I have been digging deeper into the new Altar Stone paper which is causing such a fuss. Every time I look at it my concerns increase, even though I know no more about the ORS than the next man in the street. What worries me in particular are the underlying assumptions built into the paper, and the portrayal of opinions as if they are facts.
1. As early as para 1 we have problems. The sarsens of Stonehenge are mentioned, and the authors say they were "predominantly sourced from West Woods" -- that means "fetched from" West Woods. That is a matter of opinion, not fact, and the authors must know that the provenancing of sarsen monoliths to that site has been recently questioned in print. Then they say "some lithologies (of bluestone) are linked with quarrying sites in the Mynydd Preseli area...." What lithologies? What quarries? The citations provided are highly biased. The authors of this new article should have been honest enough to admit that much of the "quarrying" narrative has been dismissed in the peer-reviewed literature. Not a good start. These mistakes and early indicators of bias should have been picked up by the editors and referees, but weren't.
2. In para 5 there are more indicators of bias. In discussing the possible source of the Altar Stone to somewhere in the Anglo-Welsh Basin the authors talk of "an inferred collection and overland transport of the Altar Stone en route to Stonehenge from the Mynydd Preseli." They also say that the Anglo-Welsh Basin is "highly unlikely to be the source." Again we see the unwise assumption that the stones of Stonehenge were targetted, collected and transported by human beings. The authors also fail to recognise that the opinions of Bevins et al (2023) are not universally accepted: https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2023/11/new-altar-stone-paper-professional.html
3. In para 7 the authors refer to "fragments of the Altar Stone" whereas they actually mean two sandstone fragments numbered MS3 and 2010K.240 apparently found in the vicinity of the Altar Stone. Work done with pXRF equipment suggests the attribution may be reliable, but readings seem to differ across the exposed surface of the stone -- so uncertainty remains.
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2023/03/new-altar-stone-article.html
4. In the following text of the paper the authors refer over and again to "age data from the Altar Stone", "Altar Stone grains", "Altar Stone readings", "Altar Stone analyses" and so forth. In the caption of Figure 2 they refer to false colour maps "from thin sections of the Altar Stone." But there are no thin sections of the Altar Stone, and EH will not allow any to be collected, much to the disgust of the geologists.
5. To be continued.........
I have many other comments to make in due course, but this slapdash assumption that a thin section from a slice of rock purportedly collected from the underside of the Altar Stone in 1844 is actually representative of the Altar Stone devalues the whole article.
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Now then, just for fun, here is another point. If the authors of this paper had been sensible, and had referred throughout this article to "a sandstone fragment from Stonehenge" instead of referring to "the Altar Stone", they could have embarked on a much more intelligent discussion of how it got from its place of origin to the spot where it was found. Instead of the ludicrous debate about the Neolithic sea transport of a six-tonne block, we could have had a serious debate about the small lumps of rock (including the Newall Boulder) found at the site. This could have led to a consideration of glacial erratic transport, and a look at the tools, ornaments, and maybe even tribute stones and sacred objects that might have been carried about by Neolithic traders.........
Good points Brian.
ReplyDeleteThe authors of the paper talk about their sandstone source location being formed some 460 million years ago. Since then there have been three major glacial epochs - correct me if I am wrong. The most recent and current epoch has lasted over 2 million years so far and consisted of many glaciations that may and did move stones.
One thing I learned about glaciations is that they tend to erase the traces of the ones that went before. Therefore, to say with any certainty that rocks formed 460 million years ago were NOT moved by glaciation would seem very confident.
Tim Daws is putting forward his "expert" views on glaciers which seem to focus on the most recent glacial maximum. It is not possible to comment and so I say "seems". His focus would seem barely relevant to the questions being raised. Most students would look to the Anglian glaciation some 450000 years ago to have moved the stones, not the latest iteration. In the millions of years we are talking about with these sandstones there are many possibilities I would have thought, as a layman.
For many years Dr Ixer was looking to provenance sandstones along the welsh route and without success. He always complained that he did not have samples of the altar stone itself and needed these to do the work. As it seems he still does not have the samples!
So far a disappointing piece of work befitting the silly season only.
At least we have definitive proof of the provenance of the so - called "Newall Boulder", the small rock about the size of a human head excavated by Robert Newall ( archaeologist Colonel William Hawley's assistant) from within the Stonehenge monument itself in 1924. Brian has covered its provenance in earlier Posts written around July 2024 when we inspected and photographed it. It was in the possession of geologist Geoffrey Kellaway before being deposited in Salisbury Museum and there mislaid for many years, despite being labelled. Use this blog's Search Engine for full details.
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