Durrington super-circuit: an hypothesis full of holes

Geophysically investigated areas around Stonehenge and Durrington.  Note that only about one-third of the so-called circuit has been investigated, and that scores of "candidate" pits are just not plotted on the map.  

I  have had a chance to go through this paper now.  Call me a miserable old git if you like, but I have to say it is truly appalling.  It looks very impressive, with lots of excellent maps and diagrams, and an abundance of data,  but when one reads the text one has no option but to sink into a deep sense of despair.  Whatever happened to the scientific process?  This is the worst kind of "assumptive research" in which the researchers involved have been so obsessed with finding their giant circle (or circuit) that they have in effect lost touch with reality.  

We have seen this sort of thing too often before, as I have noted on this blog.  

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2014/09/stonehenge-latest-amazing-revelations.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2016/08/durrington-red-herrings-and-red-faces.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-hundred-standing-stoones-ar-durrington.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/07/assumptive-research.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-strange-methods-of-megalithic.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/02/yet-more-on-quarries-scientific.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2020/01/british-archaeology-corrupted-by.html

Here is the citation:
Gaffney, V. et al. 2020 A Massive, Late Neolithic Pit Structure associated with Durrington Walls Henge, Internet Archaeology 55.

https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.55.4

It will be a waste of my time (and yours, dear reader) to go through the paper line by line, but here are a few observations.

1. The Pattern.   The selection of the "right" pits.  We cannot tell from the data presented how many pits, either of the wrong size or in the wrong places, have simply been ignored.  How many other pits and hollows have been ignored because they are not circular?  The chosen pits have been selected because they conform to the author's expectations or because they chose to label them as "anomalies".  The authors state that within the investigated area there are up to 90 anomalies, measuring up to 4.5m in length and c. 1.5m in width.  Where are these anomalies, and what do they look like?  There is an assumption that "the circuit may have originally included several hundred similar features" -- but no evidence is supplied in support of this speculation.  Why are the pits only "right" if they are over 5m in diameter?  There could be scores of other pits beneath this diameter that have identical or similar origins -- but they have been airbrushed out of the analysis.  On the matter of the "arcs" and the "circuit" there is by no means a "fit" onto the supposed circumference, and the authors show a pattern that is better interpreted as three rough alignments that may or may not have anything to do with one another.

2.  The Pits.  Most of the investigated pits appear to have sloping flanks -- but some have steep sides. Vince Gaffney seems to be intent on referring to them as "shafts" but it appears to me that very few of them justify that designation.  They are infilled with variable debris with organic materials and debris that can be fitted into some sort of archaeological context, but no evidence is presented to show that either the pit fills or the archaeological artefacts and organic remains are any different from those that are scattered across the whole landscape.  So here again, as in the arguments about Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog in Pembrokeshire, no control sites have been examined or described.  So archaeological significance is assumed where there may be none at all.
Quote:

"The magnetic anomalies to the south of Durrington Walls that have been investigated by coring are not natural features and may represent large pits, in their final form at least."  Not natural features?  This has not been demonstrated in the evidence presented — there is an obsession with demonstrating archaeological significance.  Are the pits old dewponds?  Or sink holes? Or sarsen stone collection pits? Or are they natural features simply enlarged for the convenient collection of flints, or for the collection of debris required for bank building elsewhere?  Or are they a mixture of all of these, used and modified to varying degrees?

The authors do at least consider the possibility that the pits might be related to the presence of flint veins or topographical features like elongated hollows:

Quote:   "In some instances, such as Cissbury hillfort, large pits associated with mining do form linear alignments; presumably following seams of flint within the boundary of the later Iron Age hillfort (Barber et al. 1999, 29). More locally, work by Booth and Stone (1952) and Stone (1958) record the presence of flint mines near Durrington. However, the illustrations provided by Stone demonstrate that these features are significantly narrower at the entrance than those described above (Figure 21). When considered spatially, Stone's features are also unlikely to be directly linked with the arcs of massive pits presented within this article. While it is not impossible that flint extracted from these pits may have been used on an ad hoc basis, the structural arrangement of the pit group around Durrington Walls, and their apparent link to the area of the henge monument, suggest that such a prosaic interpretation is not sufficient as an explanation for these features.”

Towards the end of that paragraph we have a perfect example of bias -- with reference to the (very questionable) "structural arrangement" and the "apparent link to the area of the henge monument" --which shows that the authors are 100% set on demonstrating that the examined features are not natural and that they are highly significant in cultural terms. Suppositions founded on other suppositions. It's all completely unconvincing.

Then again we have this, with reference to Eaton Heath:  Quote: "The relative absence of discussion of this site within the literature suggests that the shafts at Eaton Heath may have suffered from the previously unhelpful dichotomy concerning the cultural role of natural features within prehistory (Bradley 2000). Anthropogenic or not, the presence of archaeological materials at Eaton Heath suggests that such features may well have acquired an imbued significance. Consequently, if any of the features near Durrington originate as natural features, it seems reasonable to suggest that a larger monumental circle may have emerged, centred on the area of the Durrington Henge, and involving tens of similar, massive pits.”

Come hell or high water, Gaffney and his colleagues are set on demonstrating that there are no natural explanations for these features, and that they are culturally significant.  What they are flagging up in the media today is  the "structuration" and "monumentalisation" or the "imbued significance" of certain pits in the landscape (and the ignoring of others) even though many of the chosen pits are not on an accurate arc or visible from either Durrington Walls or from other "pit sites."  With regard to the somewhat haphazard scattering of the chosen pits, the authors simply say that accuracy was not an issue -- it was the meaning or the intention that really mattered.  So that's all right then......

Overall, a classic example of an article that does all three things it should not do.  It is assumptive research which assigns archaeological or cultural significance to all sorts of things that may be natural or simply random, and there are no control or contextual studies to support what is being claimed.  Dear reader, I am distinctly underwhelmed.

PS.
Classic quote, from today's Guardian article:
Parker Pearson had previously suggested that Durrington Walls lay within a “domain of the living” separated from a “domain of the ancestors” centred on Stonehenge. He said: “What’s really pleasing for me is that it’s over 20 years now since we put that hypothesis together. Vince has found it. Fantastic. We’ve really got a good idea of what Stonehenge is all about. What a find.”

Words fail me.........