sorry if my throwaway comment was offensive. Great name dropping re Cream
Tony, Ah that did make me smile, I didn’t mean to impugn your hard rock credentials. I am not sure if it is Humble Pie or me that is full of sh*** surely not Steve and the guys in 71 so it must be me. No such comments for theories on bird perches, white henge banks attracting seagulls because they look like cliffs etc, but you try and help out with a bit of clarification and what do you get.
Tony what are your views on links between the monuments in the Stonehenge Landscape? And no quoting Joan Baez or Eccles.
I can be as full that stuff as the next person, but we can come back from this, I unwittingly upset Myris once but we are fine now.
Brian I do agree on grabbing headlines it is stupid and misleading, just ironic that in the Durrington example it was MPP doing the dispelling of the hype.
Thinking again of Durrington Walls, what if these little sockets at Wain Mawn (let's assume for the moment that they are genuine) are actually post holes? Is there any way of differentiating between a post hole and a stone socket? Would a post hole need to be deeper, because of the greater height of the post and the greater lateral stresses exerted on the buried segment of it?
Brian, re that Tim Daw Post. There ARE indeed 8 Comments at the end of that Post, most to do with henges and megalithic yards, either in Wiltshire; at Stanton Drew; and then this new - kid - on -the - block claimed stone circle [?henge?] at Waun Mawr. We enter the realms of your old friend with whom you tend to agree to disagree, Robin Heath.
No problems, Peter, things must have got a little lost in translation.
Mind you, if you'd re - checked the False Stone Post at Everleigh you'd have been reminded that several of us did chip in to try to assist Shropshire - based Phil with his initial enquiry. The Search facility on Brian's Blog is extremely useful.
I think the SRP Boys and Girls are on the right wavelength with regard to the links between the main monuments there. That is, Stonehenge, Durrington Walls, and the West Amesbury Henge, even though I have my doubts about the latter having had bluestones, since they have shown us no evidence, only Blind Faith (oh, dear, musical nostalgia again......).Geological Myris would confirm this, and has in the past.
Tony -- not getting into any of that........ keeping enough balls in the air as it is!!
Don't blame you at all!!.........just put in for information for everyone else! Clearly for those who have great aptitude for mathematics and, in effect, mini - computers in their brains, possibly mixed with a tendency to be suggestible. The "X Files" of archaeology.
Hi gang,
A thorny issue, this long-time Bluestonehenge debate. Per Tony's remark with regard to Geological Myris' confirmation, I straight up asked him. (Actually odd that I never had, truth to tell, but our conversations have long strayed from Things Stonehenge. T'was ever thus ...)
To wit: There is no mineralogical evidence for blues at the W. Amesbury Henge.
The end.
That being said, I still believe that the scales tip towards them being there. The stonehole shapes, the packing-stone evidence, the suspicious size-resemblance between the two ovals, the number of stones in each arrangement, and the timing for their removal, all closely correspond to the time when the Trilithon Blues were installed. Seems likely to me.
So then, no direct evidence, but some interesting circumstantial evidence.
Neil
PS: Trying desperately to come up with a music metaphor, but I was a Stones, Floyd and Zep guy, so I'm SOL with Baez and Dylan.
I thought this one was long gone -- the lack of bluestone evidence at "Bluestonehenge" was established ages ago -- and Myris was very vociferous on this point. The "circumstantial evidence" is very dodgy indeed -- not at all convincing. We looked at it long ago on this blog -- and no doubt it was examined in detail elsewhere too.
I suspect we will see the same thing happening with respect to Waun Mawn. The diggers found nothing of any interest (I have had that confirmed by another contact close to the dig) -- but they will probably now say: "We found no trace of Carn Goedog spotted dolerite, Rhosyfelin foliated rhyolite or Cerrigmarchogion dolerite monoliths or packing stones at Waun Mawn, but there are some slight sockets more or less the right shape and more or less in approximately the right positions -- so that just goes to show that 80 bluestone monoliths were here, and that they were removed in their entirety, thereby confirming that this was Proto-Stonehenge...."
Sadly, there will probably be some people who are fool enough to believe that sort of nonsense.
As you no doubt know, I too had informants at the dig. Was supposed to be there too, but ... some things came up. Your own first-hand pictures are the best I've seen, and I've seen many.
I'm pretty sure no one's gonna say Wawn Mawn had anything to do with Stonehenge -- at least structurally. If anyone claims otherwise we'll have come to quite an impasse.
Hopefully some kind of useful archaeological upside will be revealed, so I won't say it was a waste of time. But it was almost certainly a waste of money.
Neil
Thanks Neil -- appreciate your comments, as ever. Glad we are getting a reasonably consistent story from the dig. And yes, let's hope that Stonehenge is not mentioned at all! Of course something interesting may come of it -- if nothing else, I expect a plethora of radiocarbon dates, most of which will show Bronze Age occupation of this landscape (we knew that already) and some of which may show some occupation back into the Neolithic. (We knew that already too.....)
When my grandfather died, The family quite obviously thought that it would be a fitting tribute to the great man to demolish his Allotment shed and reassemble it 200 miles away.
To this day I wonder at the thoughts of the allotment holder in Horton in Ribblesdale, who awoke to find they'd gained a shed! Surely? this is indisputable proof of Neolithic man's logical thought processes, and a stern scientifically valid rebuke to the critics of the hypothetical musings of MPP and his cretinous followers!
Dear Brian! Having read Neil's posts, I think it might be an apposite time for you to do another post on the nature of scientific evidence! There is only one kind of scientific evidence and that is physical evidence! Direct evidence WTF? Circumstantial evidence? No! Stonehole shapes? Some of the holes I've dug in my garden or by anyone anywhere on this planet could quite easily match! This is coincidence not evidence! If it wasn't bullshit to start with!
Neil is peddling what MPP is peddling and that is what most sane people call WOO!!!
Neil! The stonehole hole shapes? Are you even remotely serious? Are you suggesting that some one has actually measured the precise shape of the Bluestones at Stonehenge and now matched them to the stonehole shapes at West Amesbury Henge? This is not even the "Crazy Gang" This is Michael Bentine's "Potty Time"! My apologies to younger readers!
As I recall, MPP postulated that there was a sort of "ideal bluestone size / shape", and having decided that, he decided that the supposed sockets at "Bluestonehenge" matched that pretty closely. Bingo!! Well, who needs evidence anyway, when there is a jolly story to be told?
Had an interesting conversation with my friend, John, before Church today. Brian, John has just spent 2 or 3 days looking at "The Stonehenge Bluestones", i.e. your new, June 2018 book.
He was quick to remark that he shares two things with you. He was born the same year, and also in Carmarthen. He says he'd never seriously considered that the claims the Stonehenge bluestones were manually hauled all the way to Stonehenge from Preseli were anything other than laughable. He thinks, based on a read of parts of your book, that you possess a very astute brain.I had to agree!
As regards the talk of Neolithic quarries for bluestones fit - for - purpose, he says he is amazed anyone is even entertaining the idea.Oh, and by the way, he has two sons who are both Geography Graduates working in Education, one with a B.Sc, the other a B.A. You may get a couple more sales there.
I haven't, as author Julian Richards himself would phrase it, "shelled out" on the most recent edition of his English Heritage - published "Stonehenge: the Official Guide". I wonder what exactly he says in there about the archaeological feature MPP insisted on trying to christen 'Bluestonehenge', whilst the more scientific - minded Rob Ixer agrees should be the more cautious 'West Amesbury Henge'?
Peter Dunn has provided a artistic interpretation of what MPP imagines was the appearance of the Henge in Days of Yore. I want 10% Commission, Peter.
Alex ...
The Bluestone Oval at Stonehenge consists of shaped columnular uprights of various Welsh provenance. They average about the same size. Excavation of several has revealed a consistency in how they were planted and packed, indicating that they were all installed at more or less the same time. There were originally 26 of them, truncated to a 19-stone horseshoe at some point between then and 1550. (Romans?)
Of the 26 likely holes at W.Amesbury, 9 were excavated. All pits share similar features with those at Stonehenge in terms of depth, packing and, indeed, the mass required to compress the chalk at the bottom of the hole to the extent that it does. This compression is consistent in all of them. Wooden posts don't behave this way either in mass or even in hole depth. Additionally, extracting the contents made quite a grinding mess of the pit walls and lip -- something wooden posts simply don't do. Whatever was in there was pretty heavy, so it's virtually certain that these holes contained uprights of stone.
Were they sarsen stone? Could be, I suppose. But what became of them? We know that whatever was in there was shaped because the holes are consistent, so where's all the tooled sarsen uprights? (Please don't suggest the obvious, as they'd have been much too small and Stonehenge was already built.)
Avoiding the transport debate, one must nevertheless agree that, unlike sarsen, this rock-type doesn't grow in the neighborhood. These are 9- and 10-foot stones that don't occur anywhere else in the wide vicinity. They are rare and unique. There aren't 52 of them. More, dating indicates that the site was dismantled at very nearly the same time the Trilithon Blues were installed at the Pile of Rocks.
The two sites are directly connected in the landscape. More than likely this is where cremations occurred for placement in the Aubrey Holes. At the time the inner oval was assembled, cremation was passing out of vogue in favor of single or family barrows. This means that there was a slow decline in WAH's use as a ceremonial crematoria. Perfectly good rocks doing nothing, they removed them. But the place was still revered, so they then dug a henge around it. The stones were taken up the hill and re-purposed within the Trilithons for reasons that remain elusive.
So there is a great deal more to the story than there just being 'similar holes'. A current tally of ALL the evidence leaves the conclusion somewhat inescapable.
You mention bullshit from a cretinous follower? What's your theory?
Best wishes,
Neil
That's a fine story, Neil, reminding me of what was originally published in 2009. I dealt with the famous press release here:
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2009/10/bluestonehenge-some-science-much.html
As I said at the time, some science and much fantasy.
Not sure I like your habit of citing things as facts when they are actually speculations. There were 26 bluestones, all with similar dimensions, in the Stonehenge Oval? Who says so? On what evidence? You say: "They average about the same size." Forgive me, but an average is an average, indicating the mid point of a scatter. That means most of the stones are not like the "average" at all. One or two might be. As Ros Cleal and her colleagues pointed out ages ago, only six of the bluestone circle stones are ideal elongated pillars. As we have gently reminded Peter on various occasions, his reconstructions of the "immaculate Stonehenge" (with all those lovely pillars) are somewhat misleading! And what is the evidence that the excavated nine holes at "Bluestonehenge" held stone pillars rather than heavy posts? Or bluestones rather than smallish sarsens? None, as far as I can see. How do you distinguish between chalk crushed by a heavy stone from chalk crushed by some chaps with ramming posts?
Any why the obsession with Stonehenge? As far as I can see, there is nothing to link Bluestonehenge (or West Amesbury, if we want to call it that) to Stonehenge. Stonehenge is always assumed to be the pinnacle of Neolithic / Bronze Age achievement, the culmination, the end point towards which everything was directed. Don't see it at all. Seems to me far more accurate to say that Salisibury Plain holds a multitude to Neolithic and Bronze Age features, one of which happens to have been Stonehenge. Those who built all the others probably couldn't have cared less about those nutters up the road who were obsessed with their mad folly.
Might be worth some of us having a look at MPP's 2012 "Stonehenge,,,,exploring" Book again, and various other Stonehenge books and sources, for an answer to "How do you distinguish between chalk crushed by a heavy stone from chalk crushed...... etc etc".
Those Boys of the 'Stonehenge Archaeological Elite' [MPP,MP,JR, ETC] I think have claimed to know the answer to that one vis a vis the Aubrey Stone that they re - excavated relatively recently. I suppose we should credit them with some expertise on that.
For once it may not be just speculation!
From the final remarks in your Comments made at 10.36 on 1 October, Brian, you seem to be rather over - egging your Devil's Advocate stance when you seem to be saying Stonehenge has no connection in any sense with any of the other Salisbury Plain features! You cite in particular West Amesbury Henge. I think most of the rest of us acknowledge the likelihood of there being at least linkages in the building of Durrington Walls and Stonehenge.
By the way, if you read and publish this Comment, you will also have time to catch the "Repeat Repeat" showing on BBC4 OF Neil Oliver's "Orkney's Stonehenge Temple". It's on AGAIN at 3.00 a.m.
Tony -- do you mean "Aubrey Hole" rather than "Aubrey Stone"? There is, I think, no consensus on whether the holes held bluestones, or indeed any stones at all. Didn't Cleal et al think that the holes were intended for posts, but may never have actually held any?
Yes, I meant to say "Aubrey Hole".
I think MPP and various others who excavated it came up with the claim that at least THAT Aubrey Hole held a bluestone. Ros Cleal's magnum opus came out in the 19990's, so they are trying to change the script.
Well, there is a connection between WAH and Stonehenge in that the Avenue "joins" the one to the other -- so it's reasonable to assume some traffic between one and the other. What I should have said was "no physical evidence on the ground" of a relationship. It's all circumstantial, as is the evidence for Durrington Walls being the "construction camp" for the builders of Stonehenge. Didn't Darvill and Wainwrght dispute the idea of there being any connection between Stonehenge and Durrington Walls? There was all that argument about the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead -- sounds like something from Lord of the Rings.........
2 mentions in one day fame at last, 3 if you include the cretins comment to having worked with the man and a mention for Horton in Ribblesdale wonderful place Pen y Ghent to the East and Ingleborough to the West, best walking ever and a nice shed too.
Slight correction for which I will deduct any commission (although I am not sure what it would be for) the artistic efforts are my visual interpretations of the archaeologist’s findings and we both use informed speculations. I agree about Bluestonehenge and regret putting that title on my paintings I much prefer West Amesbury circle and henge and Julian Richards states forcefully that there are is not a single bluestone fragment from West Amesbury and scoffs at Bluestonehenge.
However there are stone holes at West Ames they look to have held heavy stones in them and stones removed from them or perhaps all this is made up, but I have photographs of the stone holes with late bronze age post holes cut through them and they look different. I am sure there is a technical difference perhaps we could all look at the sections and compare, there are dozens of stone and post holes in the centre of Stonehenge let’s look at the sections and descriptions.
Only 25 stone holes on the plan I worked from and no evidence of cremations at wah.
Yes the size and shape of the excavated holes at W A H have been measured, scanned and compared with those in the centre of Stonehenge and one of the profiles which is quite distinct is very similar to the profile of one of the existing stones in the present bluestone horseshoe.
I have gently replied on occasion that reconstructions are there to ask questions as much as anything, get you to think, be visually stimulating but not definite statements, if they are seen as such they are misleading, and I can make mistakes too like everyone. The stone holes I have put pillar like bluestones in do look as though they contained pillars, the settings may not have been existing all at the same time, my proposal of the relocation of stones from WAH to Stonehenge in the same circular setting in an existing arc of holes prior to the oval setting may have been before the double arc of bluestones with its entrance setting or some of the stones may have been short unshaped bluestones.
The settlement at Durrington we have already dealt with you keep repeating the “headline” which sounds definite but may or may not be the case isn’t that misleading?
Gently pointing out the Avenue is physical on the ground evidence and it connects the 2 henge banks, as Tony says you are taking being the devils advocate to rather silly extremes.
Land of the Living Land of the Dead always appeared an idea to far, Churches and Cathedrals are separate sacred spaces amongst villages and towns, henges the same, as at Durrington.
There has been much talk of scientific evidence and scoffing at the interpretation of the results of archaeological excavation rightly so sometimes, is archaeology a science or an art? Some of both isn’t it? The art of interpreting the scientific results or it would be just some old bones and holes in the ground, just that some interpretations are dafter than others. But now remind me is there any scientific evidence for glaciation on Salisbury Plain along with the informed speculation?
Fair points, Peter. Always good to discuss things with you. On stoneholes, I am not that bothered whether these pits did or did not hold monoliths at some stage, either at West Amesbury or Stonehenge. There was clearly a lot of shifting of stones from one place to another. I am just making the point that not all of them were ultimately carried off to Stonehenge -- they might just as well have been carted off in other directions, or simply broken up and chucked away. Maybe the Stonehenge builders did grab hold of whatever they could get, if they had the authority and the means to do so -- but I am still rather convinced that the old monument was never finished, because they ran out of stones.
Evidence of glaciation? Well, glacial deposits in Somerset is a start, and a nice collection of classic glacial erratics at Stonehenge is nice too. And I am still rather interested in those packing stones and buried fragments that are conveniently ignored for most of the time.......
Amen, Peter ...
The packing materials for the big boys are sarsen, chalk rubble and a few tools. Truth to tell, I'm not really sure about how the blues were packed.
There's only 2 unaccounted-for stones in the sarsen circle. The hole for S-13 is shown to have held a stone. This leaves only S-17 & -18, which gives us 28 out of 30. I will grant you that though the holes are there, they may not have had actual stones in them. As you may recall from previous conversations, this is different than what I was thinking in 2013, but now, having stood in the Circle on a couple of occasions, my interpretation have been adjusted. New information / new ideas.
Yes, glaciers reached Somerset. (yawn) Is there any bluestone amid the wreckage?
Neil
We have a problem with figures here, Neil. In the sarsen circle, 17 standing from an assumed 30 -- 5 completely missing and some others fallen. Are all the packing stones sarsen? Not according to Hawley, who recorded limestone and sandstone too -- and much other erratic material in holes as well, as smaller packing rubble.
Sorry glaciers make you yawn I find them rather splendid. On transport mechanisms, some evidence (in Somerset) for the work of ice is a good deal better, I suggest, than zero evidence for the work of man.
Oh dear, another of my popular song quotes coming up, look away now......
Since Neil says "yes, glaciers reached Somerset (yawn), I feel moved to remark that 20th and 21st Century Western human beings have generally got(ten) a feeling of alienation from the natural processes that go on around us on Planet Earth.
James Taylor says in his Grammy - Winning 'Hourglass' Album, in the track "Gaia"
"The world around you, just a rude and dangerous invasion"
AND
"Leave your cold, cruel, mother earth behind"
Won't bore you with any more of the lyrics, but his recording, and Yo Yo Ma's beautiful cello, make it well worth a listen per se.
Most of the "evidence"for the Human Transport Notion goes back to HH Thomas's whimsical speculation [see Brian's recent Posts in last few months] which subsequently appealed to the Tremendous Tarzan Brigade up to Richard Atkinson.... and unfortunately beyond....thence to the money making Marketing/Tourist Men at English Heritage/Stonehenge. It's as much a myth as was that trotted out by the rather dodgy Geoffrey of Monmouth all those medieval years ago.And so the Story goes.....on, and on.....and on......and...
Yes, there are 5 completely missing stones in the Sarsen Circle. Excavation (and logic) has revealed that of those, 3 pits were certainly occupied. These are Stones -13, -20 and -24.
The remaining two vacancies are S-17 and -18, which clearly appear as parchmarks in dry weather, but have never been excavated. Were they occupied? Maybe / Maybe not.
Ergo: 28 of 30 accounted for. That said, even if incomplete, you'd never be able to tell when standing out on the Avenue.
__________________
Here's an interesting bit of Stonehenge trivia: On a good overhead of the parchmarks, ubiquitous last summer, notice that the pit intended for -17 crowds in close to extant Stone-16. Like the northeast Aperture Stones out front, S-30 & -1, Stones -15 & -16 were spaced more widely apart to accommodate the sun's passage at solstice. The spaces between those just outside becomes more narrow. We see this with Stones -29 and -2, as well as with the pit for S-14. The averaged spacing picks up afterward to evenly complete the circuit.
__________________
Re: The 'Yawn' remark.
The processes of glaciation are endlessly fascinating, no question. Mother Nature at her most muscle-bound and quixotic, certainly.
The yawn was intended to illustrate impatience at a blanket excuse offered for the occurrence of bluestones at Stonehenge. There are only two options here. (1.) Glaciers moved them to at least nearby. (2.) They were moved by humans.
A number of solid cultural explanations can be devised to rationalize their prepared presence in the Stonehenge Landscape. Most of these center around 'Packing the Bags', as it were. Ideas, trends and technology passed from west to east from Ireland, to Wales, to southern England, where these things developed and morphed into a more sophisticated culture, greater than its parts, which, when unified, radiated outward from a new center.
The number of blues in use are meaningful in the larger context -- not just a randomly grabbed lot -- so they didn't just stop raising them cuz that's all the glacier left them to pick through. Additionally, there's obviously two disparate sets of them, suggesting two 'shipments' over time.
Where are they at much older WKLB? Or Avebury?
I hear a lot of haranguing, near-slanderous remarks here with regard to considered opinions and ideas of certain credentialed researchers. It's really the only downside to this otherwise admirable blog. I offer this: Opinions and viewpoints are arrived at by studying the data and interpreting them. Opinions change as new evidence is introduced -- e.g. you've seen me do it more than once. This is the scientific method and it's gloriously non-partisan. Everyone has egg on their face.
Coming up with a iron theory and trying to make the evidence fit is ... white noise.
Show me Welsh bluestone wreckage in English glacial remains.
Best wishes,
Neil
Neil
Quite a large percentage of Brian's Posts are concerned with the changing understandings of the dynamics of glaciation as revealed by up - to - the minute science, in areas from Ireland, the Preselis, as far south as the Scillies and, moreover, impacting upon the rest of South Wales, across what is now the Bristol Channel, with effects also in Devon and Somerset.
Have you bought Brian's June 2018 book?
The reason why so far little evidence of glaciation has been revealed closer to (i.e within, say, 30 miles) Stonehenge is that the very old Anglian glaciation occurred so long ago that subsequent land - forming processes have overlain the Anglian. Geomorphologists haven't been involved in examining any archaeological excavations within the Greater Stonehenge Landscape. There has been plenty of evidence of blue stone fragments, however. It is just that there has been no Geomorphologist present to use their glacial expertise to identify glacial debris for the archaeologists. The archaeologists should be using the expertise of geomorphologists in the same way they have linked up with Ixer & Bevin, etc, on the geological front.
Next issue of Current Archaeology MPP is billed as giving the lowdown on his latest Preseli activities................SEE Brian's Post in the last few weeks with Current Archaeology in its title.
Neil -- I love this: "I hear a lot of haranguing, near-slanderous remarks here with regard to considered opinions and ideas of certain credentialed researchers. It's really the only downside to this otherwise admirable blog."
We all know who we are talking about here. You are being more than a little disingenuous, I think. These "credentialed researchers" -- what do they do to deserve respect? Not a lot, I submit. You may not have noticed how they behave:
1. They work for 8 years, with a dig each year, on the discovery of the Welsh origins of Stonehenge, with not a single excavation report published and available for scrutiny by others.
2. Over 8 years they have published just 2 peer-reviewed papers in which their work on the "bluestone quarries" is presented. Have you read them carefully? If not, why not? If you have, would you agree with me that they completely fail to follow academic convention in the presentation, interpretation and discussion of evidence? They are not scientific papers -- they are exercises in the promotion of a ruling hypothesis. Read them, and let's have your honest opinion.
3. Every year, they announce their discoveries (about "quarrying villages", proto-Stonehenge etc) before they start the research, and then desperately have to cover their tracks when the work turns up nothing very much.
4. They persistently refuse to acknowledge that their ideas are disputed, and maintain the pretence that there is a consensus, and that everybody is on board. Patently not true, even amongst the archaeological community.
5. In spite of numerous opportunities to do so, they have NEVER cited the two 2015 papers by Dyfed, John and myself (both in respectable peer-reviewed journals) -- both of which dispute their interpretations of the evidence on the ground. That is, as I have said on many occasions, reprehensible.
These are not the actions of "credentialed researchers" who deserve respect. They are the actions of people who seem to have little regard for scientific ethics.
So let's have a straight answer from you. Do you approve of the behaviour of these people?
Tony,
Yes, I have the book, gifted by a mutual friend in June. It's better than the first one.
I'm well aware of how much the ancient glaciers have eroded away, yes. The evidence would be hard to come by. Truth to tell, it would be exciting to learn the idea actually has legs. But it remains a supposition.
Conversely, there's a lot to be said for human transport.
If that one little pipe of stone really did arrive at the Stonehenge vicinity from Rhosyfellin by glacier, why didn't the entire wall it came from get crushed and scattered in the same process? Looks to me like it's more or less intact from creation, albeit with a few nicks and scrapes here and there.
Ice just lifted this single flute off the wall a carried it 100 miles?
No, I haven't actually stood there, but I have pored over many hours of 4-k drone footage shot from as near as 4-inches off that face and as far as 500 feet above. It looks to me as if ice flumed by, scratching and grating as it went, leaving this little island-outcrop in the middle of what was once a river -- probably a river scoured by melt-water.
Yes, rocks and debris sheared off this wall from time to time and made a merry mess at the foot. But that rock-table was put there intentionally and that little sliver of bluestone now sits at Stonehenge. The end.
__________________________
Brian,
You gotta know by now that I simply don't hang on the coattails of any particular archaeologist. I do read what they write, and I do look at evidence that's presented. But there's always more than one guy, always more than one opinion, and all of us have to wade through the annoying buckshot-backscatter of divergent personalities cloyingly flung into the mix.
Sometimes the logic is difficult to refute / sometimes it's easy. I don't have a horse in the race so have nothing to lose by disagreeing. If certain researchers and I happen to share a similar opinion I rather tend to call it consensus.
But, like anyone else, I do look at the facts in toto. I do not cherry-pick and I do not fawn over personalities.
The thread concerns itself with Waun Mawn and the recent work done there. You and I are not alone in agreeing that this site can have little to do with Stonehenge.
The efforts in this arena are about establishing where the Blues spent 3- or 400 years before they wound up at the Pile. Personally, I think it's time and money spent looking for something that's peripheral to the main story -- but I don't make those calls.
The dig reports for all these efforts are in order, but as I'm sure you're aware, the conclusions are far from settled. There's no neat little bows to be tied, while I venture that the report delays have something to do with wanting to find the particular site once and for all so that any ambiguities in the process can be allayed. Just spit-balling ...
There are certain behavioral traits with people involved in many of these discussions that I do not approve of, it's true. I've talked with em all. I know many of them personally. Most are cordial but some are caustic. Some are honest and some are - to use your phrase - disingenuous. The ones that most annoy me professionally are those that refuse to entertain cogent ideas that are contrary to their own iron-clad convictions. It's a bit like someone pissing on my shoe while telling me it's raining ...
Best Wishes,
Neil
Neil
Where do I start? Just two points maybe. Where on earth do you get the idea that the bluestones spent 300-400 years parked up somewhere else before being carted off to Stonehenge? That is a complete fantasy, backed up by no evidence whatsoever. If you have some secret evidence in support of it, can you give it to us?
And are you saying that you are fed up with MPP and his colleagues pissing on your shoes?
Neil -- "If that one little pipe of stone really did arrive at the Stonehenge vicinity from Rhosyfellin by glacier, why didn't the entire wall it came from get crushed and scattered in the same process? Looks to me like it's more or less intact from creation, albeit with a few nicks and scrapes here and there. Ice just lifted this single flute off the wall a carried it 100 miles? No, I haven't actually stood there, but I have pored over many hours of 4-k drone footage shot from as near as 4-inches off that face and as far as 500 feet above. It looks to me as if ice flumed by, scratching and grating as it went, leaving this little island-outcrop in the middle of what was once a river -- probably a river scoured by melt-water. Yes, rocks and debris sheared off this wall from time to time and made a merry mess at the foot. But that rock-table was put there intentionally and that little sliver of bluestone now sits at Stonehenge. The end."
Sadly, this just displays what a gulf there is, when people like you simply accept what you are told without proper scrutiny. What little pipe of stone? Why would you want to believe what MPP tells you about a little elongated piece of foliated rhyolite being taken from a wonderful "extraction point" that exists only in his imagination? The evidence on the ground just does not support the contention. And the "rock table"? Oh dear oh dear.........No matter how much drone footage you have examined, you still do not appear to have a grasp of how features are formed in the landscape -- just talk to some geomorphologists, will you? Or just read our two papers. Or just read my text called "Glaciers and Landscape", which was used by generations of glaciologists, geologists and geomorphologists over a publication lifetime of 25 years. You can probably pick up quite cheaply since it is rather old now! Not that glaciology and the rules of physics have changed. Read it. You might in the end be prepared to accept that I am a "credentialed researcher" whose views deserve to be considered by some of your friends.
Neil
"If certain researchers and I tend to share a similar opinion I tend to call it a consensus."
Not sure where that conclusion of yours gets us in the debate which is the reason for this Blog. If you share a similar opinion with certain researchers then you have just shared their opinion - you haven't achieved anything beyond that. You certainly haven't achieved an OVERALL consensus.
You say elsewhere "Conversely, there's a lot to be said for human transport". I'd say there's precious little to be said for human transport. It's all based upon speculation. It is wonderful that we are all blessed with the gift of imagination, but imagination gets you nowhere unless it's backed by Science. All archaeologists have to respect glacial and the other types of geomorphology as a scientific subject that is DYNAMIC. Now, if the archaeologists got together and compared notes with ALL the Earth Science community, NOT just, in this instance, geologists and soils scientists, then we'd all end up with really important conclusions deriving from this future liaison.
As I've pointe out and pleaded for before, why on EARTH do not Universities [e.g. Bristol and Southampton] which have Geography AND Archaeology Departments have the common sense to insist that each listen to each other's specialists where it is crying out that this happens! Crazy! There is only one Earth,isn't there? And there's only one structure called "University" - the clue is in the'UNI' part of University, folks.
As they all sing in "Oklahoma!", Neil:-
The Farmers and the Cowboys must be FRIENDS! [my capital letters]
Rodgers and Hammerstein
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