I'm probably going to get criticised for getting too personal here, or for an "ad hominem attack" -- but this isn't actually an attack on Mike at all. However, I sure am rather upset with the producers of the latest TV documentary-drama featuring our all-action hero. He just turned up in front of the cameras, and did what was asked of him by Alice and the producer of the programme. But I wonder if he realised how this 60-minute drama was going to be fashioned and broadcast? I hope he's rather mad at them too............
Now then, talking about the programme (or about Proto-Stonehenge) without talking about Mike would be like talking about Trumpism without mentioning the late lamented President at all........... so we just have to live with the situation.
So to the programme -- it was of course a "tabloid press" documentary, with added stick men. On another level, it was a narrative in search of some facts. Somebody told me that the producer used to be editor of The Sun. So there we are then. It was not a science-based documentary but a documentary-drama, influenced by some of those documentaries made by that Scottish chap who always walks backwards on clifftops, with gory reproductions of the Battle of Cullodden and such like.
But this was rather different -- made without access to vast sums of money to pay for costumes and actors. So it was modelled on the classic "quest format". Before starting work ten years ago, the producer clearly read all the screenwriting textbooks. Here is a sample of the sort of thing students are taught:
This would not have worked without a larger-than-life leading man, who has acquired / developed a reputation as a latter-day Indiana Jones -- avuncular, easy-going, knowledgeable and eager to get down there in the mud with all his enthusiastic followers. And certainly, as everybody knows, he is determined to follow his dream, wherever that might lead him.
So from the beginning this was the production schedule: Set-up >> reputable archaeology professor doing a boring job >> moment of inspiration >> the quest is defined >> setting out on the quest >> heroic struggle through years of boring preparatory work >> up several blind alleys >> major setback when it looked as if the Holy Grail was in reach >> hero at a low ebb >> dogged persistence in the wind and the rain on a wild Welsh mountainside >> and hey presto! >> the discovery of the Grail >> triumph at last, having overcome insurmountable odds!
Just think about it -- that is exactly how the programme is structured. I find it quite intriguing! So in addition to the mythologisation of the past, with the inexorable development of MPP's fantastical Stonehenge and West Wales narrative, we now have the mythologisation of the man himself as the intrepid and dogged hero, battling on while those around him doubted him and deserted him and became discouraged and depressed up on that miserable moor. As I once christened the whole thing: Indiana Pearson and the Circle of Gloom.........
Did Mike encourage the process of mythologisation? Your guess is as good as mine.........
PS.
It's interesting that today, in The Guardian, Charlotte Higgins has also picked up on the mythification (right word?) of Indiana Pearson and the fashioning of the TV prog as a three act drama with the heroic quest at its heart:
"The story of Parker Pearson’s discoveries, as told in the BBC’s Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed, followed a recognisable and satisfying three-act narrative structure. Act one: the archaeologists – the hero being Parker Pearson himself, a hirsute figure straight from central casting – set off in hope and with an ambitious plan. Act two: an important new discovery is made, pinning down the stones to a particular pair of quarries. But then the stakes get higher: the archaeologists set out to find the place where the bluestones were once erected before being moved to Salisbury Plain. In short, a stone circle that isn’t there any more, hasn’t been there for 5,000 years. They investigate one spot, then another – in vain.
And then, act three: the last throw of the dice, the last site to be considered. No one holds out much hope. But still, digging commences, in unpropitious circumstances. A hillside is pummelled by horizontal rain. Water is baled out of trenches. The student volunteers are becoming rebellious. All seems lost. Until: a discovery. A trace of a hole in the ground is so similar in shape to a bluestone erected at Stonehenge that the two would fit together “like a key in a lock”. From here, the resolution rolls out satisfyingly – the dating turns out to fit. A little bit of the mystery of the circle has been chipped away at. The impossible quest has been fulfilled. One suspects that a decade of setbacks and hard graft felt, in reality, less like a perfect film script."
And then, act three: the last throw of the dice, the last site to be considered. No one holds out much hope. But still, digging commences, in unpropitious circumstances. A hillside is pummelled by horizontal rain. Water is baled out of trenches. The student volunteers are becoming rebellious. All seems lost. Until: a discovery. A trace of a hole in the ground is so similar in shape to a bluestone erected at Stonehenge that the two would fit together “like a key in a lock”. From here, the resolution rolls out satisfyingly – the dating turns out to fit. A little bit of the mystery of the circle has been chipped away at. The impossible quest has been fulfilled. One suspects that a decade of setbacks and hard graft felt, in reality, less like a perfect film script."
Ah well, she probably pinched that from me, but never mind. The rest of the article is the normal journalese nonsense.........
MPPP is performing largely within the scientific method. His hypotheses, his experimental data while open to question, remain open to contradiction and/or dismissal.
ReplyDeleteThe contrary hypothesis, promoted here, one that claims glacial transport of bluestone erratics from Wales to Salisbury Plain, while feasible, has simply failed to render itself open to experimental test.
As such it should remain on the back-burner where feet-on-the-ground science is concerned. It should not be presented as the dominant idea.
Colin Berry (aka sciencebod)
MPP working within the scientific method? No he isn’t — he never presents his evidence first and follows it with interpretations and discussions. He Always gives his conclusions first and then moves on to justify what he has already decided...... I am constantly surprised that journal editors allow him to get away with it.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a bit difficult to recreate a glacier just to test the glacial transport hypothesis. But there has been plenty of compouter modelling — and the models show that ice reaching salisbury Plain is perfectly feasible.
Is there room for personality to impose on science? Normally, one would say no, except in a limited manner, through choice of words, means of putting down the opposition etc.
ReplyDeleteBut the task of making sense of what took place 5000 years ago and more, prior to written records, or indeed verbal hearsay, is something else. Creative thinking plays a major role. As such, one needs to relax one's criteria as to what is permissible, what is not.
I met briefly and chatted with MPP a few years ago. He earned my respect as a fellow scientist.
Yes, he's bold and exploratory in his approach. But he says what he thinks, lays it on the line. Shame there aren't more MPPs (and indeed Brian Johns) where Stonehenge is concerned.
There's a vacuum waiting to be filled where new thinking is concerned. Let's start by dispensing with once or twice annual solstice celebration on isolated moorland...
Colin Berry (aka sciencebod)
Your thoughts on this blockbuster's production process bear similarities to what I uncovered when I was researching MPP's "stalwart Northern hero" Dave Shaw, who seems to have been the Supervisor of much that went on at Waun Maun over several Seasons:-
ReplyDeleteGo to:- https://www.irishmirror.ie/tv/extraordinary-stonehenge-discovery....
In summary it told of 3 Magic Moments:- [PERRY COMO song plays]
1) discovery of a stone hole by Dave Shaw
2) after failure of cutting - edge cliche methods, back to basics - digging!
3)everything hinges on the stone sample Dave Shaw had found being 5,000 years old: Scottish researcher tells them it IS from 3,300 B. C.
Something and nothing perhaps but I noticed that in the BBC programme under discussion there was no mention of Bluestone Henge which I believe was contemporary with Stonehenge.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if the stones for Bluestone Henge will also be provenanced to Waun Mawn?
I dare say they stayed well clear of Bluestonehenge because the views of MPP on that site are hotly disputed. He has never proved that there were once bluestone monoliths there. I think you should accept that NOTHING will be provenances to Waun Mawn.....
ReplyDeleteTony -- yes, the "Eureka" moment has to be in there somewhere. In the Lost Circle narrative, note the emphasis on the failure of "modern technology" to find any holes -- and then good old-fashioned fieldwork delivers the goods.......
ReplyDeleteThinking of Eureka moments, things get more and more bizarre -- now the famous hazel nut at Rhosyfelin is being given the celebrity treatment --- in the Daily Express, no less:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1397409/stonehenge-story-twist-bbc-documentary-neolithic-lunch-wales-quarry-site-waun-mawn-spt
Wonderful stuff!!!
Most of the regular purchasers of the Daily Express tabloid are probably hoping the Preselli Hills had a prehistoric hero who was a Legend in his/ her own Lifetime eating hazel nuts
ReplyDeleteI shall shortly be writing to the BBC Complaints Dept (yes folks, there IS one) about the manner in which they described this private - company produced programme in its publicity.
ReplyDelete