I have been looking again at the manner in which, in 1923, HH Thomas informed the world that the glacial transport of bluestones from west to east (up the Bristol Channel) would have been impossible. Here is an earlier post of mine:
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/10/hh-thomas-and-his-glacial-blind-spot.html
Thomas was guilty of over-simplification and selective citation of his samples (there were very few anyway) and his rock identifications, in order to flag up the idea that there were just two main sources for the bluestones. It's interesting that in 2018 Bevins and Ixer attacked Thomas's slapdash methods, his sharp practices and his reputation pretty enthusiastically, but they restricted their scrutiny to his geological analyses, and criticised him for homing in on Carn Meini and Carn Alw as the main source locations for the Stonehenge bluestones.
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/06/herbert-thomas-scrutinized.htmlhttps://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2022/06/dale-judd-and-engleheart-versus-thomas.html
Retracing the footsteps of H.H. Thomas: a review of his Stonehenge bluestone provenancing study.
Richard Bevins and Rob Ixer
Antiquity, May 2018.
https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.10
Published online: 31 May 2018
Retracing the footsteps of H.H. Thomas: a review of his Stonehenge bluestone provenancing study.
Richard Bevins and Rob Ixer
Antiquity, May 2018.
https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.10
Published online: 31 May 2018
Bevins and Ixer later (in the magazine called Liver Science) went off on a tangent and tried to demonstrate (without any evidence at at all) that the bluestones were transported by land instead of by sea. That was a serious waste of time and effort, especially since HHT did not try to promote the idea of sea transport either. That came later, with the involvement of Atkinson and other archaeologists.
Also, it's rather ironic that in attacking HHT for concentrating on the "wrong" two tors, they then concentrated on trying to convince the rest of us that two other tors or rock outcrops (Carn Goedog and Rhosyfelin) were key to the understanding of what went on -- while admitting in other papers that the bluestone monoliths and fragments at Stonehenge have come from multiple locations. Not for the first time, pots and kettles come to mind!
B and I also declined to comment on the most influential part of the HHT paper -- namely the section dealing with the bluestone "mode of transport." But the section in the 1923 paper on the "ice transport option" is truly awful, misrepresenting all sorts of things and including many statements that HHT must have known were untrue -- even allowing for the fact that he was writing a century ago. That section should have been scrutinized. Below I reproduce the key part of the infamous paper, with some comments of my own.
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Extract from HH Thomas, 1923 Antiquaries Journal
MODE OF TRANSPORT
Having in a great measure solved the problem of the source of the Foreign Stones, we must consider carefully the possible and probable modes of transport of the stones from Pembrokeshire to Salisbury Plain. Two modes of transport have been suggested : one natural, by ice during the great Ice Age ; the other, by human agency at, of course, a later period.
The Hypothesis of Ice-transport.
Having in a great measure solved the problem of the source of the Foreign Stones, we must consider carefully the possible and probable modes of transport of the stones from Pembrokeshire to Salisbury Plain. Two modes of transport have been suggested : one natural, by ice during the great Ice Age ; the other, by human agency at, of course, a later period.
The Hypothesis of Ice-transport.
Professor Judd in 1901 put forward the hypothesis that the Foreign Stones of Stonehenge had been transported to the Plain by ice during the Pleistocene Glacial Period, and this view seems to have found favour and acceptance in many quarters.
We have, of late years, considerably advanced our knowledge of the distribution and extent of the British Ice-fields, and also accumulated much information concerning the directions and limits of dispersal of erratic boulders. The geological evidence is such that the idea of a glacial origin for the Foreign Stones will not bear investigation.
We have, of late years, considerably advanced our knowledge of the distribution and extent of the British Ice-fields, and also accumulated much information concerning the directions and limits of dispersal of erratic boulders. The geological evidence is such that the idea of a glacial origin for the Foreign Stones will not bear investigation.
((Comment: Perhaps not a good idea to get your conclusion in first, before considering the evidence.........))
Let us consider critically this hypothesis of glacial transport as suggested by Professor Judd. First, there is no evidence of glacial drift on Salisbury Plain such as would of necessity have been left by any ice-sheet capable of transporting the masses of rock in question. Isolated masses of rocks foreign to the district, other than those used in the fabric of Stonehenge are entirely wanting, as also are small pebbles of such rocks from the gravels of the neighbourhood. It has been claimed, without producing any evidence in support of the statement, that such masses did exist but that they have all been collected to make walls, gateposts, millstones, etc. But, as Mr. Stevens of Salisbury has cogently stated, no one can point to a single rock-mass like any of those used at Stonehenge having been put to any such purpose. Mr. Stevens says ' There are many millstones and gateposts in Wiltshire, but where is there one which corresponds in any way to the upright Foreign Stones of Stonehenge ? Unhappily this tangible evidence is wanting ; so, alluring as the Glacial Drift Theory may appear, it must reluctantly be set aside for want of convincing evidence.'
Let us consider critically this hypothesis of glacial transport as suggested by Professor Judd. First, there is no evidence of glacial drift on Salisbury Plain such as would of necessity have been left by any ice-sheet capable of transporting the masses of rock in question. Isolated masses of rocks foreign to the district, other than those used in the fabric of Stonehenge are entirely wanting, as also are small pebbles of such rocks from the gravels of the neighbourhood. It has been claimed, without producing any evidence in support of the statement, that such masses did exist but that they have all been collected to make walls, gateposts, millstones, etc. But, as Mr. Stevens of Salisbury has cogently stated, no one can point to a single rock-mass like any of those used at Stonehenge having been put to any such purpose. Mr. Stevens says ' There are many millstones and gateposts in Wiltshire, but where is there one which corresponds in any way to the upright Foreign Stones of Stonehenge ? Unhappily this tangible evidence is wanting ; so, alluring as the Glacial Drift Theory may appear, it must reluctantly be set aside for want of convincing evidence.'
((Comment: It's disingenuous of Thomas to pretend that substantial "rock masses" of exactly the right type on Salisbury Plain are required in order to demonstrate that glacial entrainment and transport might have occurred. There are erratic stones in the records of work prior to 1923, and the Boles Barrow bluestone was already on the record following its discovery by Cunnington in 1801. If you want to wear rose-tinted spectacles rather than dark sunglasses, you might wish to count the Stonehenge bluestone assemblage as quite valid evidence of glacial transport and dumping, and Thomas should have acknowledged this.))
To transport glacially a series of igneous boulders of great size from Pembrokeshire to Wiltshire postulates the existence of an ice-sheet of unbroken character occupying the whole of the intervening country ; and with the ice moving in a direction a little south of east. We have, fortunately, good evidence of the extent of glaciation of Pembrokeshire, and we find that this county was crossed in a south-easterly direction by an ice-sheet that moved down the Irish Sea. This ice-sheet carrying Scottish
boulders, crossed the low plateau of Anglesey and Carnarvon, gathering fresh material as it went, but was kept from passing far inland by the local Welsh ice-sheet that had its centre of dispersal in the highlands of Snowdon, The Arenigs and Cader Idris, and was pressing outwards towards the coast. On reaching the latitude of Pembrokeshire, far removed from the main centre of Welsh glaciation, the Irish Sea ice-sheet was allowed to spread fanwise and to override the plateau-regions of Pembrokeshire and Southern Ireland which offered relatively little opposition. In spite of this there is the clearest evidence, from the distribution of Pembrokeshire and Scottish boulders that the ice-front lay only just south
of the present coast-line of Pembrokeshire, and that the ice as a solid mass neither crossed the Bristol Channel to Devon and Cornwall, nor passed in an easterly direction beyond the coastal regions of Pembrokeshire.
((Comment: This is utter nonsense, and Thomas must have known it. We are talking here of the maximum known glaciation in the region. To claim that the glacier ice front lay just to the south of the Pembrokeshire coast, and to claim that the ice progressed no further up the Bristol Channel, is to fly in the face of the evidence that had been in the public domain for more than 20 years. Jehu and many other professional geologists must have been appalled by Thomas's claims. Judd, who died in 1916, would have turned in his grave. Glacial deposits were already known, and described in the literature, from the Bridgend - Pencoed area, from Fremington, Trebetherick and the Isles of Scilly -- all attesting to a very extensive glaciation that could, even according to the thinking of geologists in 1923, have extended to Somerset and Salisbury Plain. Thomas must have known of the Pentre, Newton and St Athan erratic boulders in the Vale of Glamorgan, all three almost certainly from Pembrokeshire. And far-travelled glacial erratics were already described from the coasts of Devon and Cornwall.))
No boulders of Pembrokeshire rocks, such as would of necessity be carried by any extension of this icesheet, have ever been found either on the north coast of Devon, Cornwall or Somerset, or on the south coast of Wales east of the estuary of the River Towy.
((Comment: That is not correct. The Pembrokeshire erratics in the Storrie Collection, from the till at Pencoed in Glamorgan, were well known by 1923. Indeed, Thomas himself was one member of the Geological Survey team that described the erratics in the Bridgend GS Memoir of 1904.))
Scottish boulders, however, occur on the north coast of Devon and on the coast of Glamorganshire where their presence, unmixed with Pembrokeshire boulders, indicates that they were not carried by that portion of the ice-sheet which had crossed Pembrokeshire but had been borne by the portion that came down the central region of the Irish Sea. The ice-sheet would probably have a crescentic front and the medial portion would have the furthest southerly extension. It is to be noticed that all the occurrences of Scottish boulders outside Pembrokeshire and its adjacent islands lie at raised-beach level, as at Croyde Bay and in Glamorganshire. There is no evidence of the erratic material mounting the cliffs or extending inland. The inference is, therefore, that these Scottish boulders were deposited from icebergs that had broken away from the central portion of the main ice-front and were stranded on relatively distant shores. The geological evidence proves conclusively that although Pembrokeshire was crossed in a south-easterly direction by a lobe of the Irish Sea ice-sheet the front of this ice-sheet never reached across or far up the Bristol Channel.
((Comment: That is not correct. The Pembrokeshire erratics in the Storrie Collection, from the till at Pencoed in Glamorgan, were well known by 1923. Indeed, Thomas himself was one member of the Geological Survey team that described the erratics in the Bridgend GS Memoir of 1904.))
Scottish boulders, however, occur on the north coast of Devon and on the coast of Glamorganshire where their presence, unmixed with Pembrokeshire boulders, indicates that they were not carried by that portion of the ice-sheet which had crossed Pembrokeshire but had been borne by the portion that came down the central region of the Irish Sea. The ice-sheet would probably have a crescentic front and the medial portion would have the furthest southerly extension. It is to be noticed that all the occurrences of Scottish boulders outside Pembrokeshire and its adjacent islands lie at raised-beach level, as at Croyde Bay and in Glamorganshire. There is no evidence of the erratic material mounting the cliffs or extending inland. The inference is, therefore, that these Scottish boulders were deposited from icebergs that had broken away from the central portion of the main ice-front and were stranded on relatively distant shores. The geological evidence proves conclusively that although Pembrokeshire was crossed in a south-easterly direction by a lobe of the Irish Sea ice-sheet the front of this ice-sheet never reached across or far up the Bristol Channel.
((Comment: Thomas gets himself into a frightful tangle over the shape, thickness and movement of "the ice sheet" -- and although he may be right to assume that Scottish erratic boulders were constrained within a segment of the ice stream, he must have known the evidence on the file that Pembrokeshire erratics were in fact transported much further east than the Towy estuary.))
Passing to the country intervening between Pembrokeshire and Wiltshire, we find nowhere along the line that an ice-sheet would have to traverse in order to transport Pembrokeshire boulders to Salisbury Plain, any evidence of glaciation of an intense character.
((Comment: This is a somewhat absurd statement, given that most of this territory is currently under water. And what sort of glaciation is to be counted as "of an intense character" as distinct from one that is not intense?))
There are no trains of far-travelled boulders, no ice-scratching and polishing of outstanding rocks, and no thick accumulations of boulder-clay. As has been pointed out in a previous communication such a hypothetical ice-sheet, in order to account for the Foreign Stones of Stonehenge would have to gather from Pembrokeshire blocks all of about the same size and mainly of two rock-types. It would have to carry them all that distance without dropping any by the way.
There are no trains of far-travelled boulders, no ice-scratching and polishing of outstanding rocks, and no thick accumulations of boulder-clay. As has been pointed out in a previous communication such a hypothetical ice-sheet, in order to account for the Foreign Stones of Stonehenge would have to gather from Pembrokeshire blocks all of about the same size and mainly of two rock-types. It would have to carry them all that distance without dropping any by the way.
((Comment: Here, Thomas raises the nonsensical idea that ice cannot possibly have delivered to Stonehenge exactly the right number of bluestones, of the right colour and lithology, to satisfy the designers and the builders of the monument. This has, of course, been repeated many times since. So many unsupported assumptions are built into that it is really not worth wasting time on them.))
Further, it would have to pass over all kinds of rocky obstacles without gathering to itself any of the various materials over which it was forced to ride. Such in itself, without the additional positive evidence that is forthcoming as to the extent of the glaciation of Pembrokeshire and adjoining counties, permanently disposes of the idea of glacial transport for the Foreign Stones of Stonehenge.
((Comment: Thomas must have known, from his work with the Geological Survey including Cantrill, Strahan, Dixon and Jones, that glacial entrainment, transport and deposition are complex matters which are difficult to predict and which constantly throw up surprises in the field. The apparent absence of erratics from all upglacier outcrops does not (and did not in 1923) demonstrate the absence of glaciation.))
Note: The rocks of the Western Isles, Ailsa Craig, and Galloway are fairly common as erratics. They occur on the Cardigan coast, on the plateau-region of Pembrokeshire and its outlying islands (Skomer, Skokholm, etc.), and on the Glamorganshire coastal regions of the Bristol Channel.
((Comment: Thomas must have known, from his work with the Geological Survey including Cantrill, Strahan, Dixon and Jones, that glacial entrainment, transport and deposition are complex matters which are difficult to predict and which constantly throw up surprises in the field. The apparent absence of erratics from all upglacier outcrops does not (and did not in 1923) demonstrate the absence of glaciation.))
Note: The rocks of the Western Isles, Ailsa Craig, and Galloway are fairly common as erratics. They occur on the Cardigan coast, on the plateau-region of Pembrokeshire and its outlying islands (Skomer, Skokholm, etc.), and on the Glamorganshire coastal regions of the Bristol Channel.
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I'm still staggered that Thomas was allowed to get away with all of this, and to make such definitive statements on the record. We know that a few people -- including Engleheart and Dale -- were sceptical, but where were all the geologists who knew that he was talking nonsense? Was he such a forceful character that nobody had the guts to challenge him? Or was the establishment view already established -- namely that the human transport of the bluestones was a matter of national pride, meaning that anybody who challenged the idea could be charged with being unpatriotic?
25 comments:
There's been no real review of how transport could have been done and then a comparison to glacial. The methods suggested to date have largely been suitable for short distance transport (which obviously doesn't gel well with the idea of transporting from Wales).
So, to me, this lack or appropriate comparison makes the whole argument (one way or the other) a bit pointless.
Lack of resources I guess. But the confidence of the human transport lobby in methods that are obviously less than optimal is surprising (less than optimal if you assume that Neolithic people knew their materials).
Quite so, Jon. Nearly all of the wonderful bits of experimental archaeology devoted to the haulage of bluestones on sledges, rollers etc have taken place on nice flat London parks and well manicured lawns. The only experiment that really addressed the role of terrain, vegetation and weather was the Millennium Stone pull that I participated in -- and that was an unmitigated disaster, as we all know. It would have been even more of a disaster it were not for modern ropes, low-friction nylon netting, and mechanical cranes and diggers. Not to mention the Royal Navy divers.............. That's why the experiments that go on all the time at the Stonehenge visitor centre -- and in the latest Dan Snow TV prog -- are so laughable........
And people still are stupid enough to think that these experiments are relevant and important!
Aye. I suppose a post-processual argument would be that the journey (whether from Wales or not) was as important as the task ( I read that in a recent book but can't remember which). In that case, work on what the least effort method of transport becomes irrelevant.
But it implies that there was little thought, even less research and almost no knowledge of materials available to them: just a bunch of howling savages. It's grating because we (modern people) would be able to do this with a fraction of the workforce proposed if transported back to their time (and assuming we had a team with the correct skills on board). There's an underlying assumption that they would have been less intelligent.
There have been many suggestions from MPP, Ixer and Bevins that it's not the completion of the task that is important, but the celebration of the aspiration or the idea itself. Thus MPP argues that even if the "lost circle" was not built, it was the INTENTION that was important, and it's this that provides the real link with Stonehenge. And pigs might fly. Thus you don't actually need evidence of anything -- just think yourself into the heads of those whom you are studying, and imagine their motives and their intentions, and who's going to argue with you? Science -- and facts -- are boring anyway, and fantastical narratives are much more fun! There is also the suggestion that the delivery of bluestones to Stonehenge was of less importance than the journeys (many of them) of the people bearing the stones. Just think of it! One long celebration, with crowds cheering them along, every step of the way, and maybe giving a helping pull on the ropes as well. A bit like the carrying of the Olympic torch through one community after another, on the way to the Olympic Games destination weeks or months or years later........
I don't agree that our Neolithic ancestors were howling savages. I think they were far too clever to have attempted anything as stupid as MPP and his colleagues require of them. I also think that if they ever did consider carting 80 large stones from Preseli to Stonehenge (vanishingly unlikely anyway) they would have done a fairly sophisticated cost-benefit analysis and decided that the costs were a thousand times greater than any benefits that might accrue.
I haven't been following the arguments Brian, so difficut to comment. The reason for not following is that the general principles of what was proposed (going back quite a few years now) rely on the people doing it not knowing all that much about their materials and also on them having religious (or other) reasons for doing engineering tasks the hard way.
Small observaton though: they did construct Stonehenge. They also worked it and spent a lot of effort on that. By contrast, the effort required to transport a few bluestones (if going with least effort methods and even if that were from Wales) isn't all that high as a proportion of the total effort. So I'm undecided on that as well.
The people who constructed Stonehenge had most likely first created structural prototypes in timber at nearby Durrington Walls, as MPP's excavations have discovered (MPP: Stonehenge, 2012, chapter 5 for example). We still don't really know where the majority of the Stonehenge sarsen stones were sourced, despite recent claims. So, the actual extent of the extravagance of effort invested in hauling the enormous sarsen stones to the future site of Stonehenge is still uncertain. However, there was it is true, already a tradition, dating back to Mesolithic times, of investing considerable human effort into the movement and erection of large timber posts fairly close to the eventually chosen site of Stonehenge. There seems to have been a magnetic attraction going on. A reasonable conjecture is that part of that "magnetism" was that smaller exotic stones, not found elsewhere in the wider region, occurred within a fairly small area, thus fairly close at hand for inclusion amongst the sarsen megaliths.
Jon -- did they really construct Stonehenge? We don't know that. They started on it -- or on something like it -- but we don't know that they ever finished it. How many people still believe in "the immaculate Stonehenge" as portrayed in all the text books and PR material? I think they started on something, tried out all sorts of settings with the stones they managed to find, and then gave up when they ran out of stones.
That's a much more likely scenario.
Tony -- Kellaway thought that the bluestones were originally called "blau" stones, meaning different or unusual -- and therefore attractive because they were different from the sarsens. They are actually less blue than the sarsens. It's a perfectly reasonable hypothesis that Stonehenge is where it is simply because there was a rather abundant stony mish-mash around the area of all sorts of shapes, sizes, textures and colours........
Quite a lot of evidence for pre - existing "bluestones" have been found both near AND beneath the early Neolithic Cursus monument we call the Great Cursus, which has an east - north - east directional route too, adding to the possibility that this Cursus is, in its orientation, mimicking that of the early glacial entrainment.
Brian: We know that what was constructed was made by humans. But, as you say, it's also unknown whether or not they finished. However, the work they did do required quite a bit of effort. If they were of an engineering mind, there are ways to speed up those tasks (over and above what is probably still displayed, for example, in the visitor centre). However, those enhanced methods (at least the ones I've looked at) don't give a huge reduction in overall effort.
By comparison, the effort required to transport the smaller stones (bluestones) over long distances, assuming only technologies known to be available at the time, is in the order of a couple of (log) magnitudes less effort than the 'short haul' methods described in most texts. It's surprising to me that so much effort has been spent on short haul testing without any sort of review of all the other options.
Regarding my last comment (awaiting approval) a correction.....the Greater Cursus has an east - north - easterly "direction of travel" which I am maintaining may mimic the travel of the erratic train hundreds of thousands of years earlier.
Lionel Jackson and I proposed something similar many years ago -- by using the analogy of the Big Rocks erratic train in the USA, along the junction of the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice streams, we suggested that there may indeed have been a bluestone "trail" of scattered erratics which our prehistoric ancestors discovered and followed further and further from Stonehenge, until either the trail went dry or they ran out of energy.
Wow!
Nice to learn that bigging up science predates the 21st century. The trouble with the theory of glacial transport is that there is no trail of Prescelly Bluestones leading to Stonehenge. The chemistry of the stones is quite specific and they likely could have come from nowhere else.
A friend of mine in the village who is a bit of a rock doctor - runs a site for manic geologists even when he is not being a specially talented artist. Well Harjo tells me that similar rock chemistry is to be found in Belgium - probably Brian knows where but I can walk around and ask Harjo if anybody is interested. So maybe the stones came from Belgium?? The Beaker folk carried them over from Belgium to appropriate the monument? Any takers?
Pursuing this wild logic, I have been following the DNA work a bit in recent years. It seems around the time Stonehenge was "finished" - bluestone inner circle and all - the genetics of the early Brits was transforming due to migration from the EU as it is currently known. The early neolithic Brits were effectively replaced by migrants - perhaps from the general direction of Belgium. No doubt the newcomers had a point to make regarding cultural memes, just as the Christians made a point of taking over pagan places.
MPP eat your heart out. You are a quarter right. It was the "invaders" who brought the new culture to port-England, and the stones came from Belgium (at least most of them did).
Love to you all, Chris
GREAT to know that SOMETHING ELSE comes/ came from Belgium, apart from Belgian chocolate and the Aston Villa and former Premier League - winning Leicester City attacking midfielder whose name I've temporarily forgotten! My other contribution is to say that the SECOND early Neolithic Cursus monument in the Greater Stonehenge Landscape, known as the Lesser Cursus, also has a broadly east - west orientation which may have been thoughtfully chosen to reflect the direction of travel of dem oh! so blingy - exotic stones from Beyond the Known Universe.
I think you are a bit hard on Belgium, Tony. Been there a few times myself, and have always enjoyed my visits. Mostly visiting the EU HQ for meetings and to submit petitions to the parliament....
Not being a bit hard at all, Brian. That was a satirical conment, many others have been similarly satirical about Belgium e g par excellance BBC light entertainment show QI, with its Danish lady presenter whose name I haven't forgotten, Sandi " 5 - foot - nothing" Toksvig.
Is the term Bluestone site specific to Stonehenge? Just north of Sedbergh in Cumbria there is a volcanic intrusion of microgabbro known as Bluecaster. People seem too busy looking for the roman fort that the "caster" part of the name may represent than question the blue etymology.
If you Google "bluestone" you will see that the term is used all over the world -- particularly in USA and Australia, where it used for specific bluish quarried rock types..... either sedimentary or igneous.
The recently sadly deceased Christopher Tilley, colleague of MPP quite a lot, excavated a prehistoric barrow close to Exmouth, south Devon, which incorporated stones coloured blue. I kept intending to contact Chris as to the geological composition of those stones. I have seen a display to do with the excavation of that barrow at Exmouth Museum.
Chris: you said earlier "there is no trail of Prescelly Bluestones leading to Stonehenge" . I would advocate that there may (as yet) be no discernible 'trail', yet there is decided evidence for the myriad of different geological types of bluestone actually within the ground area of the Stonehenge monument. Brian has stated on page 183 of his 2018 Stonehenge Bluestones book that "there are at least 20 different rock types and 30 different provenances in the full " bluestone assemblage" at Stonehenge. My Facebook Friend Simon Banton has a website which illustrates each bluestone rock/ boulder to be found within the monument. So, we know almost without question that MPP, Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins are, as it were, barking up the wrong tree in their efforts to locate at least THIRTY man - made quarries within north Pembrokeshire/the Preseli hills. And there seems to be quite probable evidence for the existence of a glacial erratic trail just west of the western end of the Greater Cursus (J Stone, 1847/8) AND ALSO from an excavation (during MPP et al's Stonehenge Riverside Project) actually beneath part of the Greater Cursus at the beginning of this 21st Century.Perhaps there may be representative pieces of Preseli bluestones waiting to be identified by discerning archaeologists and/ or landscape earth scientists at future digs along the very long Greater Cursus - OR, indeed, along the shorter [ never completed] Lesser Cursus to the former's north - west.
Whoops! ( J Stone, 1947/48)
We're frequently told there is NO evidence for a glacial erratic train approaching the Greater Stonehenge Landscape (now, incidentally, part of the World Heritage Site that also includes Avebury's greater landscape). Well, I'm beginning to think that "Jack" Stone, were he still alive, might have been fairly enthusiastic as to the existence of an erratic train approaching from the west.
JFS Stone was an amateur archaeologist, but he was also a scientist at Porton Down, the Ministry of Defence research centre. I therefore think scientifically-trained Jack Stone may have been open to the possibility that the bluestones need not have an anthropomorphic origin in the landscape, in other words they may be there in the first place because glaciation deposited them. MPP tells us that one of his interests was in tracking down the distribution of pieces of bluestone around the Stonehenge landscape. So, for example, he followed up reports that Boy Scouts had found bits of Early Bronze Age pottery in the wood (Fargo Wood) just west of the Early Neolithic Greater Cursus, and discovered a small henge ditch, within which was a chunk of bluestone.
Parker Pearson (2012) tells us, page 261, that Stone knew that bluestone chippings had been found elsewhere too. William Cunnington of Heytesbury(who dug Boles Barrow and said he removed a large boulder of bluestone famously for posterity to argue about) on behalf of and with Colt Hoare found chippings of bluestones in 3 round barrows west of Stonehenge [note the direction is WEST], one of them 300 metres WEST of Stone's just - discovered small henge. In 1947 Stone picked up 8 more pieces from the surface of a ploughed field east of the Fargo Plantation, most of them from its NW corner close to the south ditch of the Cursus, in the same area where a colleague of Newall had found several bluestone chips on the surface in 1934.
Parker Pearson goes on to talk about how Stone also found a piece of "Welsh sandstone" when he dug into the Cursus ditch, presumably in 1947. MPP also recounts details of Colin Richards' 150 trial pits, made during the Stonehenge Riverside Project's scrutiny at or near the Greater Cursus. From the point of view of glacial geomorphology, we may consider that the evidence is stacking up for an erratic train.
Perhaps it could be that Julian Richards failed to identify many pieces of "bluestone" when he worked at Stonehenge for English Heritage, if so, it may have been a missed opportunity. I'm not certain either way what he did find as part of his large scale field-walking back in the 1980s.
Aubrey Burl, in his " Stonehenge: A Complete History and Archaeology of.. . " 2006, ' makes this historical remark: "....in 1880, a few inches below the turf at Stonehenge, Henry Cunnington [ grandson of William of Boles Barrow fame] found the base of an overgrown and worn - down schist... 'foreign to the County of Wilts', weathered into a mere stump: 'fragments of this stone have been continually turning up at Stonehenge, and in the neighbourhood ' [Worn - down schist: WAM 21,1884, p 142].
Aubrey Burl (2006) goes on to quote non other than his friend Stonehenge archaeologist Richard Atkinson [in D Heggie, 1980]. Burl first remarks : " It is hard to believe that prehistoric people would choose soft stones when so much good material was available. More probably, on the chalky, almost stoneless Salisbury Plain, men chanced upon a litter of bluestones and others, some from the Preselis, ' but probably fetched proximally from a site, as yet undiscovered, in West Wiltshire' in a clutter of rocks and boulders of which only a limited number were of the ideal shape and texture.
William Cunnington, the excavator of Boles Barrow, was one of the first amateur geologists of the early Nineteenth Century. His ability to identify a bluestone from within Boles Barrow should be given serious consideration!
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