https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2010/12/preseli-stone-age-holy-land.html
"NEOLITHIC BRITAIN & IRELAND”
CAROLINE MALONE
2001, The History Press, 208 pp.
CHAPTER SIX.
MONUMENTAL LANDSCAPES OF MID - LATER NEOLITHIC BRITAIN
MATERIALS & COMPLEXITY [pp 198 - 199]
The construction of stone circles has long been the subject of great fascination and over interpretation (Pitts 1998). Because some researchers have desired a fantastic and extra - terrestrial explanation, the raising of the stones of Stonehenge, the exact measurement of circles, perfect alignments and astronomical complexity - to name just a few of the abberations of poor scholarship - have all been claimed at various times as evidence for a lost civilisation, men from Mars or similar! However, it should be clear from the discussions above and from previous chapters that the building of stone enclosures or circles was simply a local interpretation of a broadly similar tradition found across Britain and Ireland and western Europe. It developed quite logically from the technologies of constructing stone cists, cairns, chambered tombs, and timber buildings. The choice of site, the proximity to contemporary Neoithic sites, and the physical geography of an area determined to a great extent the final form of stone circles, along with particular traditions. In most cases, a fairly flat site was chosen, and where flatness was not available, the builders sometimes terraced the area to create a flat zone, as at Kiltierney in Co Fermanagh. The geography and also the social requirements of the site determined its size, which varied enormously. Sometimes stone was very local, and simply dragged from outcrop or scree to the site, but in rare cases may have been quarried and transported over considerable distances. The most contentious example of transport is the movement of the bluestones from the Preselly (sic) mountains of Pembrokeshire to Stonehenge (Thorpe et al. 1991) which now suggests that, contrary to the belief that the stones were transported by human effort, ice movement brought the rocks as erratics during the Ice Age and dumped them between Wales and Salisbury Plain (e.g. Burl 2000). Research and the chemical analysis of Rhyolite across Britain has shown that glacial transportation of the rock, and its use in prehistoric structures, was quite common and that Stonehenge and its use of exotic stone was not unique. For example, fragments of the stone occur in prehistoric barrows, the Stonehenge cursus, Welsh monuments and standing stones and randomly in modern gateposts and walls. However, other geological studies contest this, and claim that most of the Stonehenge Bluestones are from a specific outcrop in Preselly (Scourse 1997). Whatever the outcome of this long debate, some stone was selected and transported for its colour and shape. Circles close to Callanais have standing stones of different colours (pink,white, black) and at Avebury the Sarsens that form the outer circle and the West Kennet Avenue were chosen for their shapes - either triangular or columnar. The Callanais stones were selected and placed for the same reason.
MONUMENTAL LANDSCAPES OF MID - LATER NEOLITHIC BRITAIN
MATERIALS & COMPLEXITY [pp 198 - 199]
The construction of stone circles has long been the subject of great fascination and over interpretation (Pitts 1998). Because some researchers have desired a fantastic and extra - terrestrial explanation, the raising of the stones of Stonehenge, the exact measurement of circles, perfect alignments and astronomical complexity - to name just a few of the abberations of poor scholarship - have all been claimed at various times as evidence for a lost civilisation, men from Mars or similar! However, it should be clear from the discussions above and from previous chapters that the building of stone enclosures or circles was simply a local interpretation of a broadly similar tradition found across Britain and Ireland and western Europe. It developed quite logically from the technologies of constructing stone cists, cairns, chambered tombs, and timber buildings. The choice of site, the proximity to contemporary Neoithic sites, and the physical geography of an area determined to a great extent the final form of stone circles, along with particular traditions. In most cases, a fairly flat site was chosen, and where flatness was not available, the builders sometimes terraced the area to create a flat zone, as at Kiltierney in Co Fermanagh. The geography and also the social requirements of the site determined its size, which varied enormously. Sometimes stone was very local, and simply dragged from outcrop or scree to the site, but in rare cases may have been quarried and transported over considerable distances. The most contentious example of transport is the movement of the bluestones from the Preselly (sic) mountains of Pembrokeshire to Stonehenge (Thorpe et al. 1991) which now suggests that, contrary to the belief that the stones were transported by human effort, ice movement brought the rocks as erratics during the Ice Age and dumped them between Wales and Salisbury Plain (e.g. Burl 2000). Research and the chemical analysis of Rhyolite across Britain has shown that glacial transportation of the rock, and its use in prehistoric structures, was quite common and that Stonehenge and its use of exotic stone was not unique. For example, fragments of the stone occur in prehistoric barrows, the Stonehenge cursus, Welsh monuments and standing stones and randomly in modern gateposts and walls. However, other geological studies contest this, and claim that most of the Stonehenge Bluestones are from a specific outcrop in Preselly (Scourse 1997). Whatever the outcome of this long debate, some stone was selected and transported for its colour and shape. Circles close to Callanais have standing stones of different colours (pink,white, black) and at Avebury the Sarsens that form the outer circle and the West Kennet Avenue were chosen for their shapes - either triangular or columnar. The Callanais stones were selected and placed for the same reason.
There is a good deal of common sense in there, and the author does at least cite Thorpe et al and Aubrey Burl as proponents of the glacial transport thesis. The author mistakenly implies that rhyolite is the main "bluestone" at Stonehenge, and that analysis of the rhyolite (she means spotted dolerite) somehow supports the glacial transport thesis. It does not -- it simply gives more evidence as to what the provenences of the bluestones might be, without telling us anything about transport mechanisms. Since she talks about stone shapes, she might have noticed that the Stonehenge bluestones are for the most part boulders and slabs rather than pillars -- and that does indeed reinforce the glacial transport thesis. Scourse does not claim that the geology shows that the Stonehenge bluestones have come from a single Preseli source. On Callanais or Callanish and the other Scottish stone settings, there was indeed some selection of stones with different characteristics, but the fact that these "selected" stones were used does not in itself imply that they were transported over long distances. As far as I can see, as pointed out by Olwen Williams-Thorpe and her colleagues, they were used more or less where they were found, either as erratics or because of the existence of convenient adjacent rock outcrops and rockfall debris. Steve Burrow makes the same point in his book The Tomb Builders , with respect to Wales.
Anyway, it is good to see a recognition in this book that certain matters were being disputed around 2001! Nothing much has changed........
12 comments:
Why seek "common sense" in the source and means of transport of bluestones, given the glaring lack of "common sense" as regards the sarsens? I refer to the carpentry joints (mortise and tenon, tongue and groove) used to lock together uprights and lintels. What possible role does "common sense" play given that gravity alone would surely serve to keep the structure secure and upright, barring earthquakes.
If the Neolithic builders of Stonehenge were motivated by considerations that we in the 21st century are unable to understand, those forebears of ours - albeit from the eastern Med originally we're told - being able and willing to go to incredible lengths to achieve their still mysterious aims and/or chosen goals, then does it not detract rather from their attainments to maintain they merely went round scooping up glacial megalithic erratics that just happened to be littering the landscape locally?
The website here is focused on geomorphology, not Stonehenge as such - that I understand. But the geomorphology - correct or otherwise - should not be used in my view to persistently diminish the startling achievements from thousands of years ago, ones I maintain that modern-day archaeology, MSM etc have spectacularly failed to take on board with the focus (still!) on solstice celebrations etc. (and now equinoxes and lunar phases too!). Why are megaliths with intricate carpentry joints needed if uprights only are needed to align with this or that compass point that correlates with rising or setting sun? (Reminder to William Stukely and his post 18th century successors - EH included, EH especially - correlation does not imply causality).
ColinB aka sciencebod
www.sussingstonehenge.wordpress.com
This all sounds a bit post-processual, Colin. Forget about the most obvious and logical conclusionjs as to the relationships between feature, form and function and assume that people are just eccentric and illogical in the way they behave. I have some sympathy with that -- people have always built "statements pf power" and follies, and they always will. Or SOME people, anyway....... the majority tend to behave more or less as predicted, with economy of effort rather high up their list of priorities.
I will not accept the argument that if people were capable of doing this or that, over there, they probably did it here as well. Ilike this old-fashioned thing called evidence.
I don't think I have ever used geomorphology to deny the startling achievements of assorted ancient people, but I do try to find logical explanations for the things I see in front of me.
I don't have a problem with "carpentry techniques" being transferred into stone settings. I have never denied that that is what they probably are.
On this Blogsite those of us who support the glacial hypothesis are not insisting that the Pembrokeshire - originating so - called bluestones HAD to have arrived conveniently adjacent to the future site for Stonehenge.We are not insisting that prehistoric people totally relied on "scooping up glacial megalithic erratics....locally". The miscellaneous collection of MANY different geological sources might also have been deposited by glaciation some miles from Salisbury Plain. In which case, the human movement of them would still have been impressive in itself, and we would acknowledge that.
The use of carpentry joints at Stonehenge, locking together the trilithons, is indeed astonishing. But this technique did not come out of nowhere. There were complex timber structures no doubt using subtle carpentry techniques at Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and Durrington beforehand. Perhaps the amazingly ambitious social enterprises such as the later megalithic Stonehenge phase, and Silbury Hill, had a lot to do with growing populations and attempts by chiefdom organisations to organise and control these growing populations. Then, at the end of the Neolithic period, maybe chiefdom organisation was, for whatever reason, less prominent, and so the great building enterprises, often on what Brian terms the "folly" level, ceased.
Don't see any mention of Caroline Malone's book in the 2010 "Preseli - Holy Land" Post you refer to, Brian.
Part 1 of 2:
Yes, TonyH, but you are still deploying the glaciation hypothesis to downplay, indeed dismiss outright some might think, the hypothesis that the bluestones were manually transported all the way from Pembrokeshire to Wiltshire.
But there's a difference between the two stances: the 'manual transport' proposal, improbable though it may seem at first sight, is/was not an attempt to undermine the glaciation hypothesis. It was entirely independent of any school of thought that proposed a role for glaciation in delivering exotic geology to Salisbury Plain and its environs. Can a similar dissociation be claimed by the glaciation school? Is/was there a existing controversy regarding the geology of Salisbury Plain, one prompted, say, by the presence of bluestones in gate posts, or farm outbuildings etc, one that needed urgent consideration of glacial transport. Or is/was the issue of glacial transport prompted mainly if not entirely in the first instance by the controversy surrounding the origin of Stonehenge's bluestones.
Put more baldly, would this particular website, with Stonehenge in its title (while declaring itself to be non-archaeological , maintaining its chief focus to be on geomorphology) exist, and indeed be so prominent, e.g. currently on the Megalithic Portal website, if there had been no Stonehenge, if bluestones on Salisbury Plain had been restricted to mundane easily-overlooked gate posts etc?
Part 2 of 2:
In short, is Stonehenge being used to give added zest to a facet of geomorphology with no huge fascination to the public at large. Would it not be better for geomorphology to add a POSITIVE contribution to the ongoing mystery of Stonehenge in all its numerous bewildering and thus far unexplained features (e.g. why the need for lintels and carpentry joints?) instead of the endless repetition of that oh-so negative take on the proposed long-distance manual transport? How does it help to suggest a less-than-midway compromise position involving just "miles" or, worse still, "the odd score of miles or two", given the growing body of evidence that Stonehenge was the work of Anatolian migrants from the eastern Med?
The latter, we're told, based on DNA analysis, initially entered Britain via a roundabout route from the west, possibly, probably via west Wales. We're also told, based on strontium isotope ratios of cremated Stonehenge bone, reflecting long term diet and local soil composition, that the deceased bodies of later generation of those incomers, or cremated remains thereof, were transported centuries later the same long distance from their homes in Wales or at any rate the westernmost counties to Stonehenge long after it had established itself as a prestige location at least for that particular function (i.e. ceremonial disposal of the dead by one means or another).
I'll spare you my own take on Stonehenge, previously articulated here and elsewhere, except to say this. The crucial aspect of Stonehenge is not so much about how it looked at ground level, as how it looked from the air (long before planes and helicopters). Read the wiki entry on the Thornborough Henges, the middle of the three especially, especially regarding the proposed role for the imported dressing of white gypsum. Again, it's to do with how the site looked from above, not so much ground level. Think of that dressed-up middle henge as an early prototype for Stonehenge. Lot of things may then start to fall into place based on POSITIVE, not negative evidence.
Tony -- you mentioned the book in the comments at the end of the post.
Colin -- thanks for your contributions. But with all due respect, you are wrong about where the "human transport" thesis came from. HHT knew that the eastward movement of ice was accepted by other geologists -- he considered glacial transport, but did not believe that it could have been possible. I have outlined this in my book and in many places on this blog.
If Stonehenge did not exist, there would still be great interest in how all those strange stones in unexpected places (like the Boles Barrow bluestone boulder) came to be there -- again, these occurrences are itemised in my book and on the pages of this blog. Geomorphologists and geologists have always been interested in them, as they are in the Somerset glacial deposits.
Don't get me going on the strontium isotope / bones / teeth evidence which supposedly shows a link between Stonehenge and Pembrokeshire. It does NOT show or even strongly suggest a link -- and there is no excuse for bad science.
I had prepared a longish response to the main points above, but see a new posting has gone up (which tends inevitably to put earlier ones, this included, into the shadows).
I'd simply say this. Stonehenge could exist without a single bluestone to its name, without a single link to Wales (real or imagined) and it would still be dubbed "iconic", "enigmatic", "breathtaking" etc etc etc. The mere lintels alone would elicit those tags and other descriptors!
Then there's the attempt to explain away the monument, as EH tries to, as a place for solstice celebration, failing to account for its centuries of stepwise evolution through circular banks/ditches, circles or even forests of timber posts, or presence of all those cremated bones. How does MPP's decription as "place of the dead" (as distinct from Durrington etc as the opposite) square with solstice celebration.
Sorry, but I think it's time to draw a line under the origin and means of transport of the bluestones. It's distracting from the real issues, namely the primary role served by the monument. I say one should look at the preliminaries that preceded final cremation, performed Neolithic style, whether by proto-Brits, ticking all the right DNA boxes, or by migrants from the far end of the Med, with an entirely different, some might say more advanced mastery of the then 'modern world' compared to the hunter gatherers who they glimpsed from time to time lurking in the undergrowth. (I strongly suspect it was the sight of the latter that prompted them to lock the uprights and sarsens into a continuous entity, one that would/could not be brought crashing to the ground by mere tugging on local ropes by local raiding parties, intent on restoring the status quo to what existed pre-foreign encroachment on their sceptred isle!).
Agree with you, Colin, that the monument -- although far less dramatic than some pretend -- would be intriguing and inspiring even if there were no bluestones there. That's one reason for doubting that the bluestones have any significance at all -- as far as the builders were concerned, there were stones available for use in the neighbourhood, and they had not the slightest idea where they had come from. Stone origins was probably not something they even thought about.
I'm not going to defend any of MPP's ideas....... but I do think that the transport of the bluestones is something worth researching and discussing. Let's remember where this debate started up again, after many years of peace and quiet. It started with the geologists Bevins and Ixer seeking to discover the provenances of some of the bluestone fragments and thin sections from he Stonehenge area. There was no thought of getting involved in the transport debate. Where the initiative came from I am not too sure -- but then they got into bed with MPP, and from then on their previously very cautious and circumspect scientific conclusions were abandoned, and they became more and more involved in assisting and even provoking the bluestone quarrying hypothesis. They published more often in archaeological magazines than in respectable geology periodicals,k which means that they got away with some things that were seriously questionable.. They became part of the MPP team, sharing responsibility for what was put, for example, in the Antiquity papers on Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog. Now they are in so deep that they cannot get out........ and they have to take the consequences.
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