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.
3 comments:
" Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies.... "
Having borrowed this book and rather reluctantly read sections of this latest MPP travesty, here's a few staggering quotes:
Page 16, section headed 'Interrogating Stonehenge'
"Archaeologists work with multiple hypotheses all the time. In favourable and fortuitous situations they may be able to test these, so as to reject some and retain or modify others. More often, they can only weigh the balance of evidence as supporting one theory as opposed to another. In such cases, interpretation is often not clear-cut and opinions may vary between experts, especially with new evidence and novel understandings which can take years to be accepted or ultimately rejected"
"Stonehenge has always attracted personalities with big egos and firm views about their competing theories, whether outlandish or conventional. As Rob Ixer, a geologist who has been studying Stonehenge's stones for many years, has warned, paraphrasing Tolkein: "Beware the power of the ring!"
"Yet recent years have seen something of a change in working practices, with research being carried out, not by lone Indiana Jones-like adventurers but by large, collaborative teams THAT SHARE THE CREDIT AS WELL AS THE WORK." [my capitals]
I agree that this is all pretty appalling -- a rather feeble justification for what we see as a dramatic decline in academic standards, aided and abetted by journal editors who should know better. I wonder what the members of MPP's "large collaborative team" actually think about the mad rush in to print, on the flimsiest of evidence, and the massive PR push that goes with every new fantastical hypothesis for which they corporately share the blame? And I wonder what they really think of the determination of the leaders of the gang to pretend that none of their ideas are disputed in the peer-reviewed literature? Beware the power of the ring or the Lost Circle........
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