They really don't like it when people disagree with them, do they? The Bluestone Gang is on the warpath:
Coming soon: Bevins, R.E., Pearce, N.J.G., Ixer, R.A., Scourse, J., Daw, T., Parker Pearson, M., Pitts, M., Field, D., Pirrie, D. and Power, M.R. In press. Further discourse on the enigmatic ‘Newall boulder’ excavated at Stonehenge in 1926: correcting the record. Journal of Quaternary Science.A gang of ten. Some of them are probably very upset about my review of their 2024 paper, and about my article published in June 2024 in E&G Quaternary Science Journal. That article was published after extensive expert review and editorial involvement; whatever Bevins et al might think, it was deemed by the editorial team in Germany to be well worthy of publication. If it has opened up a serious debate, all well and good.
So we look forward with interest to reading the latest attempt at "correcting the record". This involves not just the geologists Ixer, Bevins and Pearce. Almost all the members of the Stonehenge establishment are apparently joining forces in an attempt to discredit my article on the Newall Boulder. They must be seriously worried. And so they should be. The narrative on which they have based their academic reputations is under attack, and there is widepstread scepticism out there in the forum of public opinion, as indicated in the public response to the YouTube videos published by Coral and Jacky Henderson in the last fee months..
Anyway, we shall see what these fellows have to say. Then I assume I will have to correct the corrected record. Somebody has to do it.
This is an interesting development, given that for the best part of a decade Bevins, Ixer and Pearce have steadfastly refused to acknowledge that any of their evidence has been questioned in the scientific literature, or that any of their conclusions have been disputed. Their refusal to cite key publications by Elis-Gruffydd, Downes and me may be seen as a crude sort of "academic cancel culture" the likes of which I have never seen before, at least in my own field of geomorphology. Should I feel flattered that they have now, at long last, acknowledged my existence?
This of course comes hard on the heels of an arrogant and patronising article by Pearce, Bevins, Ixer and Scourse published in Quaternary Newsletter 163 (2024), which seeks to discredit other geologists and to question my knowledge of Quaternary events in Western Britain. I'm not taking any lessons from them, and will deal with their insulting assault in print, in the coming months.
Never a dull moment. Long live academic discourse.......
4 comments:
I am puzzled that David Field is stated to be one of the authors of this Paper. I thought he had a more open mind about whether glaciation brought the bluestones most of the distance to the future site of Stonehenge hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Well, he certainly argued not so long ago that Stonehenge was made of stones that were collected up in the vicinity. And it is said that Richard Atkinson admitted, shortly before he died, that the Stonehenge bluestones were probably glacial erratics, collected up from the neighbourhood.........
I am wondering @ who this M.R. Power is and (b) in what way is he contributing/supporting this Paper?
I suspect that he works withy Duncan Pirrie in Exeter University, specialising on electron microscope work. Suggests to me that they have been bombarding the Newall Boulder with high tech analysis both re: possible provenance and depositional history. Well, let's see the colour of their evidence.......
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