I have just checked, and there have been almost 1,000 viewings of my Waun Mawn article on Researchgate in the past 24 hours, since the broadcast of the BBC2 TV programme on "The Lost Circle." I find that rather encouraging -- and since people are clearly taking an interest in what I have to say, I assume that respect for science and integrity is not entirely moribund!! And I wouldn't mind betting that most of the readers have been archaeologists.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345177590_Waun_Mawn_and_the_search_for_Proto-_Stonehenge
I'm perfectly happy to take part in a robust academic debate, and have never shied away from detailed scrutiny of my own work. If people want to find fault with it, bring it on! Hopefully my observations many be replicated and even improved, and my interpretations falsified or confirmed, or refined. Such is the way with science.
It's my commitment to open science that makes me pretty pissed off (let's not mince words here) by the fact that in Prof Alice Roberts's TV programme with Prof Mike Parker Pearson, in the course of 60 minutes of transmission time, made not a single reference to the fact that almost everything in the programme is hotly disputed in the literature and on social media. The arrogance of people who cannot even bring themselves to admit that their ideas are questioned and disputed by others knows no bounds, and it deserves condemnation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000s5xm/stonehenge-the-lost-circle-revealed
As readers of this blog will now, I am equally pissed off by the fact that MPP, Bevins, Ixer and their colleagues, in all of their papers over the past five years, have not once cited the two key peer-reviewed articles relating to the so-called "bluestone quarry" at Craig Rhosyfelin, in spite of the fact that those papers have been directly relevant to almost all of their own interpretations and conclusions. Since I am not mincing words here, that is not only disrespectful to three authors who know exactly what they are talking about, but is also in breach of academic protocols.
There is of course no OBLIGATION placed on any academic researcher to cite the work of anybody else -- but in my own field of glacial geomorphology, if I was to publish on a topic without making any mention of the most obvious related articles written by somebody else, I would pretty quickly be slammed for scientific malpractice. And I am not sure my reputation world survive.
So here is a question for academic archaeology in the UK. What action will now be taken against this group of authors who have not only misrepresented the quality and the degree of acceptance of their own work, but have also studiously ignored the work of others who do not happen to agree with them? There must be sanctions -- how much longer do we have to wait for action to be taken?
The authors responsible for the "Lost Circle" article published yesterday by Antiquity journal are as follows:
Mike Parker Pearson, Josh Pollard, Colin Richards, Kate Welham, Timothy Kinnaird, Dave Shaw, Ellen Simmons, Adam Stanford, Richard Bevins, Rob Ixer, Clive Ruggles, Jim Rylatt and Kevan Edinborough========================================
The Rhosyfelin articles. Please read them, and decide whether they are worth citing:
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
Brian John, Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes. 2015. OBSERVATIONS ON THE SUPPOSED “NEOLITHIC BLUESTONE QUARRY” AT CRAIG RHOSYFELIN, PEMBROKESHIRE". Archaeology in Wales 54, pp 139-148. (Publication 14th December 2015)
https://www.academia.edu/19788912/Observations_on_the_supposed_Neolithic_Bluestone_Quarry_at_Craig_Rhosyfelin_Pembrokeshire
9 comments:
I am strictly a lay observer, but I thought (on the TV programme) they showed clear scientific evidence indicating precisely which quarry the 'bluestones' came from.
Sorry Chris, you have got that wrong. They TOLD us there was evidence -- they did not show it. There is a great difference. I know all these sites inside out -- and MPP is a past master in the art of seeing things that are not there. Take it from me -- the "evidence" does not stand up to scrutiny. If you live in the area I'll be happy to show you the sites and discuss the evidence, if you like.
Hi Brian
Happy new year! Found some more nonsense from chap called heath.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/stonehenge-experts-suggest-ice-age-moved-rocks-into-place/vi-BB1dDaNr?ocid=msedgdhp
Article in the Times this week too.
With Ms Roberts spouting the usual tripe!
Your problem is as its always been, getting the cowards to agree a discussion of the evidence!
They really are shameless.
They don't do discussion. I found that out a long time ago, when I arranged a site meeting with the diggers (including MPP) at Rhosyfelin -- twice. On neither occasion did they turn up.
"They're changing the Truth at Waun Mawn 'palace'
Mike Parker Pearson went up there with Alice..." I
to be continued - as long as necessary!t
Songwriter Neil Young (singer, also with CSN&Y) sang it all back in the Sixties, Brian:-
"Don't let it being you down
It's only castles burning
Frighten them by learning
And you will come around....... "
Their audacity astonished us, doesn't it? But the same can be said about Richard Nixon and Donald Trump
Thanks for responding to my remark Brian. May I ask why you seem to be so reluctant to accept MPP's work?
Because I know the three sites that have been investigated, and have followed all 3 digs -- and am quite convinced that the features that he interprets as "man made" are entirely natural. The radiocarbon dates and the OSL dates do NOT add confirmation of his chronology. In fact, as Prof Danny McCarroll says, the dates falsify the hypothesis. At Rhosyfelin he ignored the Pleistocene stratigraphy and the natural processes operating at the site. He over-interprets the geology and makes claims about "precise provenancing" that are NOT supported by the petrology and geochemistry. There are NO orthostats at Stonehenge that have come from Rhosyfelin, and the evidence of "geological matching" from Carn Goedog is not established at all. In fact, he ignores all evidence that happens to be inconvenient and simply inflates every scrap of "evidence" that can be pulled into his exercise in hypothesis confirmation. Bad papers, and lousy science. And I (and many others) are appalled that he has NEVER acknowledged that his ideas are disputed. Somebody who behaves like that deserves no respect at all. You can read my articles on Researchgate, and search for things on this blog. All the evidence is here, if you use the search box.
All the best
Brian
The narrative I created several years would seem to fit the facts well and reconcile some of the remaining puzzles. If you recall I proposed that the stoneagers would have recognised that the Preseli stones were not local to Salisbury Plain, and travellers (they DID travel) would have recognised where they very likely come from (the stones ARE rare in UK). It would have been fun at the solstice parties to weave the narratives together and wonder about the magic of HOW the stones were transported. I doubt they had any imagination of glacial movements in the Anglian although this seems to me most likely, and almost as amazing as Merlin.
MPP does over-egg the exact quarry but the bluestones almost certainly come from the hills MPP in which has been spending his recent late summers. Everybody also agrees that there was substantial activity in both Preseli and around Stonehenge/Avebury in the period from 3000 BC onwards and many stone monuments were built in both places and presumably with ideas and inspirations transferring.
Post a Comment