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Tuesday 26 March 2019

Quarried bluestone pillars? You must be joking...


This is a slide from one of the talks which I do about the "bluestone quarries".  These are supposed, by Parker Pearson and his associates,  to be "pillars" and to have come from the Carngoedog "Neolithic bluestone monolith quarry".  If they have ever been anywhere near a quarry, I will eat my hat.......



12 comments:

Steve Hooker said...

Some are from Preseli. Many others are not. The 'bring a stone' unification theory is too imaginative. More likely, they are all ice age(s) erratics from all over, dropped local to Stonehenge.

The shapes are not helpful since thousands of years of decay, destruction, vandalism and collectors have deformed them. Particularly the softer ones.

Looking forward to the day when these 'other' bluestones' homes are located. Snowdonia? Ireland? Maybe Scotland.

Considering the reconstructions: steel bolts to pin T4 S58 bedding plains. Lintel S122 glued and pinned fix. Concrete 'filling' to S60. Concrete boots to many more stones. I think a small sample taken under the grass line of each stone, blue and sarsen would be appropriate. And very helpful.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Agree, Steve. May of the stones have been "interfered with" in quite brutal ways, so it's a but precious of EH to pretend that irreparable damage will be done to the stones by taking small core samples from each one. Sampling would be completely invisible if the inner end of of each core is used for analyses and the outer end is kept for replacement as a plug, after the inner part is filled with some replacement substance -- resin maybe. Geochemical / petrological work could be done on every visible stone. Cosmogenic dating of stone surfaces should also be done -- although that might leave small surface traces.

A disagree with Rob Ixer on many things, but I think we are united on this one. I bet he and Richard Bevins are dying to get their hands on some decent samples.

But I suspect EH is more interested in maintaining the mystery, rather than finding out what the truth may be.

ND Wiseman said...

Hi guys,
Couldn't agree more about innocuous sampling. Easy to do / none the worse for wear, I say. Brian and I disagree about any number of things, but this is not one of them. At the risk of speaking for him, I happen to know that Dr. Ixer also agrees.

Steve, your project is a wondrous delight! Remarkable accuracy. I love how you've included the parchmarks.

Neil

Steve Hooker said...

Thanks, Neil. http://stonehen.ge is taking a long time. But accuracy cannot be compromised.

I hadn't thought of plugging holes with original stone. Completely invisible. As well as being below the grass line. The pins in S58 are easily seen. Surely, we can do better these days.

Accurately provenancing each and every stone would take a long time but would be sooo interesting and solve many fables, I'm sure.

We should start a campaign. What is English Heritage afraid of?

ND Wiseman said...

One of the things that exacerbates the six plugs on -58 is that they're mis-matched to their holes.
In other news, the upper core - long thought lost - is on its way back from America. That story is fodder for a mystery novel!

There's been a recent effort to match the Sarsens to a specific field. This is being done by comparing the grain and silica content. I don't know the results cuz nobody tells me nuthin no more ...

Neil

BRIAN JOHN said...

I thought it was standard procedure, when taking a core from a block of precious stone, to keep the outer end of the plug for replacement later, and to use the inner part of the plug for the analytical work? That wouldn't work, of course,for cosmogenic dating since all the valuable info re exposure age would be contained in the outermost few mm of the plug.....

TonyH said...

Damage to Stonehenge megaliths/ orthostats, both sarsen and bluestone, David Field & David McOmish state, may have started during prehistoric times.


William Long, writing in 1876 in the WANHS magazine, says he was informed that when two barrows immediately adjacent to Stonehenge were being levelled for agriculture they were found to be 'in great measure formed of the chippings and fragments of the Stones of Stonehenge' and the ploughmen would 'see who could pick up the most chippings'. This correlates with, and confirms, Long continued, accounts by early antiquaries who dug there - William Stukeley trenched into one of the mounds and found 'chippings of the stones of the temple', while,early in the 19th century, William Cunnington found 'fragments of sarsen stones, similar to those which form the great trilithons' along with 'a large piece of one of the bluestones'.

The authors, i.e. the two mentioned above (2016) say "these are significant observations......the descriptions introduce toe possibility that Stones from Stonehenge were being broken up for incorporation in adjacent ceremonial monuments just a few hundred years after they were erected". They go on: "It is an actionshot through with strong ritual intent, deliberately capturing and appropriating material from the perceived sacred site and incorporating it into the fabric of later [round barrow/ mounds".

TonyH said...

.....[round barrow] mounds.

Steve Hooker said...

New to me "cosmogenic dating."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_exposure_dating

So, if they core below the grass line they can fill with anything and keep the surface. I didn't know how much could be learnt from cosmic rays! Take a sample from all four faces.

Working backwards from hippy druids kissing the surface to Victorians chipping mementoes. The builders turning clockwise then anti-clockwise as they moved them from pillar to post. And polishing this surface - three times, others, not so much. Finding them locally buried on that face from the last ice age. After they were tumbled 150 miles from West Wales from the previous ice age, plucked from their birthplace on that tor.

It would make a great story. And you couldn't make it up ;-)

BRIAN JOHN said...

Yes Steve -- cosmo dating has great potential, with the proviso that you would probably need to combine at least 2 different methods. But still very difficult, since you don't know to start with precisely how many of the various stone faces might have been exposed to bombardment and how much time might have been spent covered with vegetation or lying flat on the ground, or even buried. Tyhere is a danger of over-interpreting and making dramatic errors. But stones that are genuinely quarried should have very young exposure ages -- so one could at least test that hypothesis.......

Steve Hooker said...

So, assuming the "quarried hypothesis" is junk... We would learn nothing much from cosmo dating. ;-/

But the geologists would be happy looking for the originating sources of the bluestones. At least.

BRIAN JOHN said...

I still think that cosmo dating could help to resolve the "quarrying" debate -- both on the Stonehenge bluestones but in particular on the rock faces at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog. When samples for cosmo dating were taken from Rhosyfelin, I offered to help in deciding which locations on the rock face would give the most helpful results -- but my offer was rebuffed....... I gather that although samples were taken, no dating was ever done -- I suspect that those involved got cold feet when they realised that their pet hypothesis could be demolished at a stroke.