Following on from the revelations of Josh Pollard in his recent video talk, I have been pondering on what the collection of foreign stones at West Kennet should be called. They had better be called "the West Kennet bluestone assemblage" since there seem to be a lot of them -- and at the moment all we know about them is that some of them, at least, are made of granidiorite from far to the north. It has not yet been demonstrated that all of the fragments and stones are from the same source, let alone from a single boulder that has fallen apart or been smashed up -- we await a paper from Ixer and Bevins, which will no doubt tell us the truth of the matter.
As we all know, the term "bluestone" is used for any non-sarsen stone that pops up on Salisbury Plain, most often (but not always) in the vicinity of Stonehenge. As as we are also fully aware, there are around 30 different provenances included in the currently known Stonehenge bluestone assemblage. The bluestones recorded thus far are not all from the Mynydd Preseli - North Pembrokeshire area; and since the Altar Stone is apparently not from Pembrokeshire at all, and is in any case afforded the "bluestone" label, it is entirely logical to call any stones from the Cheviot area or elsewhere in Northern England bluestones as well.
As I have noted before, it is more and more apparent that bluestones are scattered over a wide area and that it is a mistake to label all of them as "STONEHENGE bluestones." The scatter of bluestones around Fargo Plantation is rather intriguing, and it looks as if there was an "independent" source of fragments somewhere near there. It has already been mooted by MPP and his colleagues that there may have been standing bluestones there, and maybe even a circle of rhyolite standing stones -- but there is no reason at all to assume that those were the same stones as we currently see at Stonehenge. See Chapter 4 of "Stonehenge for the Ancestors":
https://www.sidestone.com/books/stonehenge-for-the-ancestors-part-1
Then we have the highly controversial Boles Barrow site, which we have discussed at length. And now West Kennet and "Structure 5"..........
http://exploringavebury.com/book-notes-134-140
I still think that there may well be quite large bluestones that are as yet undiscovered. It is notoriously difficult to distinguish bluestones from sarsens in the field, since they have very similar colouring and similar shapes -- and it's only when you examine them closely that you can pick up the textural characteristics of dolerite, rhyolite or volcanic ash. As for the Palaeozoic sandstones -- telling them from sarsens is even more difficult.
It starts to get rather interesting. Who knows where it will all end?
19 comments:
It was stated by Josh Pollard that that well - known sometime - TV character Phil Harding was involved in matters at the West Kennet Palisades recent excavations. He recently hung up his battered hat after a long career with Wessex Archaeology but is still enthusiastically on the scene.
Hi Guys,
Seems you may have watched the recent Wiltshire Museum online lecture featuring Josh Pollard and Alison Sheridan. I apologise if you already have seen it but in case..
I thought it was interesting that it seems a large amount of "Granodiorite", "perhaps a complete megalith" may have been shunted all the way down to West Kennet from the Cunyan Crags some 300 miles away in the Cheviots.
Furthermore it was interesting that it seems the folk of the late neolithic were in a lot more communication with folk from the four corners of the British Isles than what was previosly thought. They discussed a timeline that first saw development in New Grange in Ireland then later it moved to the Ness of Brodgar in the Orkneys and later from there on to Wessex. Furthermore there were possible earlier links with Brittany and other European places.
It was a very interesting and animated discussion. I am not a scientist or an archaeologist but I thought you might be interested in watching this discussion on the Wiltshire Museum Website as it is in your interest area. Best regards Steve.
https://www.wiltshiremuseum.org.uk/?event=online-event-connections-avebury-and-orkney&event_date=2021-11-26
Thank you Steve -- yes, we are on the case, as indicated by this post and others no doubt still to come....
The online discussion claimed to be on links between Avebury & Orkney, and marked an anniversary of the Avebury World Heritage Site. Yet MOST of the very lengthy talks made NO mention of movement of anything larger than, say, stone or flint axes, or the enigmatic stone balls; jewellry or pottery design.
There has been a long discussion on my Facebook site, involving towards 50 Comments so far. To my mind, suddenly loads of folk pricked up their ears at the slightest hint of the possibility of movement of megaliths, however small, over long distance! It seems everyone loves a good STORY.....you see this in the popularity of folk music and Country music. The nights are drawing in, so let's gather round the fire and sing about heroic and mostly fictional or embellished.....
Yes, jolly Facebook discussion -- round in circles, as is often the way with Facebook threads. Some will simply continue to say that if large stones CAN be moved through the forest (as in some cited modern examples) then they probably WERE moved from Pembs to Stonehenge, regardless of terrain, environment and technological differences.
And yes, it still seems to be true that people are reluctant to accept that those who made prehistoric axes and other artefacts were opportunists who were more likely to use erratic boulders or cobbles from beaches etc as their raw materials that to quarry and use raw materials at their places of origin. Briggs, Williams-Thorpe and others have argued this for a long time. Useful summary here:
https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue26/34/4.html
I looked at some info from Stephen Briggs here:
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-romance-of-venturesome-trader.html
He thinks that archaeologists are far too easily sucked into the belief that every implement, wherever found, has been "traded" from its place of origin to its final destination. It's far too easy, and seductive, to simply daw maps of sources and find locations and to create imagined networks of trading links, as a means of demonstrating how sophisticated prehistoric societies were........
After reading todays news with regards to Stonehenge. Do you think they were swapping axe hammers for mince pies?
What news is that? Have they discovered cremated mince pies in an Aubrey Hole?
On looking into the matter of Neolithic axe manufacture and distribution in the British Isles, in this big article (dominated by authors from UCL, including MPP) there is nothing at all about ice movement directions and erratic distributions. It is simply assumed that all the materials used for axe manufacture were found at quarrying or source outcrop sites and that manufacture of the axeheads took place at the source location as well. All movements of the 5000-plus axeheads are assumed to have involved trading activity. Shoddy work.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10816-019-09438-6#Fig8
EH volunteers baking "Neolithic inspired mince pies" in the Neolithic round houses. They discovered all the ingredients during Durrington Walls excavation.
All of the ingredients? Some, maybe -- and rest is imagination. The silly season is still with us -- and it fills up some tabloid space, thereby keeping everybody entertained.
The recipe is in this months Currant Archaeology.
Nice one Gordon! I bet the experimental archaeology boys and girls can't wait to get stuck in on this one.....
That mince pie "discovery" says them ole Durrington girls & boys used hazel but in their recipe (amongst other hunter - gatherer hang- overs). This got the briefest embarrassed mention by Points West BBC TV before swiftly passing over to the Weather Man, who concentrated on the science.....
"........hazel nuts......." (8correction of last comment)
The latest nut case to comment on this nutty story suggests that those vast stones were moved by people who got their energy from high-energy fruit and nut bars........... and so it goes on. Harmless enough, I suppose.....
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquaries-journal/
Thoughts on Massive Flint Cores From.....
Phil Harding and John Lord
......a massive fan-shaped flint core from West Kennett
Farm.....
Antiquities Journal, vol 97, Sept 2017, pp 49 - 63
Following on from my just - submitted Comment, I have now tracked down a fuller description of the contents of the A.J. Sept 2017 article:-
"Thoughts on Massive Flint Cores from Wiltshire & East Anglia, the movement of flint and its role in late Neolithic Britain", 1-15, The Antiquaries Journal.....
This was found via the 'Wessex Archaeology' organisation's list of publications.
Seems to be behind a paywall..... or "page not found"......
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