Somebody posted this gorgeous image on Facebook today. If there ever was a serious stone circle anywhere in Pembrokeshire, it might well have looked something like this.........
Tuesday, 28 February 2023
Castlerigg stone circle
Somebody posted this gorgeous image on Facebook today. If there ever was a serious stone circle anywhere in Pembrokeshire, it might well have looked something like this.........
Monday, 27 February 2023
Science's worst hoaxes -- or maybe the best ones.....
Baron Munchausen, the famous adventurer
Anyway, here is the link:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/25/from-piltdown-man-to-anti-vaxxers-what-sciences-worst-hoaxes-can-teach-us
From Piltdown Man to anti-vaxxers ... What science’s worst hoaxes can teach us
by Robin McKie25 Feb 2023
It took decades before the true nature of Britain’s greatest scientific fraud, Piltdown Man, was revealed. It’s an extraordinary story that will be outlined at the meeting by palaeontologist Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum.
The shards of skull that were unearthed in a gravel pit at Piltdown in East Sussex in 1912 were interpreted as being the remains of a million-year-old apeman, an individual who possessed a large brain but primitive jawbone and teeth. It was exactly what British scientists were seeking, said Stringer.
“A century ago, French archaeologists had discovered Cro-Magnons while the Germans had their Neanderthals. Britain had nothing – until Piltdown Man appeared.
“Then we had our own fossil rival – except, of course, it was a forgery made up of the braincase of a modern human being and the jawbone of an orangutan. It took scientists 40 years to prove this.
“At the time of its discovery, there was a huge demand for Britain to have its own missing link, and a lot of experts who should have known better lowered their guard.
“It is a lesson for all of us. When something seems too good to be true, it probably is too good to be the real thing.”
As to the perpetrator, most scientists, Stringer included, now believe local archaeologist Charles Dawson – the man who had first found the pieces of skull – was responsible for fabricating the find. He was desperate to become a fellow of the Royal Society and was listed as a possible candidate for election. The Piltdown skull would be his ticket to scientific fame, he hoped. However, he died in 1916, not long after making his “discovery”.
Dawson, though, would not have been the first fraudster or crook to have been made a fellow of the society if he had succeeded.
“Indeed, it is surprising, when you start looking, how many eminent scientists and fellows of the Royal Society have ended up in jail,” said Keith Moore. “There is a long history of this kind of thing here.”
Examples go back to the founding of the Royal Society, though some were imprisoned for less than nefarious reasons.
German theologian Henry Oldenburg, its first secretary and one of the originators of the idea of peer review was imprisoned in the Tower of London as a suspected spy in 1667 during the second Anglo-Dutch war. Crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale was briefly jailed for her pacifist views during the second world war.
But the strangest of all these characters was Rudolf Erich Raspe, who will be the focus of a talk by Moore at Thursday’s meeting.
Raspe, a German, was elected to the society in the 18th century for his work on geology but was eventually ejected for his “divers frauds and gross breaches of trust”.
“Part of the problem was that in those days, scientists had no income other than private means and that sometimes led them on to the path of temptation,” said Moore.
Raspe sought other sources of income and in due course turned to fiction. “He wrote the earliest known version of the stories of Baron Munchausen, which have never been out of print since, though he made no money from them himself,” added Moore.
The crucial point is that science can only operate if it can be sure that the information it is presented with is correct, said Moore.
“That is why the integrity of its fellows was so important to the society. It was our way of ensuring information and data were coming from a reliable source. And of course, it is fun to tell people there has been a long history of scientists fighting against fraud and occasionally losing out.
“It is also important to understand these issues because we now have new problems relating to the internet, deepfaking and that kind of stuff. People have to be careful about the sources of the information that they are relying on. That has always been a problem.”
Raspe and Baron Munchausen…….
http://authorscalendar.info/munchh.htm
Rudolf Erich Raspe (1737-1794)
------------------------
Chris Stringer's points about hoaxes are interesting -- especially the pressure within every nation to make discoveries that enhance national pride ("Our Neolithic tribes were smarter than yours, and you might as well admit it.......") and within every academic community to enhance reputations and maybe attract notoriety. We have discussed before the "political context" in the aftermath of the First World War that led HH Thomas to promote his bluestone transport theory, and which led others to accept it without much serious scrutiny. So how much has changed in the last century? Not much. English Heritage, with the guaranteed support of much of the media, still promotes Stonehenge as one of the wonders of the world, and unquestioningly supports much of the mythology surrounding the bluestones in the pretence that it is talking about hard facts. As we all know, it seems desperate to avoid any suggestion that anything is disputed -- presumably in the belief that people like certainty and reassurance and that they cannot cope with dissent and disagreement. So in the absence of proper scrutiny, it is quite easy for a hoax to be perpetrated by those who seek wealth and fame -- and the longer the hoax survives, the more difficult it becomes for EH to turn around and admit that as an organization it has been conned.......
And as far as the research practitioners are concerned, I don't suppose that the pursuit of wealth is much of a factor, but for some people the need for media attention and notoriety has long since trumped academic propriety and scientific reliability. As I have said over and again on this blog, appalling papers that should never have seen the light of day have been peer-reviewed and published, and indeed celebrated in carefully manipulated media campaigns, because nobody much could be bothered to read them properly or to check out the details of what was being described out in the field. So geologists who should have stuck to bluestone provenancing work have been sucked into the business of promoting bluestone quarries, human transport methods and lost "giant stone circles". And as many as twenty senior archaeologists have been sucked into the development of a wild and fantastical narrative that is now collapsing around their ears.
As Chris Stringer says: ".........a lot of experts who should have known better lowered their guard. It is a lesson for all of us. When something seems too good to be true, it probably is too good to be the real thing...............
And as Keith Moore says: "........it is surprising, when you start looking, how many eminent scientists and fellows of the Royal Society have ended up in jail. There is a long history of this kind of thing..........”
Now there's a thought......
But let's be reassured by the thought that no hoax survives for ever.......
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2010/03/two-great-hoaxes-piltdown-skull-and.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2010/02/did-hh-thomas-cook-books.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2013/03/is-bluestone-myth-based-on-scientific.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2010/03/herbert-thomas-and-charles-dawson.html
Thursday, 23 February 2023
The builders of Stonehenge came from the east, not the west
Some years ago (around 2019) I did a few posts about the emerging evidence of DNA affinities across western Europe, partly based on this article by Brace et al:
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-neolithic-revolution-came-from-east.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-yamnaya-peace-loving-travellers.html
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/09/brexit-and-cockeyed-science-pitts.html
For some reason it has popped up again on the BBC website. Here is the abstract of the article:
AbstractThe roles of migration, admixture and acculturation in the European transition to farming have been debated for over 100 years. Genome-wide ancient DNA studies indicate predominantly Aegean ancestry for continental Neolithic farmers, but also variable admixture with local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Neolithic cultures first appear in Britain circa 4000 BC, a millennium after they appeared in adjacent areas of continental Europe. The pattern and process of this delayed British Neolithic transition remain unclear. We assembled genome-wide data from 6 Mesolithic and 67 Neolithic individuals found in Britain, dating 8500–2500 BC. Our analyses reveal persistent genetic affinities between Mesolithic British and Western European hunter-gatherers. We find overwhelming support for agriculture being introduced to Britain by incoming continental farmers, with small, geographically structured levels of hunter-gatherer ancestry. Unlike other European Neolithic populations, we detect no resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry at any time during the Neolithic in Britain. Genetic affinities with Iberian Neolithic individuals indicate that British Neolithic people were mostly descended from Aegean farmers who followed the Mediterranean route of dispersal. We also infer considerable variation in pigmentation levels in Europe by circa 6000 BC.
Partly the discussion is framed in terms of hunter-gatherers descended from Mesolithic populations across the northern and western parts of the British Isles, and the Neolithic farmers or agriculturalists coming from the near continent. These brought with them a megalithic or stone using culture which was more complex and advanced than that of the older British tribes.
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-hunt-for-proto-stonehenge-and.html
With regard to the complex myth developed by MPP and his colleagues, regarding stone selection and quarrying, the use of megaliths in at least one "lost giant circle" in the midst of a ceremonial complex, and then the export of 80 bluestones to Stonehenge, they completely ignore the fact that all this would have required a highly sophisticated Neolithic culture in West Wales and a less sophisticated one on Salisbury Plain. There is no evidence that such a state of affairs ever existed, and indeed the research by Brace et al suggests that the stone-using skills came with the Neolithic tribes moving in from the near continent -- from the east towards the west.
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-hunt-for-proto-stonehenge-and.html
With regard to the complex myth developed by MPP and his colleagues, regarding stone selection and quarrying, the use of megaliths in at least one "lost giant circle" in the midst of a ceremonial complex, and then the export of 80 bluestones to Stonehenge, they completely ignore the fact that all this would have required a highly sophisticated Neolithic culture in West Wales and a less sophisticated one on Salisbury Plain. There is no evidence that such a state of affairs ever existed, and indeed the research by Brace et al suggests that the stone-using skills came with the Neolithic tribes moving in from the near continent -- from the east towards the west.
As we have said many times before, as the myth has become more and more complex, the lack of hard evidence in support of it becomes more and more of an embarrassment for the research team that has pushed it so enthusiastically. The DNA evidence from 2019 is just another nail in the coffin, and it's no bad thing to remind ourselves of it every now and then.
Reconstructed facial characteristics of one of the "immigrant" women who came with the waves of Neolithic settlers arriving from the near continent. They were agriculturalists and stone users......
Wednesday, 22 February 2023
Standing stones, folk tales and myth creation
Very interesting article has just been published, relating to a rather mysterious standing stone called the Kempock Stone -- in an urban setting in Scotland. The details:
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the modern biography of a prehistoric stone of uncertain provenance, the megalith known as the Kempock Stone or Granny Kempock that has stood in the Clydeside town of Gourock for at least several hundred years. Rather than fous on a specific prehistoric period of creation and installation, or speculate upon its original function, this account explores the numerous stories that have accumulated around the stone over the past two centuries, revealing its composite biography. In addition, the paper also identifies the plethora of practices that have focused upon the stone over the years. In adopting an urban prehistory that concentrates upon surviving prehistoric places, sites and things that survive in urban places, we investigate how these narratives and practices significntly contribute to the rich heritage of this monolith. In contending that a better understanding of the social benefits of monoliths in urban places is long overdue, we also exemplify the contemporary value such sites play in consolidating local identities, enriching heritage and hosting a wealth of shared cultural practices.
This stone is rather interesting; because it is in an urban setting and because it has been protected and valued by the community, it has attracted a vast assortment of tales, anecdotes and hazy "folk memories" that have cemented it in local consciousness and have turned it in some ways into a symbol of community identity. The authors of this article argue that in some ways this "community value" is more important than knowing how old the stone is, how long it has stood where in now stands, and what has been done to its shape and its surface down through the generations. Local people do not actually care whether the stone is Neolithic or Bronze Age, or how it might relate to other stone settings in the region......... but they do "own" it.
Of course, all standing stones -- whether rural or urban -- attract local attention. They are named, and legends and folk tales are attached to them. Bedd Morris, not far from Newport, is probably a Bronze Age feature, but it is reputed to mark the grave of somebody called Morris -- and there are two different versions of the story of Morris. The standing stone called Hangstone Davy is associated with a gruesome tale about somebody called Davy who came to a sticky end while trying to steal a sheep. The stones of Parc y Meirw guard "the field of the dead", which is haunted by a ghostly lady. The stones at Bedd yr Afanc are associated with a heroic tale of the capture and killing of a fearsome water monster. The standing stone called Cwrt-y-Gollen is reputed to grow taller as time passes. Llech Idris standing stone was reputedly hurled from the summit of Cader Idris by a giant. And how many stones are associated with King Arthur or Samson? So it goes on........
People create stories about local landmarks all the time -- one might even say the urge is irresistible. It's all good innocent fun, and we can enjoy those tales that are written down, and enjoy listening to old and new tales that simply move about orally within the community, improving all the time until they get collected and written down in collections such as my "Pembrokeshire Folk Tales" trilogy of 4 volumes.
But we do need to be a bit cautious, especially when people like Mike Parker Pearson appear in our community and get swept away by the irresistible story telling urge. Before you can say "Eglwyswrw" or "Mynachlogddu" there is a vast new mythology in the literature -- all centred on a single rather innocuous standing stone in a place called Waun Mawn. Woven into the cunning tale are the bluestones, Stonehenge, heroic ancestors with ropes and sledges, quarries, astronomical alignments, giant lost stone circles, other circles yet to be found, and a vast ceremonial complex imprinted on the landscape. All very jolly, until senior academics claim that the whole mythology is underpinned by sound science and by real features identified on the ground and in archaeological digs. Learned papers get published in the academic literature, in a never ending stream. TV programmes seek to convince members of the public that the myth is actually true. Then it all starts to get rather sinister.........
Tuesday, 21 February 2023
The dizzying delights of circular reasoning
The claim that there was a "major ancient ceremonial complex" in the Waun Mawn area (in MPP's latest book) is yet another example of the circular reasoning that pervades the bluestone debate. I have highlighted this already, in a number of posts on this blog.
It goes like this: there must have been a major ancient ceremonial complex in the area, because if the stones were special enough to carry all the way from Preseli to Stonehenge they must by definition have been special or sacred in some way, and that means the area they came from must have been culturally unique or significant. Therefore that proves that there was an ancient ceremonial complex, even if we can't see any trace of it today.
This is typical of the circular reasoning found in a number of recent publications. The assumption that the human transport of Preseli bluestones is FACT instead of fantasy underpins everything, and distorts the reasoning of otherwise reasonable people. In their minds, the assumed FACT that the stones were moved proves that the Preseli area was a cultural and even political focal point, that the people were monumental experts, that they were involved in complex inter-regional links, and that they had developed a high degree of technical skill and social complexity. Take away the "fact" and everything collapses.
This is the style of reasoning that poisons the debate about the bluestone quarries. Because the glacial transport of the bluestones was impossible (so they say) around 80 of the stones must have been carried by human beings from Preseli to Stonehenge, and because people were clever enough to do that, they must also have been clever enough to extract the stones from quarries in very difficult locations. And because they were clever enough to do monolith quarrying "on an industrial scale" they must also have been clever enough to build circles and other ceremonial features, even if we do not actually find many of them in the landscape of today.
The Neolithic tribe that quarried the stones must have been clever enough to recognise the special characteristics of particular rock types because they were clever enough to do their quarrying in the right places (Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog), even though there was no preferential use of spotted dolerite or foliated rhyolite in Preseli megalithic structures.
Because the quarrymen of West Preseli were clever enough to do all that quarrying of "special" rocks, of course they must also have been quite clever enough to construct a "giant stone circle" at Waun Mawn. It may never have actually been constructed, but never mind -- the INTENTION to build it was very clear.
Although there are no links that can be established between Waun Mawn and Stonehenge, never mind. The intention to build the giant stone circle tells us a lot about the Stonehenge people and what they wanted or did not want to do, even in far distant places where they actually never quite got round to it.
And because there was a magnificent ceremonial complex in this area, and because these local people were very clever, they must have built other magnificent stone circles that we have unfortunately not yet managed to find.
It all goes to show how significant the Waun Mawn area really was, and how strong the cultural links were with Stonehenge.......... even if there is no evidence that withstands scrutiny. Remember -- the quite strong evidence for a geological link between Stonehenge and the Preseli district tells us NOTHING WHATSOEVER about the mode of transport of the bluestones and other far-travelled stone fragments.
Excuse me -- I am getting dizzy. Let's not beat about the bush here -- the whole bluestone narrative is complete and utter nonsense, from beginning to end. It's amazing that it has been perpetrated for as long as it has. And it's even more amazing that around 20 quite senior academics have maintained straight faces for as long as they have, while trying to convince the world that the wacky story is based on sound science.
PS. I forgot to mention that there is more than a little circular reasoning going on at Stonehenge as well. Some of the best examples come from the debate about the "bluestone arrival date". For many years it has been assumed that the bluestones arrived at Stonehenge (carried, of course, by our heroic ancestors) around 4,600 years ago. Don't let us worry too much about the date -- that keeps on changing as technology and chronology change. Anyway, because of the fundamental belief in this "arrival date", it is then assumed that any deposits above the lowest occurrence of a bluestone monolith or fragment in the Stonehenge stratigraphy must be later. By the same token, deposits that do not contain bluestone fragments might be older than the "arrival date" or they might be younger. At any rate, the position of the lowest bluestone fragment can be used as a dating proxy -- and we see this being done over and again in the big 1995 Stonehenge tome edited by Ros Cleal et al. However, many bluestone fragments occur in "inconvenient positions" -- and we see rather interesting mental gymnastics in several places in the text where deposits containing bluestone fragments are referred to as being in "secondary" and even "tertiary" positions. It's all rather entertaining.......... and very circular.
There is another fundamental problem too, with the use of bluestone fragments as "dating tools" in the Stonehenge chronology. We still know remarkably little about the distribution of bluestones and bluestone fragments across the Stonehenge landscape, but it is in any case illogical to refer to "the arrival of the bluestones" as a significant event. Before people started to make things out of stone and developed a "megalithic culture" they made pits, trenches and embankments out of superficial deposits, and used timber for structures. So what we should really talk about, with respect to the bluestones, and if we really need a date, is "the date at which bluestones started to be used in stone settings". As for the stones themselves, it is of course much more logical to assume that they were in the landscape all the time, undisturbed and unused until somebody decided to use them........
Sunday, 19 February 2023
Waun Mawn and the fantastical "major Neolithic monument complex"
Lots of nice stones -- but how many of them were used for "ceremonial" purposes?
Since MPP is once again promoting the idea that there was a magnificent and ancient ceremonial complex in the area around Waun Mawn, it's worth reminding ourselves that this is not actually supported by the evidence. Dyfed Archaeology has recorded a host of features around Waun Mawn, on Brynberian Moor and on the northern slopes of Mynydd Preseli, and has rather pragmatically stated that some of them are "ceremonial" (associated with burials etc) but that many others are somewhat utilitarian (walls, enclosures, tracks, hut circles etc) and associated with the humdrum practicalities of everyday life. Many of the features are not Neolithic at all, but from the Bronze Age and later.
This is the key report which gives the regional context:
www.dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/projects/schedulepembroke2011.pdf
In this Dyfed Archaeology leaflet there is no mention of a concentration of "ceremonial features" in the Waun Mawn - Tafarn y Bwlch area -- and the emphasis is on the scattered occurrence of features of all sorts, including stone settings linked with defensive, domestic and land use activities. Interestingly, several of the standing stones often assumed to have been used for "ceremonial" purposes are referred to simply as possible way markers.
http://www.dyfedarchaeology.org.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/walkerpreseli.pdf
I agree with the assessment that this is a landscape with a scatter of prehistoric features of many types and purposes. The concentration of "ceremonial features" is not especially dense around Waun Mawn as compared with other parts of Pembrokeshire, and no cultural links with Stonehenge have ever been demonstrated. The supposed cultural links with southern Ireland or other parts of South Wales are also difficult to establish, as pointed out by Tim Darvill, Nora Figgis, Steve Burrow and many others.
I agree with the assessment that this is a landscape with a scatter of prehistoric features of many types and purposes. The concentration of "ceremonial features" is not especially dense around Waun Mawn as compared with other parts of Pembrokeshire, and no cultural links with Stonehenge have ever been demonstrated. The supposed cultural links with southern Ireland or other parts of South Wales are also difficult to establish, as pointed out by Tim Darvill, Nora Figgis, Steve Burrow and many others.
I have tried to summarise the range of prehistoric features to be found in the Waun Mawn landscape in my Waun Mawn Report published on Researchgate.
Brian John. 2021. Waun Mawn and the search for “Proto-Stonehenge”. Researchgate: Greencroft Working Paper No 4, March 2021, 32 pp (updated September 2022)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345177590_Waun_Mawn_and_the_search_for_Proto-_Stonehenge
By the way, I have just checked on Researchgate, and the article has now been read 6,150 times. Some people are taking it rather seriously.........
Steve Burrow'a book "The Tomb Builders", published by the National Museum of Wales in 2006. Although he goes with the establishment flow and accepts that Stonehenge was "the great exception", he points out that all of the Neolithic monuments in Wales were built where the stones were, regardless of rock type. As for a major ceremonial complex in the west Preseli area, there is just nothing to support the idea.
Keep selling the myth -- and to hell with the truth
Here we go again -- that latest Stonehenge tome from MPP. The full text has not been released, but there are a few quotations and teasers on the web site publicity. The interesting thing about this book is that it must have been written and edited within the last year -- so there was ample time to incorporate the new information published in 2022 which showed that there was no discernible or unusual ancient "ceremonial complex" in the eastern part of Mynydd Preseli, no preferential use of "bluestone pillars" rather than rough boulders and slabs, and no "quarries associated with a major Neolithic monument complex". Even if there were Neolithic quarries at Craig Rhos-y-felin and Carn Goedog, not a single scrap of evidence has been produced to show that the stones taken from them were associated with any megalithic structures in the local area. And of course there is not a scrap of evidence to show that the bluestones were "brought to" Stonehenge rather than being collected up in the neighbourhood.
In other words, the prevailing philosophy still seems to be: to hell with the truth or with the evidence currently available -- we'll just keep on selling the story and perpetrating the myth we have so carefully manufactured and publicised over the course of the last decade......
Why do fellow archaeologists and publishers allow senior colleagues to get away with this sort of thing?
Stonehenge
A Brief History
Mike Parker PearsonBloomsbury Academic 2023, 208 pp
Paperback £17.99
Published online 8 Feb 2023
Book DOI
10.5040/9781350192263
https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/stonehenge-a-brief-history/
Extract from the book summary:
Some of its stones – the Welsh ‘bluestones’ – came from an already ancient ceremonial complex many miles away
Extract from Ch 3: The First Stonehenge
Whilst some of the stones were probably sarsens, the majority are thought to have been bluestone pillars. These were brought from the Preseli hills in west Wales, from quarries associated with a major Neolithic monument complex.
Book DOI
10.5040/9781350192263
https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/stonehenge-a-brief-history/
Extract from the book summary:
Some of its stones – the Welsh ‘bluestones’ – came from an already ancient ceremonial complex many miles away
Extract from Ch 3: The First Stonehenge
Whilst some of the stones were probably sarsens, the majority are thought to have been bluestone pillars. These were brought from the Preseli hills in west Wales, from quarries associated with a major Neolithic monument complex.
Saturday, 11 February 2023
Preseli -- trimlines, tors and the LGM
My new article published in Quaternary Newsletter is currently available via a direct link to the QRA web site -- but that may not remain open for very long, and I have now added the article to Researchgate as well. It's the proof version, identical to the published version except for the in-house formatting style.
Was there a Late Devensian ice-free corridor in Pembrokeshire?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368426571_Was_there_a_Late_Devensian_ice-free_corridor_in_Pembrokeshire
Citation:
Brian John. 2023. Was there a Late Devensian ice-free corridor in Pembrokeshire? Quaternary Newsletter 158, pp 5-16.
https://www.qra.org.uk/uploads/documents/QN%20158.%20Feb%202023.pdf
One of the articles with which mine is most severely at odds is this one, by Prof Neil Glasser and colleague:
Glasser, N.F. et al. (2018). Late Devensian deglaciation of south-west Wales from luminescence and cosmogenic isotope dating. Jnl of Quaternary Science 33 (7) (2018), pp 804-818.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326994378_Late_Devensian_deglaciation_of_south-west_Wales_from_luminescence_and_cosmogenic_isotope_dating_LATE_DEVENSIAN_DEGLACIATION_OF_SOUTH-WEST_WALES
Quote: ".......the north of the Preseli Mountains.......formed the local southern limit of the Irish Sea Ice Stream advance into the region." (p 4)
In it, the authors refer quite specifically to the LGM maximum ice edge position being located along the north face of Mynydd Preseli, with a string of "unglaciated rock tors" to the south of it.
So we have a fundamental disagreement here -- and I imagine that this will not be resolved until there is a comprehensive cosmogenic dating programme on the rock surfaces or tors and rocky summits like Carn Meini, Carn Alw, Carn Goedog, Carningli and Carn Enoch.
The map showing LGM ice edge positions in North Pembrokeshire and Ceredigion, after Glasser et al. Note the ice edge position indicated at bottom left of the map. Clearly, further work is required to sort things out........
Carn Enoch, on Dinas Mountain, on the upland overlooking Cardigan Bay. Glaciated, or not glaciated, during the LGM?
Friday, 10 February 2023
My ORCID number
It was fun to write that recent article on the problem of the "Late Devensian ice-free enclave" and to stimulate some debate on that matter. Because the Quaternary Newsletter is a serious peer-reviewed journal, I have had to update my ORCID registration. So I am still, apparently, deemed to be a serious academic in spite of having retired from university life rather a long time ago! Anyway, I'm happy that I still have something to contribute alongside some of my old mates who are, of course, now all Emeritus Professors......
Here is my registration, in case anybody is interested.
Monday, 6 February 2023
New article: Was there a Late Devensian ice-free corridor in Pembrokeshire?
Citation:
Brian John. 2023. Was there a Late Devensian ice-free corridor in Pembrokeshire? Quaternary Newsletter 158, pp 5-16.
https://www.qra.org.uk/uploads/documents/QN%20158.%20Feb%202023.pdf
COVER PHOTOGRAPH
Flimston Churchyard and its erratic boulders. Some are used as grave headstones. The churchyard is on the limestone coast of South Pembrokeshire, and the erratics are mostly igneous, probably from the St David’s Peninsula. How and when were they transported? (Photo: Louise Trotter)
2 Quaternary Newsletter Vol. 158, February 2023
The Quaternary Research Association has just published my new article on the problem of the "south Pembrokeshire ice free enclave" -- as the lead article in Vol 158 of Quaternary Newsletter. It's good to see it in print at last! It has nothing whatsoever to do with Stonehenge or the bluestones, except maybe in flagging up the great extent of Late Devensian ice in western Britain -- making new evidence available as a supplement to much else that has been published in recent years.
It will be interesting to see what response there is from other specialists in this field -- I'm not really getting after anybody else here, and over the years I have dithered as much as everybody else in trying to understand what the field evidence is telling us.
The plan is that the article should be open access, although for the moment it may be available just to QRA members. Please let me know if you are not able to get at it.
I will in any case try to make the article available on Researchgate and Academia in the near future.
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