The idea of soft mudstone and rhyolite wedges being used in the quarrying of large bluestone monoliths is so nonsensical (as pointed out by Tim Darvill and others) that I thought everybody had forgotten about it and moved on.....
But now on his blog, and following a jolly trip to Mynydd Preseli, fellow blogger Tim Daw is having a bit of fun on the subject of the wedges. Apparently in all seriousness he cites assorted examples (from the collected writings of MPP, of course) of soft wedges used at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog and even claims to have found a few of his own, one of them complete with handy perched hammer stone.
https://www.sarsen.org/2023/06/preseli-stone-wedges.html
He's having a laugh, of course, and is poking gentle fun at his more serious colleagues, but he really should be more careful. There are a lot of gullible people around, and some of them will believe what he is telling us, tongue in cheek...........
As faithful bloggers will know, my colleagues and I have examined all of the claimed "quarrying wedges" and have found that not one of them makes any sense at all. There are lumps and slivers of rock in cracks all over the place, and the ones cited at Rhosyfelin could not possibly have been of any use whatsoever for the extraction os useful monoliths. Two are in a crack in a detached small block that was of no more use to anybody than scores of other blocks lying about the place, and two that were close to MPP's imaginary "monolith extraction point" could not have been effectively hammered with a hammer stone without serious injury, and in any case could not have provided a pillar that might have been desirable as a pillar or monolith.
Our Neolithic ancestors may or may not have been stupid, but whatever their level of intelligence they were certainly not so idiotic as to have hammered useless bits of soft rock into inaccessible crevices just to obtain lumps of bedrock that could have had no value at all for ceremonial or any other purposes.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370301293_Craig_Rhos-y-felin_no_wedges_and_no_quarry
Entering into the spirit of things, here are two photos of nice stones from my collection.........
A selection of rounded cobbles which might, if we are so inclined, be referred to as "hammerstones". Some of them have fractures and scars that might have been caused by percussion impacts. It all depends on your system of belief......
Do any of those reading Brian's Blog recall a Harry Enfield comedic character who was "nice but slightly dim"?
ReplyDeleteSadly, MPP has produced ANOTHER example of his pathologically prejudiced version of how the Stonehenge Bluestones DEFINITELY were transported to Salisbury Plain by the subservient, meek inhabitants of SW Wales.
ReplyDeleteThis time the book is called Stonehenge: a Brief History (2023).
I don't recommend it. Avoid it if at all sensitive/sensible
I assume this is the same book as that mentioned in my post of 19 Feb 2023:
ReplyDeletehttps://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2023/02/keep-selling-myth-and-to-hell-with-truth.html
I repeat my disquiet that MPP and his publishers continue to perpetrate their ridiculous bluestone myth in spite of their own recent research that shows that much of it is complete nonsense. They know that the evidence of quarrying is so thin that in any other context it would be dismissed; they know that there never was a giant stone circle at Waun Mawn; they know that there is no link between the carn goedog and Rhosyfelin "quarries" and any neolithic monument in West Wales; they know that there was no link between the "quarries" and Stonehenge; and they know that after a decade or more of futile work no evidence has ever been found in support of long-distance bluestone transport.
And so the myth continues to be expanded and shouted from the rooftops, simply because it is a nice little earner.........