Exposed till surface at Rhosyfelin -- Late Devensian
Exposed till surface in Erratic Valley, Antarctica -- modern
Geomorphology works through the use of analogies -- you initially interpret what you see on the basis of what you know from other situations. Experience is everything. But then of course you have to go on and prove to others that your interpretation is the correct one, through the use of analytical methods of all sorts. More and more sophisticated techniques come along all the time....
I was struck the other day by a photo of the surface of a hummocky moraine (meaning meltout till or flowtill) in the Erratic Valley, on the Antarctic Peninsula. I thought immediately that it looked virtually identical to the till surface exposed during the Rhosyfelin archaeological dig. I guarantee that you could switch the labels around, and nobody would be able to tell which surface is old and which is young, or which one came from where........
If you want a detailed description of the till, it's all in the QN paper published by Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd, John Downes and myself in 2015:
Brian John, Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes (2015a). "Quaternary Events at Craig Rhosyfelin, Pembrokeshire." Quaternary Newsletter, October 2015 (No 137), pp 16-32.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283643851_QUATERNARY_EVENTS_AT_CRAIG_RHOSYFELIN_PEMBROKESHIRE
https://www.academia.edu/19788792/Quaternary_Events_at_Craig_Rhosyfelin_Pembrokeshire
The till surface that was exposed in the dig was so spectacular that it could not be missed, and yet it has still not been referred to in any of the archaeological papers by MPP and his team -- and not even in the articles written by geologists Ixer and Bevins. Maybe if they had visited the site and examined the sediments, it would have helped......... instead, the pretence has been perpetrated that somehow all of the sediments are associated with quarrying activity, and that they have no inherent interest unless they contain "evidence" of human occupation. Strange world we live in.....
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