I have been taking another look at the lecture which I gave an the DO Lectures series in 2010. Nine years have passed, but hardly anything has happened to invalidate the things I said. So here it is again -- summarising the manufacture of the myth and its shortcomings. The only details that need correcting relate to the "bluestone sources" near Dinas and Newport -- which are now doubted by the geologists. But the actual number of probable bluestone sources has still not changed at all -- I still estimate that to be around 30 sources.
Also, in 2010 we had heard nothing of Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog as "quarrying" locations, and Carn Meini was at that time pretty well universally accepted by archaeologists as the site of THE bluestone quarry..........
Another interesting point is that in 2010 Prof MPP was already developing his ideas about bluestones being "embodiments of the ancestors" -- so the roots of the current narrative were already taking hold and beginning to flourish.
You can either watch the lecture (about 30 mins) on YouTube here, at relatively low resolution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKj_Uzt7lpU
https://www.thedolectures.com/talks/brian-john-dispelling-the-stonehenge-myth
or on the Do Lectures web site, as a Vimeo video, at much higher quality:
https://www.thedolectures.com/talks/brian-john-dispelling-the-stonehenge-myth
Trying to embed the video:
Your ability to watch this may depend on which browser you are using -- and which version......
3 comments:
Geoff Boycott said on the England v Australia Test Match Special radio cricket commentary today that one or two of the Australian batsmen were showing excessive pride, or HUBRIS. "One of my favourite words is is, hubris" said Our Geoffrey (I'm from same part of Yorkshire as Boycott, y'see).
It is a word that is not out of place if applied to one or two Stonehenge/ Preseli archaeologists and associated geologists.
People in too much of a hurry to reach their conclusions tend to suffer from HUBRIS, e.g. MPP in 2010 (see Post).
Colin Richards, archaeologist, said "we knew IMMEDIATELY..."**. Hubris, hubris, ALL (like VANITY in Ecclesiastes) is hubris.
** quote taken from the PRECEDING Post
No evidence or scientific methods required -- the archaeologists (well, some of them) have the mystical ability to just KNOW things. The rest of us just look on enviously, wishing that we too could be blessed in such a way.....
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