I have had a number of requests from people who could not make it to my talk the other day for a summary of my main points. I'll get round to doing that before long in a blog post, but in the meantime here is a reminder of the interview I did with broadcaster Wyn Thomas, on local radio five years ago. It's just 12 minutes long, but in the conversation we cover some of the main issues.
Wyn put this onto YouTube without me knowing anything about it, and I came upon it purely by chance, when checking what was out there on the subject of the bluestones. The sound quality is not very good, since the interview was done over the telephone.
Very convincing and by now familiar.
ReplyDeleteIt might help the new readers to understand that you accept that the vast majority of the stones in the smaller circle do in fact come from West Wales. We insiders can argue about whether they are bluer or greener depending on the light, but chemically they coincide very strongly with Prescelli. So how did they get to Stonehenge? And is this How the most interesting question?
The second area for debate is the cultural/ethnic link between Pembrokeshire and Stonehenge. There are clearly similarities - alignment of monuments in both places with solar and lunar events being persuasive in my mind. There is also little doubt in my mind that stone age people would have recognised the similarity between bluestone at Stonehenge and the same stones from Preseelli uniquely. The narratives that arose from these connections we can only guess about.
Why did our ancestors erect stones in circles - in stonehenge or at Gors Fawr? MPP does not have a clue it seems after decades of exploration.
MPP has lost us a generations worth of time to investigate the most interesting questions by pursuing quarries. The bluestones came from Pembrokeshire - everybody agrees. This fact alone is insufficient - in my view - to drive a core narrative of 4000 year previous but IS sufficient to raise a variety of sub-plots. The transport mechanism is less important that the imaginative connection.
"Long ago and far away"
ReplyDeleteStories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold
And in between what might have been and what has come to pass
A misbegotten guess alas
Where do your golden rainbows end?
Extracts from a 1970 James Taylor song to ponder on