New Orkney Altar Stone paper -- yet more sampling bias

 

This is the geological map of Orkney Mainland, showing the main outcropping rock types (Lower and Upper Stromness Formations), directions of known ice movement during the last glacial episode, and the locations of the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness.

As mentioned in the previous post, Bevins et al (2024) failed to find any match between the Stonehenge Altar Stone and the two famous standing stone settings.  They also failed to find any match with the Vestrafiold "Quarry" -- although establishing that must have been one of their research priorities.  

The researchers were also keen to establish that the standing stones were obtained or "sourced" from locations to the west or north-west, so ten of their chosen sampling locations were down-glacier.  This of course matches the prevailing wisdom -- the copious literature on the standing stone settings and on the Ness of Brodgar is full of assumptions that the stones were specially chosen and quarried before being hauled to their places of use.

This interpretation is countered by Adrian Hall and John Brown in their Orkney video, and by John Brown in this short article:

https://www.ssns.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/13_Brown_Orkney_2003_pp_175-195.pdf

So why did the researchers fail to take any samples from the up-glacier outcrops of the Upper Stromness Formation and only three (5512, 5513 and 5514) from other formations?  The reason must be that they were afraid that they might prove that the stones were all glacial erratics!

Actually I am not that bothered with the glacial transport theory -- since it is pretty obvious from the geological map that all of the stones could have been locally derived from adjacent outcrops of the Lower and Upper Stromness beds.

This is all a bit of a farce.  However, we have learned some things from it that are quite useful.

1.  There are no similarities between the Stonehenge bluestone monoliths and the stones exposed on Orkney.

2.  The Altar Stone has not come from Orkney after all.

3.  There is nothing special about the monoliths at the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness.  There is no reason for them to have been "fetched" from anywhere else on Orkney Mainland.

4.  Since there is no apparent geochemical or petrographic link between Vestrafiold and the Orkney standing stone sites, the idea of Neolithic quarrying at Vestrafiold and elsewhere can now be abandoned.  The evidence for the Vestrafiold quarry never was very strong anyway........

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2014/01/ring-of-brodgar-and-its-quarry.html

5.  As with the building complex at the Ness of Brodgar, where a wonderful local resource of exposed flagstones was used locally, it appears that the standing stone monuments were also built in the places where abundant suitable stones were to be found.  This was also the situation at Callanish:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2014/06/callanish-and-its-standing-stones.html

The Ness of Brodgar -- perfect flagstones locally sourced and locally used......