I read this article on Vespasian's Camp and Blick Mead years ago, and had more or less forgotten about it. I did posts about it in 2013 and 2014. A lot of water has gone under the bridge. Let's look at it again, with a very interesting paragraph:
https://archaeology.co.uk/articles/features/vespasians-camp-cradle-of-stonehenge.htm
Vespasian’s Camp: Cradle of Stonehenge
Current Archaeology, April 19, 2013
David Jacques, Tom Phillips, and Tom Lyons
Does anybody know anything more about this flake? Barry Bishop was obviously studying it. It may well have been more carefully examined by now, by Rob Ixer and others. It looks like dark grey or black slate to me. If this was the parent material, of course the possibility of a slate erratic on Salisbury Plain comes into the frame. It might of course be made of North Wales slate, but it is much more likely to have come from a dark-coloured Pembrokeshire slate, which is found in abundance both to the north and south of Mynydd Preseli. This would be my preferred suggested provenance; after all, there are 43 other erratic monoliths -- or bits of them -- at Stonehenge, as well as innumerable lumps of rock and smaller fragments in the wider Stonehenge landscape, mostly from the Mynydd Preseli area:
Current Archaeology, April 19, 2013
David Jacques, Tom Phillips, and Tom Lyons
Extract:
Does anybody know anything more about this flake? Barry Bishop was obviously studying it. It may well have been more carefully examined by now, by Rob Ixer and others. It looks like dark grey or black slate to me. If this was the parent material, of course the possibility of a slate erratic on Salisbury Plain comes into the frame. It might of course be made of North Wales slate, but it is much more likely to have come from a dark-coloured Pembrokeshire slate, which is found in abundance both to the north and south of Mynydd Preseli. This would be my preferred suggested provenance; after all, there are 43 other erratic monoliths -- or bits of them -- at Stonehenge, as well as innumerable lumps of rock and smaller fragments in the wider Stonehenge landscape, mostly from the Mynydd Preseli area:
Fig 4.12 from "Stonehenge for the Ancestors" --- courtesy Sidestone Press, who have made the book available for free via the internet. Bluestone erratic fragments all over the place.........
(Note: Killas is a Cornish mining term for metamorphic rock strata of sedimentary origin which were altered by heat from the intruded granites in the English counties of Devon and Cornwall. The term is used in both counties.)
This is intriguing, from a 2017 article:
And this from 2014: "The presence of Horsham-type points is unusual in Wiltshire, suggesting that people travelled here. A slate point from context (59) is particularly illuminating in this regard. Slate is exotic for the area and this piece appears to have been closely fashioned in the Horsham Point style (Figure 5, 1 and 2). An exceptionally large amount of burnt flint indicates nearby hearths and possibly large fires (Bishop below and forthcoming)."
Mesolithic settlement near Stonehenge: excavations at Blick Mead, Vespasian’s Camp, Amesbury
by David Jacques1 and Tom Phillips
https://www.buckingham.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Blick-Mead.pdf
Contribution from Barry Bishop (p 17):
This is an illustration of what appears to be the same piece of slate -- but here referred to not as black or grey, but as light green........... that again would be perfectly feasible for something which has come from the Preseli area, where slates of many colours occur in assorted well-known slate quarries.
Contribution from Barry Bishop (p 17):
" One of the most intriguing finds from the excavations is a small piece of light greenish slate, 42mm long, 13mm wide, 4mm thick and weighing 2g, formed into a basally retouched Horsham Point from Trench 19, context (59) (Figure 5: 1). Slate does not fracture conchoidally, thus it is difficult if not impossible to determine whether this piece was deliberately shaped. Several factors, however, suggest that it may have been consciously formed. Its shape is typical for this type of microlith, with the right side gently curved from base to tip. The left side continues flaring from the point to about half way down where it turns inwards, forming a slight shoulder. The base is slightly curved and at a slight oblique angle to the main axis of the piece. A small part of its edge is broken following natural cleavage planes, but mostly the edges are formed by steep snapping from the ventral side, although snapping at the base is bifacial, initially from the ventral face and then also inversely from the dorsal face, resulting in a concave bevelled edge. All edges are fresh with little evidence of rolling or abrasion. If this object is indeed a slate microlith it is, as far as this author can establish, unique in Britain."
This is an illustration of what appears to be the same piece of slate -- but here referred to not as black or grey, but as light green........... that again would be perfectly feasible for something which has come from the Preseli area, where slates of many colours occur in assorted well-known slate quarries.
And this from David Jacques, in 2017:
"Of particular interest is a slate point which appears to have been fashioned in the Horsham Point style typical of the Sussex weald in the middle Mesolithic. The slate has been subjected to XRF analysis and is likely to have come from Wales or the Welsh borders. As such the object points to an ‘east meets west’ transmission of knowledge at Blick Mead and hints at gatherings of dispersed groups of people there. Other exotics include a sandstone tool, a unique find in Great Britain, which probably came from the West Midlands and a worked sarsen found in the residential area which is likely to have come from the Marlborough Downs area. The sense is of people from elsewhere meeting locals at the site and exchanging ideas, things and maybe genes."
You have to forgive David Jacques for the mental blockage about the possibility of glacial erratics on Salisbury Plain -- but a key point for me is that the "slate point" is not alone. There are other erratic pieces too. in a Mesolithic context........
5 comments:
David Jacques is doing a bit of a grandiose, MPP, 'east meets west' insistence, I suppose these things are psychologically all part of the hubris that affects those whose digging and identifying is consequent on being within the Stonehenge super - magnet.
I haven't had chance to seek out the newish Amesbury Museum as yet......we may learn more there about the slate point's identity and provenance.
I wonder about the state of play with regard to the Stonehenge obsession and with "interpretative inflation" -- as pointed out by Barclay and Brophy? One had hoped that the archaeology establishment would have encouraged a greater sense of balance by now...... but it all got rather vicious, with B+B having to put up with a concerted attack.......
Apart from being David Jacques' "patch", I would expect Bournemouth University/ Tim Darvill to be particularly keen on nearby Blick Mead, since the river Avon's mouth is not far from Bournemouth. Therefore, we could see what they have to say about the slate artefact (also, has Rob Ixer got more recent information?).
ROFLOL "Stonehenge super-magnet." New to me. Going to add it to my fairies and space aliens buckets : -)
I am an Amber Donor level of Member of WANHS based in Devizes, i.e. Wiltshire Museum. Former Time Teamer Dr Phil Harding is one of our elites. Would love to persuade him to give his considerable attention to Mesolithic excavation sites within a couple of miles of the Old Ruin and go there with pre - knowledge of identifying any of the whole gamut of so - called " bluestones" and report back to Brian at Presli HQ. ( I know he's the main man when it comes to experience in these Mesolithic digs).
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