Is this the smoking gun? Newall's ignimbrite boulder and Hawley's glacial erratics

 

Thanks to Tim Daw for a new post on his Sarsen.org web site about the Newall "erratic boulder" apparently found near Stone 8 by Col Hawley in one of his  Stonehenge digs in 1924.  Thanks too to Tony H for drawing my attention to it.

https://www.sarsen.org/2022/06/an-erratic-source.html?lr=1

This is a very welcome and important addition to the coverage on this interesting bit of evidence, following these posts:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2022/02/newalls-ignimbrite-boulder-update.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2012/10/newalls-ignimbrite-boulder.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2014/08/stonehenge-mystery-of-striated-bluestone.html

Kudos to Tim for digging up the Hawley link and for reproducing those BGS photos at much greater clarity than I could manage.  From examining the left-hand image (Fig 35), I would say, in reply to Tim's question about glacial striations, I will reply "Yes, they do indeed look authentic -- and I would provisionally accept that interpretation."  Some of the grooves appear to be crossing, and there is no consistent direction, so I agree that they are probably not related to the internal structure or fabric of the rock -- which we would probably call rhyolite today.  Here is an annotated version of the photo, at the largest magnification I can manage:

Possibly of greater significance are the two crescentic gouges on the edge of the stone -- these are generally excellent indicators of glacial transport and damage.  But the shape of the stone is interesting too -- it has a series of facets or fractured faces, with the edges seriously damaged by abrasion. Some faces are more weathered than others, and I am intrigued by the setting in chalk rubble -- 25 inches below the surface, according to Hawley.  He and the BGS experts were convinced that part of the stone had been worked by Neolithic or Bronze Age people trying to turn it into a stone axe -- but the photo captions indicate that the stone has had a long and complex history -- first in "cold acid water" (meaning  exposure in an acid environment possibly somewhere in North or West Wales) and later in the chalky or calcium-rich environment of Salisbury Plain. This had led to the creation of patches of tufa on the stone surface.

Is this the smoking gun we have all been waiting for?  I think it might well be -- since we now have the following 5 powerful indicators of glacial activity:

-- a small boulder or stone with 5 or 6 flattened faceted faces

-- rounded or abraded facet edges

-- different degrees of weathering on different facets

-- several visible crescentic gouges

-- a cluster of striations running in different directions

In addition, the weathering evidence cited by the BGS staff demonstrates a long and complex history in at least two very different environments.  No way can this erratic be seen as a lump of rock quarried and transported by our heroic ancestors during the Neolithic.  

More kudos to Tim for chasing down the Hawley reference to FOUR glacial erratic stones in close proximity in the same excavated pit.  Three of them were made of rhyolite, and one of diabase (dolerite): 

Thanks to Tim for copying this -- as we can see, Hawley did not like the idea of glacial erratics.  He refers to  four erratics found in 1924 as "implements" or at least "potential implements", but admits that the rhyolite ones were quite unsuitable because they do not break conchoidially.  So there is no reason for them to have been carried to Stonehenge from somewhere else, if they were "rubbish stones".   This was pointed out quite forcefully by Kellaway.  Hawley ignores the issue of how they got into the Stonehenge Layer or chalk rubble in the first place.......

Hawley's 6th Report Jan 1926 Vol V1 No.1 The Antiquaries Journal, re the 1924 excavations

With the benefit of hindsight, looking again at Kellaway's published description of  Newall's sample number RSN18, and of the boulder itself, it is now quite apparent that this is a vastly important piece of evidence.  The "welded vitric tuff" is considered by Kellaway to most likely be of North Wales origin, although north Pembrokeshire / Mynydd Preseli cannot be ruled out.  The description of the weathered layer of the stone -- work involving Harrison, Sanderson and Young, as well as Kellaway himself --is fascinating, demonstrating that the BGS staff took this find very seriously indeed.

If we look at the authenticity of these records, starting a full century ago, it is impeccable.  Hawley, Engleheart, Dale,  Newall, Kellaway, Harrison, Sanderson and Young all handled the stone and contributed to its analysis and description.  So it was more than a little disingenuous of James Scourse in 1977 to say "Given the nature of the derivation of this ignimbrite boulder ........ the integrity of the evidence should be discounted until reliable evidence is forthcoming as to its original context at Stonehenge."  As far as I am concerned, that required evidence is now available for all to see, in print and in photographic form.  

Many people have never been to Stonehenge -- but they believe it exists because others tell them it does, and because they have seen photos and words on pages purporting to describe it.  If you are going to believe in the existence of something, you need to have faith in the integrity of your sources.

We must remember that less than 50% of the surface area of the stone monument has ever been excavated.  So goodness knows what still remains tom be discovered in the superficial deposits.  And goodness knows what has been misidentified and / or thrown away.  Hawley kept only those bits of bluestone that interested him, and threw the rest away -- maybe many of them are in the holes referred to as "Newall's Graves", as suggested by Ros Cleal et al in their big book (p 376).

And let's also remember that of the 43 bluestones (including remnants) at Stonehenge, no less than 26 are rough abraded and weathered boulders or slabs which would not be out of place in a terminal moraine or morainic litter close to any modern glacier snout. They look like natural and unaltered glacial erratics -- and there is no way that they can be interpreted as selected and quarried monoliths.  Archaeologists are thunderously quiet on this point.  The 4 smaller erratics referred to by Hawley and Newall belong squarely in this family of bluestones.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-erratic-bluestone-circle.html

http://www.stonesofstonehenge.org.uk/search/label/Bluestone

To summarise.  There is in my mind no doubt about the provenance of this stone and about its significance for some of the earlier researchers at Stonehenge.  What we still do not know is its original provenance, probably on a rocky rhyolite outcrop somewhere in North or West Wales.  There is a sample thin section somewhere with the number RSN18 -- ENQ 2305.  Is it in one of the Newall collections in Salisbury Museum?  We must hunt it down.  Watch this space........

This is the analysis of the thin section made by KK Harrison, Chief Petrologist of the Geological Survey:

It's pretty absurd to call this boulder a "partly worked artefact", but we'll let that pass.........