There are assorted messages on the file concerning the forthcoing final (?) season of digging at Waun Mawn by MPP and his merry crew. A dig is planned, for September, centred on Wun Mawn but not exclusive to that site — but at the moment there is no clear information about other locations due to be examined. What is clear is that the dig will be on a much reduced scale because of the dependence on young volunteers from the student community — and of course that group is currently proving to be the most vulnerable to the Delta Covid variant. So having ten or twenty of them working cheek by jowl in an archaeological dig, even on a windswept hillside, might not be a good idea……….
This has to be the last throw of the dice for MPP on this project, and I am frankly amazed that the funding organisations are still prepared to throw good money after bad, given that after two seasons of digging and much media hype (including that infamous Alice Roberts TV programme) NOTHING solid has been found at Waun Mawn. The geophysics shows nothing, the ”evidence” of stone sockets is worthless, and there is not the slightest trace of any link with Stonehenge. The radiocarbon and other dating ”evidence” is so confusing as to be meaningless — just like the dating evidence cited in the past for Craig Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog. What is more, the local geology has been shamelessly misrepresented — and for this Richard Bevins and Rob Ixer must take a big share of the blame.
So what are they hoping to find? Presumably they will dig on a few more segments of the putative stone circle circumference, in the hope of finding more shallow and irregular pits that can be interpreted as stone sockets. And they will hope for some miraculous appearance of a few bits of spotted dolerite or foliated rhyolite that might help them to argue that stones from Carn Goedog and Rhosyfelin were once placed here and then removed.
All that having been said, the fact that the diggers will be looking at other sites as well as Waun Mawn is a sign of progress — as I have been pointing out for years, the area around Waun Mawn, Banc Llwydlos and Tafarn Bwlch is inherently fascinating, and deserves concentrated attention from the archaeological community.
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I recall finding an article in the (London) Evening Standard on Waun Mawn in which MPP admitted that other (so - called) quarries need to be found due to the variety of types of blue stone at Stonehenge.
He said very much the same thing in a rather bragging insistent tone when answering an on - line question put to him when he was one of the talk presenters at an event put on in Pembrokeshire late last year.
Parker Pearson seems to me to be like a dog with his all - comforting and nourishing bone, he just won't let it go, his ruling hypothesis certainly rules HIS roost, to change the metaphor from canine to rooster.
BBC2 repeated "Stonehenge: the Lost Circle Revealed" - without even the addition of a Question Mark - on Wednesday of this week, and with the identical accompanying assertions in the Radio Times. As the character actor Richard Wilson used to say as Victor Meldrew: unbelievable!
Given the amount of people now wandering atound Waun Mawn attracted by the nonsense on the telly, i'm suprised that the good folks at Gernos Fach havent opened up a burger van.
I bet though that they are a little bit miffed with just how many strangers who now are attracted to their little corner of the Preseli's.
There are always cars parked in the spaces near the cattle grid and their access track when there is huge unsed carpark just down the road.
Yes, the quarrying fantasy seems more and more absurd, with more than 15 bluestone rock types at Stonehenge and more than 30 different provenances, if one takes the work of the geologists seriously. I doubt very much that the geologists really take the idea of quarrying at all seriously — but they are in so deep now that they will not admit it.
BBC has no interest in the truth or even in scientific reliability. All it is interested in is viewers and ratings………. I’m appalled that they have the nerve to show that Alice Roberts nonsense programme again. And come to think of it, I’m not at all impressed with her either — she has not bothered to reply to my messages, and is obviously as unconcerned about facts or reliability as the great man himself, the hero of the programme……….
CysgodyCastell — a commercial opportunity for you! Set up a little burger van on that great car park at Tafarn Bwlch and sell Preseliburgers to the gawping masses. Llew will probably be happy if you pass him 10% of your takings……..
Indeed, yes, it's clear as North - East Pembrokeshire's Dark Skies that Alice, poker - faced Pearson and the tame Geologists live in their own protective pre - covid bubbles wherein enters neither doubt nor sceptic.
Boris has nothing on these scoundrels.
I too, tried to communicate with Alice, who is supposed, in her role as Professor of Public Engagement in Science, to stick up for ALL considered points of view.
She said, in 2016, that "Science is about evidence, not wishful thinking".
But in my opinion she has been seduced by Parker Pearson 's clever but false arguments - sophistry - particularly in respect of that Waun Mawn programme which wasn't even produced by the BBC, but by a private company which has its own production costs to pay which may have influenced how the dig was portrayed by them.
I agree. Alice should be ashamed of herself for allowing herself to abandon all scrutiny and to slip into ”astonished bystander” mode for the purposes of that ridiculous programme. She should also be ashamed of herself for refusing to engage with viewers who have voiced their concern for the quality of that programme and the complete lack of hard evidence brought forward by MPP in support of his wild fantasies. The BBC deserves to be hauled over the coals too, since private productions from small companies should be carefully scrutinised before contracts are placed. They are of course peculiarly likely to hype up the importance or the impact of their productions for the BBC, and to seek to astonish the world — and Prof Alice Roberts — with their earth=shattering ”revelations.” The BBC should not have commissioned such a flimsy piece of work. An altogether grubby business, from which nobody emerges with any credit.
Radio Times have washed their hands, Pontius Pilate style, of any responsibility for the naming of, or the summary of the contents of this 'Lost 'Circle' programme when I challenged them on both scores today.
As many others haver noted, the BBC is no longer a purveyor of the truth — it is a purveyor of opinions dressed up as the truth. And the Radio Times is just a part of the publicity machine — so it does not surprise me that they take no responsibility for anything…..
However, Radio Times editor has provided me with the online address of whom to complain to within the not - too - sacred bowels of the BBC....
Have written to the Radio Times and the editor myself — no reply, of course…….
Silence can be deafening when no one listens
.....another, possibly more fruitful tack might be to complain to OFFCOM, I think I heard this said in Radio 4's "Feedback" programme - which itself would perhaps be worth contacting soon after a programme is aired.
Down here near Bradford - on-Avon by sheer chance I got talking to a lady and learnt her husband is set to join Mike P Pearson's insistent band of brothers and sisters "in about a month" in the Preselis. She knew it will be near the so - called circle. I discovered he had a First Class Archaeology degree. I fear he is being led up the garden path and told her so. No doubt he is under his angular thrall....
angular?? avuncular. Predictive text, grrr
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