April, 2015, at Rhosyfelin, right next to a public footpath. Who "owns the hole" and who is responsible for the mess? Is there some ethical reason why independent observers should refrain from visiting sites like this and interpreting what they see?
Does an archaeologist who digs a hole in the ground have an exclusive right to describe and interpret that location?
That's the question that comes to mind, following a communication I have had from an archaeologist who accuses me and my colleagues John Downes and Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd of unprofessional conduct because we have had the temerity to look at and interpret some of the things turned up at Rhosyfelin in 2012-2015 by Mike Parker Pearson and his team. OK -- I can understand that there is some sort of etiquette surrounding archaeological excavations, and an assumption that there is "ownership" of the things that are revealed by the diggers that might not have been visible beforehand. And it's commonly accepted that the diggers have the right of first publication. But what happens next? Are the rest of us supposed to then accept without question that the observations made by the diggers are accurate, and that their interpretations are reliable? Heaven forbid -- if that were the case, there would be no academic debate, and in many cases falsehoods, technical failingss and mis-interpretations would trump the truth.
In my own field -- geomorphology -- sites discovered and excavated by me in Pembrokeshire have been re-examined and reinterpreted subsequently by many others. I don't have any problem with that, and have been involved in many energetic debates about them inside and outside of the published literature. In Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica sites discovered, described and interpreted in learned journals by David Sugden and me have been visited and subjected to detailed analysis by a new generation of field workers. That's the way it should be, and our pioneering efforts have been rewarded by the Antarctic Place Names Committee through the listing of Sugden Ridge and John Glacier. Of course, the sites recorded by geomorphologists tend to be landforms and cliff exposures which remain available for future research once the initial assessments have been made. That fact alone imposes a certain discipline on those who record sites for the first time; to put it crudely, you know you cannot get away with bullshit, because others will come and check things out.
In contrast, an extra duty of care is imposed on archaeologists who dig holes in the ground (often at vast expense to the taxpayer) to describe and interpret things honestly and competently, because once the holes are filled in, nobody can check for misinterpretations, selective evidence collection and research bias.
To return to Rhosyfelin. I absolutely refute any charge of misconduct or malpractice on our part. When the dig started I offered to help with a "geomorphology" input in conversations with several of the research collaborators, with no response. On one occasion I arranged to meet Prof MPP at a certain time at the site, and he failed to turn up. On several occasions, in discussions after public lectures, I sought to open discussions on matters of interpretation, and the project leader simply refused to engage. We acknowledged his right to first publication, and held back while several articles were published by the research team. But when we published two peer-reviewed papers in 2015, MPP and his team simply refused to acknowledge their existence, and over the eight years that have elapsed since then there have not been any citations of our research. Why not?
As for access to the dig site at Rhosyfelin, there were no restrictions to access because it was immediately adjacent to a public right of way. Hundreds of people visited the site during September of each year while the dig was going on, and hundreds more visited during the other months and were able to examine "the evidence" since the pit was always left open, sometimes partly covered with a plastic sheet. In the absence of the excavation team, it was possible to make truly independent observations, without any pressure to accept the party line or interpret things as required by the senior archaeologists. The key evidence on the rock face and the local landforms, examined by me and my colleagues, had nothing to do with the dig, and most of this evidence (described in many posts on this blog) is still accessible today, long after the end of the archaeological investigations.
Carn Goedog and Waun Mawn are both on common land, and so the digs at both sites within the last decade were completely open to the public. The digs could not have been "fenced in" as they might have been on private land. Again hundreds of people wandered about and looked at things both when the diggers were present and when they were not. A number of guided tours were arranged for local groups with an interest in archaeology and local history, which was commendable -- but of course on those occasions the narrative given to participants was the one that we are now all familiar with, as featured in popular magazines and in TV programmes. And as we now know, that narrative was not exactly balanced or reliable.........
What might have happened if there had been no independent evaluation of the three sites, at Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog and Waun Mawn? To put it mildly, falsehood would have been perpetrated on a substantial scale. Nobody would have questioned the reliability of the three crucial papers published in Antiquity journal in 2015, 2019 and 2021, and almost certainly all three sites would have been designated as Scheduled Ancient Monuments. Just think about that for a moment....... and you may wish to recoil in horror.
As it is, in spite of the difficulty of getting "scrutiny" articles published in learned journals, my colleagues and I have behaved ethically at all times. We have respected the right of "first publication" by Parker Pearson and his team. We have tried, through our own articles and in social media, to alert them to our concerns about their methods and their interpretations, which were of course ignored. The only one who did engage, to his credit, was "Myris of Alexandria", whose identity remains a great mystery....... But it's also a great disappointment that nobody else (from a team of more than a dozen quite senior academics) was prepared to engage in any realistic debate, maybe because they thought that discussing matters of interpretation on a blog was a rather disreputable activity.
So here we are. On the one hand we have a string of learned papers from geologists and archaeologists, all promoting a bluestone quarrying and human transport narrative, and on the other hand we have detailed scrutiny of those papers and the presentation of independent observations and interpretations in the posts and comments -- on this blog and on other blogs in the field of archaeology. Maybe that's the way of the world just now. To the right, experts who have access to the traditional means of academic publication, and who have reputations to enhance (or destroy!) -- and to the left other experts (because we ARE experts) who have the skills and enthusiasm to "knowledgeably scrutinize" what is in print and to find it wanting.
So regardless of who occupies the ethical high ground here, the truth is gradually emerging. Rhosyfelin as "the Pompeii of Neolithic quarries"? Gone. Monolith quarrying at Carn Goedog "on an industrial scale"? Gone. Proto-Stonehenge at Waun Mawn? Gone. The imprint of bluestone 62 at Waun Mawn? Gone. People and animals from Preseli found at Stonehenge, based on the isotope analysis of bones and teeth? Gone. These mistakes have been admitted in follow-up publications by the same researchers who originally made the faulty claims. But make no mistake about it -- if it had not been for the subversive science, detailed scrutiny, and arguments about interpretations by those of us who dabble in social media, those follow-up papers would never have been written. And multiple falsehoods would all now be regarded as the established truth.
