Craig Rhos-y-felin: no wedges and no quarry

 

My colleagues and I have been busy. We have just published this short article on Researchgate, where it is open access.  No affiliations to be demonstrated, and no reading fees.

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Craig Rhos-y-felin: no wedges and no quarry
Brian John
Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd
John Downes

April 2023
DOI:  10.13140/RG.2.2.25027.27687

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370301293_Craig_Rhos-y-felin_no_wedges_and_no_quarry

ABSTRACT

This article challenges the claims made by Parker Pearson et al (2022a) that there is a Neolithic bluestone quarry at Craig Rhos-y-felin and that rock wedges used in the quarrying process have been discovered. The current authors suggest that the evidence for monolith quarrying at Rhos-y-felin and Carn Goedog does not withstand scrutiny, and field research at the Rhos-y-felin site suggests a long history of crag disintegration and rockfall debris accumulation, with Late Devensian glacial and fluvioglacial deposits overlain by Holocene colluvium and other slope materials. The engineering features listed by the archaeologists are disputed, and it is suggested that the radiocarbon evidence from the site also falsifies the quarrying hypothesis. The present authors do, however, accept that there is evidence of a long history of intermittent occupation by hunting and gathering parties, and it is proposed that they might have used Rhos-y-felin as a source for sharp-edged disposable cutting and scraping tools. The use of rhyolite rock wedges in Neolithic quarrying makes no sense from a rock mechanics standpoint, and after examining the fractures in which the wedges were found, it is pointed out that not one of them would have been of use in the extraction of a viable stone monolith or orthostat. Finally, the current authors point out that the "Stonehenge narrative" involving quarries at Rhos-y-felin and Carn Goedog, a "lost stone circle" at Waun Mawn, and stone transport to Salisbury Plain is seriously damaged by recent research publications and should be abandoned. It is a matter of regret that Parker Pearson et al have ignored two detailed Rhos-y-felin papers written by the present authors and published in 2015.

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Herewith a short explanation of why this article is not being published in a mainstream peer-reviewed journal.  Multiple reasons. When we had finished modifying the article in line with the recommendations of our own reviewer,  we looked at various options and and decided to submit to one particular archaeology journal that seemed suitable.  But immediately we bumped into problems.  One editor gave us advice as to how the article could be modified for maximum impact, and another editor in the team gave us directly contradictory advice.  So we did some tweaking and submitted it, to find that it was then rejected on the recommendation of a single referee who was clearly unfamiliar with the locations, the background and the articles already published about Rhosyfelin.  In a somewhat chaotic report he / she said at first that the article should be more detailed and evidence-based, and then wider and more generalised. Then more specific to the site in question, and then less specific. We could not make head or tail of what was required of us.  The basic issue seemed to be that two geomorphologists and one geologist had the temerity to question the interpretations of professional archaeologists, including one who has a very high profile!   Rocking the boat!! Outrageous!!   The editor gave us the option to rewrite and re-submit, maybe to another journal in the same "stable".  That was not an issue -- we have all rewritten things and resubmitted them in the past.  But we sensed that we were not going to get anywhere, and decided to explore new pastures.

Immediately we bumped into the problem of submitting an article that was partly archaeological to a geological or geomorphological journal, or of submitting an earth science article to a journal specialising in archaeology.  Even before seeing the draft manuscript, a number of editors suggested that our article fell outside their guidelines and that we should try elsewhere.

But the greatest problem encountered by us (three old codgers) was that we are no longer affiliated to any academic institutions -- and this means that we do not have access to any funding to cover the article publication fees that are nowadays charged by virtually all of the "open access" journals which are owned by Wiley, Taylor and Francis or Elsevier.  Most of them do not even give the editors the discretion to waive the fees.   In addition, the submission process is standardised and extremely intimidating and bureaucratic -- things have changed rather a lot since the days when I could just submit a PDF to a journal editor and expect to receive in due course a couple of peer reviews (sometimes anonymous, sometimes not) pointing out flaws and suggesting improvements.

So we are somewhat disenchanted with the journal publication process as it currently exists, and much prefer to place material onto Researchgate or Academia, where it genuinely is available for anybody to scrutinize.    Further, we have discovered that many of the peer-reviewed journals nowadays require authors to declare in writing that they will NOT copy their articles onto Researchgate or Academia.  The journals are not "open access" at all, but appear to be intent on limiting their readers to a small and select group of researchers who inhabit the ivory towers.  There are exceptions, and we applaud them -- but they are few and far between.

There is also the question of declining standards in the pages of the journals that were once the pillars of academia.  I have been very critical in many of my blog posts of journal articles that should really never have seen the light of day.  That may be partly because editing standards have declined, and it may be that a system in which the authors of articles can effectively choose their own referees encourages cronyism and reduces critical scrutiny.  Just the other day I read a long article in which the author bewailed the fact that the peer review system has effectively collapsed because there are too many journals, too many articles and too few qualified reviewers.

For better or worse, the Researchgate publishing route seems to us to be preferable from a number of standpoints. True, those who publish articles on its web site do not have the same "status" as those who use mainstream journals, but there is much to be said for community science which is democratic,  inclusive and even a little subversive, as long as it is accompanied by options for feedback and discussion such as we have on this blog and on many others.  

Mudstone fragments from Carn Goedog interpreted as "quarrying wedges". 

Source:  Parker Pearson et al, 2022.

Thanks to Chris Johnson for this photo of some of the "wedges" put on display in an exhibition in Belgium in 2018, curated by MPP.

PS.  Over the last couple of years I have done a number of posts on this blog about the wedge claims.  Just type "wedges" into the search box and all will be revealed.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/08/more-from-megalithic-quarrymen-3.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2022/11/imaginary-wedges-and-useless-lumps-of.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2022/11/bluestone-wedges-and-death-of-science.html

One of the open joints at Rhosyfelin that was supposedly targetted by the Neolithic quarrymen with the use of wedges.  You can just see the broken rock debris that has fallen into the joint.

Another wide joint, and another broken bit of bedrock. The idea that fragments such as these are deliberately placed "wedges" is quite preposterous, and demonstrates a cavalier disregard for natural processes.