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Saturday 11 December 2021

Message to MPP: please pay attention!


MPP at the so-called Rhosyfelin "bluestone extraction point".  He will show it, with great enthusiasm, to any TV crew that asks him to perform.......


Yet again, in the latest TV extravaganza about the "giant pit circle" at Durrington, MPP has appeared in person, down at Rhosyfelin, examining the so-called "bluestone extraction point" and pointing out, with utter certainty, that this is where there was an identical geological match match between bedrock and one of the Stonehenge bluestone monoliths, and that this was the exact spot from which the stone was taken by the famous Neolithic quarrymen.  I don't remember his words exactly, but I recall that the "discovery" was deemed to be "a perfect match" -- and "astonishing" or  "amazing" or "extraordinary".  (Those words featured very prominently in the documentary, to the point where the viewer began to worry for the future of the English language......)

As I have repeatedly said, that is all complete nonsense.  For a start, the geologists have not found an exact match between a sample precisely on this spot and one of the Stonehenge monoliths.  What we can say -- and this is very different -- is that a sample taken from within a few metres of here had geological characteristics that were similar (NOT identical) to the characteristics of some of the foliated rhyolite fragments found in excavations at Stonehenge.  MPP has completely distorted the geological findings for his own purposes, and he should have been taken to task by the geologists, instead of letting him get away with it.  My take on the geological work is that there is a reasonably strong chance that some of the fragments at Stonehenge have come from a destroyed bluestone that originated somewhere near Rhosyfelin, where the "Jovian fabric" occurs in some of  the rock outcrops.  The Jovian fabric samples did NOT come exclusively just from one sampling point. And even if Rhosyfelin is a likely source area for some material found at Stonehenge, that does not mean that bluestones were taken from here by Neolithic quarrymen.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2014/04/on-significance-of-rhosyfelin-locality-8.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2015/09/rhosyfelin-and-spot-provenancing.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-matter-of-single-rhosyfelin-monolith.html

Secondly, if MPP was to stop and look at the rock face at his so-called "monolith extraction point" he would see that there is no way that a single monolith could have been taken from here.  For a start, the crevice or gap in the rock face is completely the wrong shape -- far too narrow for the extraction of a single coherent monolith, given that there are crossing fractures everywhere in the country rock.  And even more significant, the rock surface at the "extraction point" shows a series of quite prominent fracture scars which are weathered differentially.  Some fractures are very old, weathered and smoothed off, and others are moderately fresh or very fresh, with sharp edges.  The little rock projections at the base are particularly interesting in that they are heavily abraded, probably by glacial meltwater.  So there has been no breakage of rock here for more than 20,000 years.  I have described all of this on many occasions, for example in this post in 2018:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/04/that-famous-monolith-extraction-point.html 


The so-called "extraction point" with fractures of various ages, showing that the rock face here has been created by the breaking off of smallish slabs during a number of different episodes -- exactly as we would expect of an exposed rock face subject to the processes of natural weathering and erosion.

So why is it that a senior archaeology professor consistently refuses to listen to what he is told by people who know what they are talking about?  Why does he refuse to even consider any evidence that happens to be inconvenient?  Why does he persist in repeating ad infinitum a narrative characterised by wild fantasies and fabricated evidence? Answers on a postcard please......

4 comments:

Tony Hinchliffe said...

The answer on a postcard you request may be found in the moniker that MPP's university UCL brashly flaunts: their proud claim to DISRUPTIVE THINKING.

Crikey! Has it come to this!......as a means of justifying slipshod, headline - grabbing, perverse nonsense.

Tom Flowers said...

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: nothing an archaeologist says, or writes, can be trusted.

BRIAN JOHN said...

I wouldn't go so far. It seems to me that a lot of work done by the archaeological trusts is very competent and well balanced -- and luckily free of hyperbole. It's a different matter when we get to academic archaeology -- when reputations, egos, productivity, power, notoriety and so forth seem to become a great deal more important than academic rigour.

Tom Flowers said...

Then we will have to agree to differ.