Over 4 million, and climbing fast

 

I have only just noticed, but this blog has now gone past 4 million page views, with almost 100,000 page views on 28th August alone.  That is really weird -- why so many page views on that particular day?  On digging deeper into the Blogger statistics, I see that the viewings were not just of the latest posts, but of all sorts of posts across a wide range of topics, some of them from many years ago.  There was a similar spike on 11th August (102,000 views) and another on 21 July (75,000 views).   If anybody has any insights into the reasons for these strange spikes, I will be interested to hear what you have to say.

Anyway, many thanks to my faithful readers -- your support is greatly appreciated.

One of the things that I think might have happened over the last couple of years is that the algorithms used by Google and other search engines have picked up on the popularity of the blog in the fields of geomorphology, glaciology, archaeology and geology and have as a consequence started placing it high in the lists of articles that come up in response to searches.  

If there really is a sort of geometric progression going on, we should hit the 5 million mark in no time at all.........

The fantasy of the Pembrokeshire cow

The sacred cow -- was she called Myfanwy, or Buttercup?

I have been reading this notorious article even more carefully in he hope of finding some clue as to the origin of the "Pembrokeshire cow."  I am stumped, because I can find nothing at all to support the assertions made in the BGS press release:

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/scientists-uncover-secrets-of-stonehenges-mysterious-cattle/
BGS news
Scientists uncover secrets of Stonehenge’s mysterious cattle
Cutting-edge analysis of a Neolithic cow tooth dating back to the construction of the famous landmark provides evidence of Welsh origins.
20/08/2025 By BGS Press

This is the offending article by Evans et al (2025)

Sequential multi-isotope sampling through a Bos taurus tooth from Stonehenge, to assess comparative sources and incorporation times of strontium and lead

Journal of Archaeological Science 180 (2025) 106269
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440325001189?via%3Dihub

The strontium isotope evidence is supposedly most reliable in demonstrating the geographical location of an animal's initial grazing area.  However, the results in this study are not easy to interpret.  Quote:

Using the isotope biosphere map (Evans et al., 2022a), the theoretical higher winter value of 0.7144 excludes most of SE England and southern Scotland. The lower summer theoretical value of 0.7110 has a similar, but higher, spatial coverage to the sample regions at the winter value (i.e. excluding most of SE England). These distributions are based on using the central 90 % model option recommended for herbivores (Evans et al., 2022a) (Fig. 4).

So the most that can be said is that the work excludes most of SE England as the animal's "source area."  There are vast areas in the west and north of Great Britain, and in the Midlands, that by their own admission cannot be excluded by the authors of the paper........

Regarding the tooth in the jawbone of the said cow, its provenance is also said to be shown in the measurements of the lead isotopes.

Quote:

This model requires a disconnect between the geological sources of Sr and Pb such that the Sr can be modelled as a two-end member transition down the tooth whereas the Pb source switches twice between Mesozoic and Palaeozoic sources without disrupting the Sr curve. While this model is not discarded it is difficult to model geologically (i.e. it is difficult to identify source zones that could explain this pattern). 3) The disconnect could be caused by the release of previously deposited Pb due to physiological stress.

So this all hinges on the difference between the signatures of Mesozoic and Palaeozoic sources, shown in the following map of "isoscapes":

Broadly, the dark brown area consists mostly of Mesozoic and later rocks while the lighter brown area -- for example in Wales and southern Scotland -- coincides with Palaeozoic rocks to the south of the Iapetus Suture.

The problem with the 8 lead isotope readings for the cow's tooth is that 4 of them fall within the Palaeozoic range and 4 are within the Mesozoic range:

So I can see why the authors are puzzled by the "switching" from one apparent provenance to another. As they say, something else is going on here, unrelated to geographical location.  But then it gets even more bizarre, when we look at this strange diagram.  

The diagram shows that none of the lead isotope readings falls within the data range for Wales. On the other hand there is a reasonable matching for samples from the Pennines, Mendips and SW England,

And yet, having shown that there is NOT a good match for Wales, the authors (not in the article but in the press release) go on to state that the famous cow has probably come from SW Wales.  So they are promoting a narrative that they thelselves have effectively already dismissed........

As far as I can see, the ONLY reason for claiming that the cattle tooth came from an animal raised in SW Wales is that that is where most of the bluestones originated.  Hmmm......

Parker Pearson refers to "yet more fascinating evidence for Stonehenge’s link with south-west Wales, where its bluestones come from".  Evans refers to "the first evidence of cattle movement from Wales" amd Madgwick talks of "unparalleled new detail on the distant origins of the animal and the arduous journey it was brought on". 

We are repeatedly told that we must follow the science.  If this is science, God help us all. 

The BGS -- off to dreamland with the tooth fairy

 

Photo of a cow's tooth....... not the one used in the study

Well, it is the silly seaon, and we expect assorted bits of nonsense to be making the headlines.  What we don't expect is to find an august (and supposedly very scientific) body like the British Geological Survey (BGS) at the centre of a piece of pseudo-science, promoting it heavily to a gullible media.

The big story today (in the Guardian, Mail, and Independent) has been promoted by the BGS press office, which is presumably accepted by all editors as highly reliable and respectable source.  The press release, reproduced below, is quite extraordinary and highly irresponsible.

The story is all about the analysis of a single cattle tooth, taken from a cow's jawbone found near the "entrance" to Stonehenge in 1924.  According to legend, this jawbone was "carefully placed" and was therefore of great significance.  Now where have we heard that sort of thing before?

Let's just make this point.  The article which is being hyped here is a rather dry and dusty one, of interest to those who are keen on cow's teeth, but it provides no evidence whatsoever that the famous cow which might have spent some of its time in an area of older rocks had anything  to do with Wales, let alone Pembrokeshire and let alone the Mynydd Preseli area.  The article itself makes no extravagant claims,  but it is seized on by Evans, Parker Pearson and Madgwick who pretend that it makes some major contribution to the "established" Stonehenge bluestone narrative.

It's all completely bonkers.

================

BGS news

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/news/scientists-uncover-secrets-of-stonehenges-mysterious-cattle/

Scientists uncover secrets of Stonehenge’s mysterious cattle

Cutting-edge analysis of a Neolithic cow tooth dating back to the construction of the famous landmark provides evidence of Welsh origins.

20/08/2025 By BGS Press

The mysteries of Stonehenge have baffled scientists for centuries. In the 2010s, archaeologists and geologists identified two quarries in Wales as the sources of Stonehenge’s legendary standing bluestones. Now, new evidence published by scientists in August 2025 consolidates this connection.

A century ago, in 1924, archaeologists discovered a cow’s jawbone that had been carefully placed beside Stonehenge’s south entrance and dated it to the monument’s very beginning in 2995 to 2900 BCE. The discovery has intrigued historians ever since. Why had it been placed there? Why was this animal considered special? Researchers from BGS, Cardiff University and University College London have used isotope analysis to bring this artifact to life, helping to reveal further tantalising glimpses into the origins of the historic landmark.The scientists sliced the cow’s third molar tooth, which records chemical signals from the animal’s second year of life, into nine horizontal sections. They were then able to measure carbon, oxygen, strontium and lead isotopes, which each offer clues about the cow’s diet, environment and movement.

The oxygen isotopes revealed that the tooth captured roughly six months of growth, from winter to summer, whilst the carbon isotopes showed the animal’s diet changed with the seasons: woodland fodder in winter and open pasture in summer. Additionally, the strontium isotopes indicated the seasonal food sources came from different geological areas, suggesting that the cow either moved seasonally or that winter fodder was imported.

The lead isotopes revealed composition spikes during the late winter to spring, pointing to a lead source that was older than the lead in the rest of the tooth. The composition suggests the cow originated from an area with Palaeozoic rocks, such as the bluestones found in Wales, before moving to Stonehenge.

This is the first time that scientists have seen evidence linking cattle remains from Stonehenge to Wales, adding further weight to theories that cows were used in the transportation of the enormous rocks across the country.

This study has revealed unprecedented details of six months in a cow’s life, providing the first evidence of cattle movement from Wales as well as documenting dietary changes and life events that happened around 5000 years ago. A slice of one cow tooth has told us an extraordinary tale and, as new scientific tools emerge, we hope there is still more to learn from her long journey.

Prof Jane Evans, BGS Honorary Research Associate.

In addition to this discovery, researchers also concluded that the unusual lead signal could not be explained by local contamination or movement alone. Instead, there was another explanation: that lead stored in the cow’s bones had been remobilised during the stresses of pregnancy. If true, this would mean the cow was female and pregnant or nursing during the tooth’s formation. To test the hypothesis, the team applied a peptide-based sex determination technique at the University of Manchester, which showed there was a high probability that the animal was female.

This research has provided key new insights into the biography of this enigmatic cow whose remains were deposited in such an important location at a Stonehenge entrance. It provides unparalleled new detail on the distant origins of the animal and the arduous journey it was brought on. So often grand narratives dominate research on major archaeological sites, but this detailed biographical approach on a single animal provides a brand-new facet to the story of Stonehenge.

Richard Madgwick, professor of archaeological science at Cardiff University.

Stonehenge has many secrets left to be uncovered. However, this latest research helps fill in just a few more of those gaps as we learn more about this legendary landmark.

This is yet more fascinating evidence for Stonehenge’s link with south-west Wales, where its bluestones come from. It raises the tantalising possibility that cattle helped to haul the stones.

Michael Parker Pearson, professor of British later prehistory at University College London.

The research paper, Sequential multi-isotope sampling through a Bos taurus tooth from Stonehenge, to assess comparative sources and incorporation times of strontium and lead, is now available to read.

========================

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440325001189?via%3Dihub

Abstract
The aim of this paper is to use the sequential nature of enamel deposition in hypsodont teeth to study the relationship, in time and source, of strontium and lead isotopes to better understand the use of this pairing of elements for studies of movement and migration. Carbon and oxygen isotope analysis were included to place the data in their seasonal and dietary context. The study was undertaken on an M3 from a Neolithic cattle tooth excavated from Stonehenge. The animal was female based on peptide analysis. The tooth records c. six months of enamel deposition from winter to summer, based on δ18OcarbVSMOW compositions, and changes in δ13CcarbVSMOW that reflect a shift from forest to grassland food sources. 87Sr/86Sr varies from a winter value of 0.7144 to 0.7110 in summer. Lead concentrations and isotope composition shows peaks and troughs which contrast with the unidirectional change in the 87Sr/86Sr. We suggest that whereas the Sr is wholly derived from dietary sources the Pb represents a balance between diet and skeletal reservoirs, the latter being scavenged during a time of metabolic stress attributed to calving and lactation. It is thus important to consider skeletal reservoirs as a source of Pb when using this element to track movement and migration. This study demonstrates the value of using the complementary isotope systems of lead and strontium in tandem, but also highlights that their integration must be undertaken with caution and with full consideration of alternative drivers of variation.

-----------------------

The wildly extravagant claims made by Evans, Madgwick and Parker Pearson in the press release are quite at odds with the contents of the paper.  In fact the text urges caution in the interpretation of the isotope analyses, warning against over-interpretation and against the assumption that the seasonal changes found in the tooth have anything at all to do with migration or travel over large distances.  The changes suggest a dietary change from woodland to grassland, which suggests that the animal might have moved between one season or another -- or alternatively that woodland fodder was collected by humans and moved to the animal when grass was in short supply in the winter.  The strontium and lead isotope "signatures" certainly do not suggest a west Wales source, and could just as well be associated with an animal that was grazing at one time in Devon or Cornwall, or even in the Mendips.

Quote from the text:

This study has revealed some important considerations when looking at multi-isotope variation in tooth enamel. By linking the changes in carbon and oxygen with those in strontium we can see that the Sr isotope terrain changes are related to vegetation type and seasonality and while the shift in Sr from c. 0.7144 to <0.711 might previously have been see as indication a significant migratory event, new studies show that this could be either localized movement or simply movement of feed rather that the animal itself. The discrepancies between strontium (unidirectional composition change down the tooth) and Pb isotope composition (peaks and troughs) highlights the different metabolic pathways of Sr and Pb and show that care must be taken, if the two isotopes are used together as a migration tracker, to ensure that both isotopes are monitoring coeval and consanguineous isotope sources. Finally, fluctuations in Pb concentration and isotope composition may be indicative of birth induced skeletal stress in female animals.

How anybody can interpret that as indicating that the cow travelled to Stonehenge from SW Wales, goodness knows..........

Hubris instead of science

If you want to know what "Hubris" means, just watch the infamous documentary about the Lost Circle, featuring MPP and many of his merry men and women, egged on by an "astonished" Alice Roberts. (it is still being pushed via BBC iPlayer, in spite of -- or maybe because of -- protests about the appalling level of the "science" nvoilved.)  Some clips from the documentary were shown by Coral and Jacky in their YouTube video about the Bluestone Debate.  The trouble with the brand of hubris promoted by the HTG (Human Transport Gang) is that it is dressed up as science, which means that it is much more likely to be picked up and perpetrated as "the truth" by an increasingly gullible media.  

Members of the gang have, over the past fifteen years or so, not been very backward in coming forward and telling the world how important their research is. They don't do modesty or caution.   Superlatives have flowed as freely as water.  The most accurate piece of geological monolith provenancing ever seen in the British Isles. The biggest, best and earliest Neolithic stone quarries.  The longest list of Neolithic stone quarrying "engineering features" ever assembled.  The most technically advanced and longest stone haulage expeditions ever attempted in the western world.  The best evidence ever produced to show where one particular Stonehenge monolith (which, by the way, has never been found) came from on a quarry rock face.  The clearest imprint ever found of a Stonehenge stone that was used in an earlier stone setting.  The second biggest stone circle ever found in Britain.  The site of "proto-Stonehenge" !!  The discovery of one of the greatest religious and political centres of Neolithic Britain..........  

So it goes on.  Extravagant media headlines of the "Stonehenge mystery finally resolved" variety, with many capitral letters, bold typefaces and exclamation marks.  All fuelled by carefully crafted press releases and quotes from senior researchers (called "experts" or "scientists") associated with top British Universities.  All wildly over the top, all based on extremely shaky evidence, and recently abandoned bit by bit under the pressure of scrutiny by independent researchers and sceptical members of the public.

Fast forward to the past month, and the paper on the Newall Boulder published by Bevins et al in the Journal of Archaeological Science.  I will dissect this paper with due objectivity in due course, but for a moment, just concentrate on the  outrageous claims made by the authors in press releases and statements to the media. They talk of "discoveries", "finds" and "new evidence" -- and claim to be "correcting the record" -- implying that they are bringing science to bear on a debate that was previously somewhat unscientific.  The debate is now  settled by our truth, say the scientists.  Then they claim (falsely, of course)  that "there is no evidence" to support the idea of glacial transport of bluestone erratics.  So we have claims of "the death of the glacial transport hypothesis" by at least one of the joint authors, and "human transport finally confirmed".........

Among the adjectives used by correspondents to describe the recent paper, we get the following:  arrogant.  disrespectful, insensitive, condescending, insulting, and complacent.  But what gets most people is the sheer arrogance of the eleven authors who seem to assume that this is the last word, and that I for one will have to accept defeat and go away, leaving Bevins et al in sole charge of the playing field.  No chance of that.  The eleven authors seem to have been incredibly naive and blind to the fact that their own evidence -- and their convoluted bluestone narrative --  has  no strong evidence to support it.  Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to back them up and that evidence is just not there.  Bevins et al do not appear to know how science works.  They have not corrected the record at all -- they have expressed  opinions on several relevant matters, and to claim anything more grandiose than that is simply to demonstrate that hubris is alive and well..  

A healthy dose of scepticism

I have been looking again at the two YouTube videos created by Coral and Jacky Henderson and published on their CoralJackZ pages.

Here are the links:

Part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoobiRgv50g


Part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idbEst34aEw&t


The videos were released last year and have tremendous viewing figures -- and I'm very impressed with the understated and cautious approach taken by Jacky in his presentation. His scepticism is commendable! Compare that with the extraordinary hype contained in that infamous TV documentary about the "Lost Circle"...... and with other videos now on YouTube which accept without any scrutiny  the wacky narrative promoted by Richard Bevins, Mike Parker Pearson and others over the last few years.

The thing I am most impressed by (having now had another look at the 2024 videos) is the level of research that has gone into the split screen sections.  Without any prompting from me, they have dug around in the literature and found illustrations to back up the points made by me in Part 2 and by my opponents as well.  I'm rather gratified to see that none of their research has revealed major shortcomings in the things that I said to camera.

If the comments made by viewers are anything to go by, many others have also given a warm welcome to this rather refreshing approach......

===============

PS.  If you want to know my take on the Altar Stone provenancing debate, there is a 15 min section in video No 2, from 28.51 to 42.02.  My comments, as far as I know, have not been overtaken by events.

Fluvioglacial gravels in Cardigan

There is a new exposure of horizontally bedded fluvioglacial sand and gravel in Cardigan, where a hillside has been excavated out to ctreate a flat platform suitable for a new retail shopping park.  One store has been built there already by Home Bargains Ltd, and a new Aldi store will soon follow on the site.

The site is north of the river, not far from Theatr Mwldan and the new NHS Integrated Care Health Centre.

Grid reference -- SN 17566 46664

The exposed face is 15- 20m high, and having been cut a few years ago it is already colonised by sand martins and is starting to degrade.  But if anybody wants to take some samples for OSL dating, there are enough vertical faces left in easily accessible positions.

The OSL dates obtained by Glasser et al (2018) from Trefigin and Pantgwyn quarries, both to the south of the Teifi River, were around 26,000 yrs BP, suggesting that the ice of the Irish Sea Ice Stream was disintegrating in the lower Teifi Valley at a relatively early date -- in turn suggesting a glacial maximum around 28,000 - 27,000 yrs BP.  The dates may or may not be reliable.........

Glasser, N.F. et al, Late Devensian deglaciation of south-west Wales from luminescence and cosmogenic isotope dating: LATE DEVENSIAN DEGLACIATION OF SOUTH-WEST WALES
August 2018
Journal of Quaternary Science 33(2)
DOI: 10.1002/jqs.3061

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/08/major-progress-on-devensian-ice-limits.html

My Response to Daw's Desperate Diatribe

Reports of the death of the glacial transport theory are greatly exaggerated

I can put up with Tim Daw posting a stream of personal insults aimed at me on his own blog, which is read by his own enthusiastic followers, but I will not accept an ad hominem attack from him which is published on the Researchgate platform, posing as a learned article.  He even asked Researchgate to change the typeface at the head of the article,  to make it look as if it was extracted from an academic journal. Cheap stunt.   I'm amazed that Researchgate accepted it, given that it contains no scientific content whatsoever,  and that it is simply a gleeful celebration of what he perceives to be the death of the glacial transport theory. 

If Daw and his mates from within the Stonehenge establishment think that I am now going to shut up and go away, they have another thing coming.  And if they really think that the "transport debate" is now definitively concluded, that shows how little they understand about the scientific process. 

I wonder what Daw's colleagues think of the  endless stream of ill-considered attacks on his blog?  Not a lot, I suspect.  He is a considerable embarrassment.  Anyway, here is my response, also on Researchgate:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394423030_The_Stonehenge_bluestones_reports_of_the_death_of_the_glacial_transport_theory_are_grossly_exaggerated

Joint controlled blocks -- statements of the obvious

 

One of the Kjove Land giant erratics in East Greenland.  To call this a "joint controlled block" might or might not be accurate, but the term tells us nothing of importance about its origins.

To call a small clast or larger boulder a "joint controlled block" is to make a statement of the obvious, since the term can be applied to virtually all lumps of rock in nature.  I have come across the term several times recently, in the context of the bluestone monoliths of Stonehenge and the Newall Boulder......

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/502372/1/WD-94-7.pdf

When bedrock breaks up, under the influence of weathering and erosive forces, it will always break along the planes or lines of weakness within the rock mass -- and these may coincide with bedding planes, faults, shear fractures  or simple joints caused by internal stresses such as drying out, cooling, contraction or compaction.  The term "brittle failure" is often used. Geologists also refer to fractures, fissures and planar or sub-planar joints, and also "cleavage" to describe splitting in metamorphic rocks such as slate.   Pressure release is one process that can create both vertical and horizontal jointing and slope failure.  I have talked about this in association with glacial erosional processes.  On a large scale regional tectonic forces can also be involved.  Whatever the scale, tensile stress is the thing......

Bedding planes and foliations are not the same as joints, but differences in texture and mineral arrangements might be sufficient for stresses to develop within the rock and to result in parallel or sub-parallel joints.

The only chunks of rock that can NOT be referred to as natural "joint controlled blocks" are massive rocks split with the ancient "wedge and feathers" method (involving the drilling of lines of holes) or rocks cut with a diamond saw -- so we can forget about those with respect to the Neolithic!!

Glacially eroded facets may or may not coincide with joints in a clast.  It all depends how a clast is positioned with respect to the flowing or abrading medium -- in this case, moving ice.

So to refer to a clast -- whether in a Stonehenge context or not -- as a "joint controlled block" tells me virtually nothing about it, although it might sound terribly scientific.  When I see a faceted or striated clast with abraded edges, gouges and chatter marks or other percussion fractures, I will continue to call it a glacial erratic if it is not locally derived, paying due respect to the processes that are at work in our environment. Geology gets us so far, but not far enough for a geomorphologist.

 Let's just call a spade a spade.........

The Newall Boulder -- to call it a "joint controlled block" is to miss almost everything significant about its appearance and its origins

Stonehenge: the non-completion theory

Anthony Johnson's "immaculate Stonehenge".  Too perfect, and too many pillars that do not accord with reality.  Personally, I think the evidence favours the idea of a grand project, never completed because the builders ran out of stones.

This is an interesting discussion, reminding us that I am not the only person who thinks that Stonehenge was never actually finished, because the builders, having collected up all the stones that were available to them,  simply ran out of raw materials.  They probably also ran out of energy as well......

This is an extract from the laser survey report from 2012. written by Abbott et al:

Abbott, M. et al 2012.  Stonehenge Laser Scan -- archaeological analysis report.  EH Report Series 32-2012  (EH Project 6457), 71 pp

StonehengeLaserScan_ArchaeologicalAnalysis.pdf

Incomplete or imperfect and damaged: the non-completion theory re-considered

Ever since John Wood (1747) wondered why so many of the lintels were missing from
Stonehenge, and how any would-be stone robber might have removed them without
damaging the uprights, successive authors have questioned whether Stonehenge was ever
finished. After accurately surveying the monument, William Flinders Petrie invigorated
the debate, stating:
'The evidence for non-completion of the outer sarsens, is in the very much smaller Stone I..... Again Nos. 21 and 23 are both defective in size compared with the rest; these show that II was no single freak,
but was the result of not having better material. If the builders ran so short as to have to use such a stone as II, is it not very probably that they had not enough to finish the circle?' (Petrie 1880, 16)

This issue is still hotly debated; Christopher Tilley et al. (2007) argue that the monument
was not completed, while Anthony Johnson (2008, I46) argues for a finished monument.
This debate was also considered by David Field and Trevor Pearson following their survey
of Stonehenge (2010, 62-66). Analysis of the laser-scan data has revealed significant new
evidence that informs, rather than solves, this debate. Key aspects of the non-completion
theory are reviewed. These are:

• The presence and use of 'inadequate' stones (e.g. Stones II and 21).

• The absence of approximately one third of the Sarsen Circle on the SW side of the
monument and the absence of the majority of the lintels.

• The absence of documentary evidence for the removal of stones or slighting of the
monument.

The use of inadequate stones, particularly on the SW half of the monument, is central
to the non-completion theory. The diminutive Stone 11 has been subject to the most
debate: it is not only narrow, it is the only upright not of full height. This study has
observed that Stone 11's top is broken off, confirming the views of Lukis (1882), Stone
(1924) and Atkinson (1956). The stone may well, therefore, have stood to full height
and, if its current width was maintained, the c.l m-wide stone top would have provided a
more than adequate seat for the ends of two lintels (cf Johnson 2008). There is, however,
no doubt that many of the stones in the SW part of the Sarsen Circle, particularly
from Stone 11 to 21, are less substantial and regular than those on the NE side of the
monument. We have argued above that the positioning of individual stones, based on
their size, shape and pattern of dressing, is an important aspect of the architecture of
the Sarsen Circle. The largest, most regular and finest dressed stones are positioned
towards the NE of the circle, where they are viewed as one approaches the circle from
the Avenue. The view from the centre of the monument is also significant but, due to the
masking effect of the Sarsen Horseshoe, the most important faces are again those on the
NE side of the monument. The absence of dressing on the exterior surfaces of stones
on the SW of the Sarsen Circle indicates that the monument was not designed to be
approached from this direction.

In the non-completion theory there are two common implicit assumptions:

• That the circle was of uniform construction, e.g. 'The planned norm would appear to have
been Stone 29, 30 and 1 to 7' (Ashbee 1998, 139)

• That the raw materials from which Stonehenge were constructed were not identified
before construction started and the supply of materials was exhausted, e.g. 'An
examination of the stones at Stonehenge would appear to shew that the builders were
unable to obtain sufficient material of suitable quality and of large enough size to properly
fulfil their requirements. They had to take what they could get rather than what they would
have desired. This indicates a very limited supply' (Stone 1924, 73)

The argument for a 'planned norm' is certainly questionable and one may argue that
this issue is compounded by the way in which we commonly view Stonehenge: through
plans and artificially elevated bird's eye-view reconstructions. Both of these viewpoints
encourage us to consider the Sarsen Circle as a regular structure, as from these
perspectives we can see a perfect circle. Moreover, in the artificially elevated views it is
possible to see the outer face of the circle in the foreground and the inner face at the
back of the circle. On the ground - the viewpoint for this monument in the Neolithic
far less of the circle can be appreciated from a single viewpoint. When standing on the
Stonehenge Avenue, one can see the exterior faces of the NE half of the monument;
however, due to the curve of these, it is not possible to see the precise form of each
stone. The visual illusion of regularity from this perspective may well have influenced the
positioning of individual stones on this side of the monument. For example, Stone 3 has a
very large flake scar on the exterior NE edge, but this irregularity is not visible from the
Avenue: the break is in plain view but does not affect the outline of the stone. However,
had this stone been erected in the NW quadrant, e.g. in the position of Stone 27, this
irregularity would have been all too clear. Similarly, the large irregularities on the tops of
Stones 27 and 28 are not particularly visible from the Avenue, as they directly face the
observer. Yet had these stones been used on the SE or NW side of the monument, they
would clearly have stood out. Similarly, the stones that can be seen most clearly from the
centre of the monument are the most regular, well-dressed faces.

The argument for a 'shortage' of raw materials is particularly problematic. The
assumption that a design was generated before stones were identified implies that
the stones were little more than building blocks, comparable to material we might
purchase from builders' merchants. The stones themselves are however likely to have
been of some significance to the builders of Stonehenge who were prepared to go to
considerable lengths to bring stones from as far away as west Wales and north Wiltshire. (BJ comment:  this cosy assumption of  "significance" or links with "sacred sites" is not supported by any hard evidence. It cannot be used in support of an argument that  Stonehenge was complete or immaculate.) 
Rick Peterson's recent discovery of William Stukeley's 1723 drawing of shaped sarsen
stones at Clatford near Avebury indicates that stones of sizes equivalent to those of
the Sarsen Circle were available less than 20 miles away (Parker Pearson 2012, 297;
Piggott 1948).

The absence of many stones from Stonehenge, combined with the absence of
documentary evidence for their breakage or removal, forms another cornerstone of
the non-completion debate. Analysis of the laser-scan data has revealed that significant
portions of most fallen stones have been removed from Stonehenge. Indeed, the
quantity of stone removed was very significant. The differential preservation of the NE
and SW halves of the monument still requires explanation, particularly as the evidence
for deliberate slighting is minimal and is confined to the attempted breakage and burial of
the Slaughter Stone at some point prior to the 19th century (cf Ashbee 1998). It should,
however, be noted that those sarsens that have pieces missing are the fallen ones, with
the sole exception of Stone 11. This indicates that these fallen stones were easy prey for
stone robbers. It is therefore worth questioning whether the pattern of fallen stones
results from differences in construction between the NE and SW halves of the Sarsen
Circle. It is certainly clear that the smaller stones have been used towards the rear of the
circle and, in the case of Stone 13, this was set in a very shallow stone hole. During his
visit in 2009, Malagasy archaeologist, Ramlisonina noticed that many of the fallen stones
have tapered and narrow bases: when these stones were erect and in situ, their above-
ground part would have given the appearance of symmetry with a rectangular shape
whilst their less symmetrical and less stable bases would have been hidden below ground,
sacrificing long-term stability and hence contributing to their collapse (Parker Pearson
2012, 293). Thus, if the less suitable monoliths were used in the SW, these may have
been the ones with the least stable bases.

In conclusion, this study provides evidence that 27 of 30 uprights of the Sarsen Circle
were certainly erected, and the presence of tenons on adjacent uprights may indicate
that all were present along with at least 26 of the 30 lintels. There is certainly no
convincing evidence that the circle remained incomplete, and in the light of the significant
degree of demonstrable stone robbing, it is possible that a complete Sarsen Circle once
existed. It is, however, clear that the Sarsen Circle was never a perfectly symmetrical
circle of regular pillar and lintels. Its SW half was not as well constructed as the surviving
NE half; the stones were smaller, less regularly shaped and their exterior surfaces were
left coarsely dressed or entirely unworked.

(BJ comment:  As I have argued before, the argument in favour of a copmplete Stonehenge stone monument is really rather thin and unconvincing.  It is all a matter of opinion........)

==============

There are a number of remarks and pieces of evidence relevant to this debate which are scattered throughout the report.

The above text concentrates too much on the sarsens, and there are few mentions of the bluestones, which are inherently much more significant in this debate because of their geological characteristics, their shapes and their sizes.

Laser scanning of the Stonehenge bluestones

3D Laser Scan Survey of Stonehenge, Wiltshire. By Andrew J Dodson & Cory D Hope. 2012

https://www.greenhatch-group.co.uk/plugins/downloads/files/Stonehenge_micro_site.pdf

See also:

Abbott, M. et al 2012.  Stonehenge Laser Scan -- archaeological analysis report.  EH Report Series 32-2012  (EH Project 6457), 71 pp

(Authors include Parker Pearson, Ixer and Colin Richards)

StonehengeLaserScan_ArchaeologicalAnalysis.pdf

 Unfortunately there is a copying lock on this file, which means it is much less useful than it might be........

See also:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/01/field-et-al-2015-stones.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-stonehenge-laser-scans.html

Extract:  

Bluestone Circle

The Bluestone Circle is located between the Sarsen Circle and the Sarsen Horseshoe.

Thirty stones survive, but originally there would have been many more; Paul Ashbee

(1998) favoured a total of 56 stones, while Mike Pitts indicates that there may have been

up to sixty or seventy (Pitts 2001, 137). Of the surviving stones, 8 are standing, Il are

fallen, 2 are displaced and 9 survive as buried stumps.

The overall structure of the circle is unclear but, in general, the stones increase in size

towards the NE and the two most substantial stones (Stones 31 and 49) are placed with a

wide gap straddling the main NE-SW axis of the monument. The stones in the Bluestone

Circle include spotted dolerite, unspotted dolerite, rhyolite, rhyolitic and dacitic tuffs (Ixer and

Bevins 201 |a, Bevins et al., 2012), altered volcanic ash, sandstone with mica and calcareous

ash (Atkinson 1956; Thorpe et al. 1991. However, the three latter stone types only survive

as buried stumps, along with one stone of spotted dolerite and another of rhyolite.

The stones in this circle are largely unworked, with the exception of two spotted dolerite

lintels (36 and 150), reused from an earlier structure that included bluestone trilithons.

Stone 45 exhibits coarse pick dressing on its interior (now upper) face and very fine

pecking on both sides. Stone 45 is therefore comparable to the uprights re-used in

the Bluestone Horseshoe and one may speculate that the buried face is finely dressed;

as has been observed on the stones of the Horseshoe. It may be significant that the

roughest dressed face was orientated towards the centre of the monument when this

stone was erected in the circle of largely undressed stones. The reused lintels, which

were both originally erected in the Bluestone Horseshoe with their mortises facing the

exterior of the circle, have fallen and are now largely buried. Richard Atkinson excavated

both of these stones in 1954, lifting Stone 36 for the purpose of recording it, but both

were re-buried in their original positions. Atkinson recorded transverse fine tooling on

the outer end of lintel 150, but noted that the other surfaces had been worked smooth

'probably by fine overall pecking with light hammers' (Atkinson 1956, 137).

Above is an interesting table showing bluestone weights of the above ground portions of the monoliths.  Elsewhere there are reports of 30% to 35% of the standing stones being beneath the ground surface, so using an average of maybe 33% the stone weights can be adjusted approximately.  

There are a number of comments about the relatively light weathering of the bluestone surfaces, and especially on dolerite surfaces.  It is assumed that some other rock types (including rhyolites and volcanic ashes) have broken up as a result of weathering -- but this is a large assumption, and it cannot be adequately demonstrated that all of the stumps were originally tall pillar-shaped monoliths -- because the debitage in general does not seem to be made up of debris coming from nearby stones.  The idea that the majority of bluestones in the bluestone circle are "regular, natural joint blocks" is wide of the mark.  Wishful thinking, methinks.  They are best described as heavily abraded boulders and slabs (and some blocky pillars) with distinct facets and rough areas resulting from fracturing during transport.

From this report and from other material coming out of the laser project, it appears that there are laser generated images of all of the Stonehenge bluestones -- but I am not aware that these have been published anywhere.

Freshly quarried monoliths, or ancient glacial erratics?

One of the most bizarre features of the glacial transport / human transport debate is the insistence of the HT advocates that the Stonehenge bluestones are freshly quarried monoliths that just happen to be somewhat weathered.  Their narrative requires quarrying from special places  -- but of course there is no evidence at all that Rhosyfelin or Carn Goedog were "special places" in Neolithic times, and neither foliated rhyolite or spotted dolerite were ever used preferentially in West Wales by the builders of the megalithic structures.  And as for the evidence of quarrying, we all know that it is so thin that it cannot withstand scrutiny, as Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd, John Downes and I demonstrated in two papers in 2015.  (For a decade, these highly inconvenient papers have been entirely ignored by MPP and his associates.  Make of that what you will.)  Indeed, our careful analysis of the "quarrying features" showed them to be entirely natural and unexceptional.  The sedimentary sequences at the two sites, and the radiocarbon age determinations, also fail to demonstrate that there ever were obvious "quarrying episodes" in the time frame desired by MPP and his colleagues.

Now the narrative appears to incorporate other Neolithic quarries and other stone circles as yet undiscovered, at sites that are deemed  (by modern archaeologists) to have been sacred or special.  Fantasy rules, at every stage of the narrative.

The stone provenancing work by Ixer, Bevins and associated colleagues is interesting in demonstrating a "North Preseli" connection with Stonehenge, but it is a good deal less definitive than they would have us believe, and it tells us nothing at all about how boulders, smaller stones, cobbles and fragments of many different rock types may have travelled from A to B.  It is one of the most unfortunate features of this debate that the geologists from an early stage decided to side with the HT proponents and to promote the view that GT was impossible.  It is even more unfortunate that they decided to support the view that the bluestone monoliths were taken from Neolithic bluestone quarries rather than being collected as boulders from an erratic-strewn landscape.

So what about the Stonehenge bluestone monoliths?  As night follows day, they are obviously NOT freshly quarried blocks.  Some of them have been tooled and shaped, like the dolerites in the Bluestone Horseshoe, but to pretend that the other boulders, blocks and slabs were transported as targetted and freshly quarried blocks is to deny everything we know about weathering and erosional processes.  The facets, the abraded edges and the weathering characteristics all indicate glacial entrainment, transport in a dynamic sub-glacial or englacial environment, and long exposure to weathering processes.  By this I mean tens of thousands of years at the very least.

It is disingenuous of the HT brigade to pretend that the rounding and weathering of the Stonehenge bluestones might have occurred over the last 5,000 years or so, and that in scale and character it is similar to that displayed on rock surfaces at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog and on the surfaces of the Stonehenge sarsens.  In arguing that way, they are making my point for me, since the bedrock surfaces, and the surfaces of the sarsens, are the results of very long exposure to the elements.  HH Thomas accepted this point a century ago, when he argued that the Stonehenge bluestones were not quarried but picked up from an erratic scatter somewhere on the south side of Preseli.

It is really rather weird that the earth scientists who belong to the "group of eleven" who have so recently attacked me and my work on the Newall Boulder should apparently be so naive about the physical processes that operate on rock surfaces.  They claimed that the Newall Boulder was simply the broken off top of a rhyolite monolith which has subsequently suffered from a certain amount of weathering.  As I have demonstrated, it is a great deal more complicated than that, with both weathering and erosional features demonstrating a complex transport and emplacement history in which glacier ice almost certainly played a part. The apparent lack of clear glacial striations on the boulder cannot be used as part of an argument against glacial transport, as every glacial geomorphologist knows.

As I have indicated in my recent publications, the shapes and surface characteristics of the Stonehenge bluestones are entirely consistent with glacial entrainment, glacial transport, dumping in locations still to be determined, and then long exposure to atmospheric weathering processes.  The boulders might even have been entrained, transported and dumped on multiple occasions.  There is a vast literature on glacially transported clasts, as demonstrated by stone shape, sphericity, surface roughness and other measures.  See the work of Prof David Evans and many others.  These are quotes from my 2024 Newall Boulder paper:

https://doi.org/10.5194/egqsj-73-117-2024

Clasts occupy a wide range of positions in mobile subglacial till (Evans et al., 2016, 2018). They are subject to complex transport histories that involve variable amounts of dragging, rolling and lodging, during which they are subject to surface modification through inter-clast collisions and contacts. Any single clast may be reworked numerous times during successive glaciations.  Because clasts will tend to take the line of least resistance to the flow of the surrounding deforming till matrix, facetted and bullet or wedge shapes are developed. Whenever a clast is disrupted from its lodged position, it can be subject to fresh fracturing, gradually changing its overall shape to one of a block (Boulton, 1978; Benn and Evans, 1996; Evans, 2018).  Although not all glacially transported clasts display such bullet or flat-iron shapes, such an appearance is diagnostic of significant subglacial transport (Evans, 2018; Evans et al., 2006).

.............  Overall, the surface characteristics of this boulder suggest that it is a discrete erratic that has been  transported for much if not all of the time in a subglacial position (Benn and Ballantyne, 1994; Lukas et al., 2013; Benn and Lukas, 2021).

It should be noted that most of the 43 bluestone “monoliths” at Stonehenge are not elongated elegant pillars (as portrayed in most reconstructions) but heavily abraded unremarkable boulders and elongated slabs. There are clearly defined facets, some of which are rough and others smooth. There are few sharp edges. The stones would not be out of place in the morainic accumulations around any glacier snout in the world (Benn and Evans, 2010, and references therein). They look like glacial erratics, and they are heavily weathered as a result of prolonged exposure (Fig. 14). On some weathered surfaces segments of the crust have peeled away and have been lost. It is probable that Stonehenge was built where the stones were found, as suggested by Judd (1903) and Field et al. (2015), and this is supported here by the preliminary analysis of the Newall Boulder.

In addition, I have done post after post on this blog, making the point that most of the Stonehenge bluestones are not pillars, and neither are they sharp-edged quarried blocks:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-bluestone-pillar-myth.html

If they were quarried, they would look like the blocks in these wondrous artists impressions. The upper one was drawn to illustrate the Rhosyfelin "quarry" with the approval of MPP, for a Stonehenge exhibition in Belgium in 2018.

Whatever the flights of fancy and scale distortions might have been in these reconstructions, the detail relating to the extracted block edges is quite correct:  they are always sharp and clearly defined.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-quarrying-roadshow-hits-belgium.html

Next, let's look in more detail at the methods employed by geomorphologists in defining clast shapes.  In my paper on the Newall Boulder I referred to the scheme developed by Powers (1953):

Powers, M. C.: New roundness scale for sedimentary particles, J. Sediment. Res., 23, 117–119, 1953

https://doi.org/10.1306/ D4269567-2B26-11D7-8648000102C1865D.

Other schemes are available. There is a vast literature, but  roundness / sphericity scales like this are frequently employed in geomorphology and petrography:

(after Krumbein and others)

The shape of blocks, pillars and slabs extracted from bedrock outcrops will vary according to fissures and fracture patterns within the rock; some rocks are massive and coherent, with few internal weaknesses, while others (like shales, mudstones and maybe even foliated rhyolite) will break down into slabs, sheets and plates such as we see on slate quarry spoil heaps.  We must also take account of surface roughness in assessing clast origins.  In general, quarried blocks and slabs will be classified, on this scheme, as angular, on the left edge of this diagram.  But the stonehenge bluestones occupy quite different positions on the diagram, mostly in roundness categories 0.7 (rounded) and 0.9 (well rounded) but with some fresher and rougher facets such as those observed on glacial erratics..  This is not a consequence of weathering, but an indicator of travel distance, breakage and erosion.

Finally, there are three pieces of evidence that allow us to reject the quarrying hypothesis without further ado.

1.  If Parker Pearson and his colleagues are to be believed, the rounding and abrasion which we see on the standing bluestones today are the result of "weathering" in the time that has elapsed between stone extraction and the present day.  That involves a fundamental misunderstanding of the word "weathering", but we'll let that pass for now.  More to the point, all of the excavations which have revealed fallen and buried bluestones suggest that they are just as abraded, rounded and weathered below ground as above ground, with some rougher surfaces on facets such as we see on glacial erratics close to current glacier fronts. That means that (with the exception of a few worked stones) their shapes were already established prior to erection in the stone settings.  That means they were not installed as fresh quarried blocks, but gathered up as weathered and abraded boulders from the landscape as suggested by HH Thomas, Kellaway, Thorpe et al, and Field.  The MPP claim that the bluestones were pre-used in lost stone circles does nothing to support the quarrying hypothesis.

The "proto-orthostst" at Craig Rhosyfelin.  The sediments that have accumulated around and above the slab since the Early Bronze Age are clearly displayed.

2. The famous 8-tonne proto-othostat found at Rhosyfelin and flagged up as "intended for Stonehenge" was discoverd through radiocarbon dating to have been emplaced during or later than the Bronze Age.  Some charcoal found beneath it was radiocarbon dated to the Early Bronze Age.   So it cannot possibly have had anything to do with Neolithic quarrying at the site.  But because it is a rockfall slab which has crashed down from the higher part of the rock outcrop, and because it has been there for more than 3,000 years, its condition is of considerable importance. I have analysed it in detail:  

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-famous-rhosyfelin-proto-orthostat.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2012/11/rhosyfelin-is-it-quarry-site.html

It is very fresh in its appearance, with very little rounding off of sharp edges or other weathering traces in spite of exposure to the atmosphere and to other processes during and after burial by slope deposits. This reinforces the view that the Stonehenge bluestones carry surface features that are not just 5,000 years old but are the result of tens or hundreds of thousands of years of exposure.

Rock surfaces on the Pentre Ifan cromlech.  It is now suggested that the pillars and capstone were not buried for any great length of time.  After thousands of years of exposure to weathering, the smoothed and abraded faces, and those damaged by fracturing, are remarkably fresh.

3.  It is instructive to  examine the surfaces of the capstones and supporting pillars of Pembrokeshire cromlechs like Pentre Ifan, Carreg Samson and  Carreg Coetan Arthur.  The stones used by the builders were all large erratics of rather local origin and collected in the neighbourhood.  The stones are weathered but in places seriously damaged by fracture scars -- in other words, the features attributable to glacial processes and periglacial modification (frost damage) are beautifully preserved.  These cromlechs are approximatelt the same age (or maybe somewhat older) as the bluestone stone settings at Stonehenge.  Over 5,500 years or so of exposure, there has been weathering, but there is no sign at all of weathering on the scale which Bevins et al (2025) require for the creation of the facets and smoothed surfaces of the Newall Boulder.

To sum up, the bluestone quarrying hypothesis is not worth the paper it is written on, and neither is the contention that smoothed rock surfaces are the result of post-Neolithic weathering processes. 

 

The Newall Boulder -- not just weathered, but eroded

In one media piece after another, over the past couple of weeks, on the matter of the Newall Boulder, we have seen statements like this:

Prof Bevins and his team said most of the characteristics cited "could be simply generated by surface weathering".

.........the new research asserts that surface markings previously believed to be glacial abrasion are more likely the result of natural weathering or ancient human handling.

.......wear patterns cited in previous studies as resulting from glacial movement could have actually been caused by natural weathering.

Bevins and colleagues suggest the marks on the stones were not signs of abrasion by the glacier, but were made by human hands coupled with general surface weathering instead.

This is all very weird, and suggests that assorted senior academics do not know the difference between weathering and erosion.  Very strange, since this is one of the things that a student of O level Geography or Geology would be expected to know.  For the record, "weathering" is the term used to cover the in situ breakdown of rock surfaces as a result of physical and chemical processes.  In contrast "erosion" incorporates the movement or transport of material away from its original location, and the use of tools (sand, gravel and larger clasts) in lowering the rock surface.  There are many erosive processes, but abrasion is one of the most important, involving the grinding away of a surface of relatively soft material by ongoing contact with relatively harder "tools".  We might call it the sandpaper effect.  

I cannot imagine why they thought this necessary, but the eleven authors of the recent Newall Boulder tirade appear to be determined to avoid any mention of erosion in their press releases and statements to the media.  So they pretend that the surface of the boulder incorporates some structural elements (describing it as a "joint block" on which all the surfaces coincide with fracture planes) but where the detailed surface characteristics are the result simply of surface weathering.

This is  a serious misrepresentation of the situation. I stand by everything I said in my detailed analysis of the boulder surface.  One face is a fault-controlled feature with slickensides, and some of the other distinct facets may also coincide with joints or other internal weaknesses, but they are clearly abraded, and cannot be explained away as the results of weathering porocesses alone. There are also percussion fractures and fracture scars, some of which might be related to human interference.  The chatter marks are best explained by reference to subglacial processes during ice transport.  There are some slight scratches, but I have refrained from describing them as genuine striations or grooves.  In my paper I describe the weathering features as well.  They are quite complex, but quite distinct from the features associated with erosional history.

For those who seem to be ill-informed on these matters, I can recommend a useful tome, the cover of which I reproduce below.  Other texts are also available.

The literature:

John, B. S. 2024: A bluestone boulder at Stonehenge: implications for the glacial transport theory,
E&G Quaternary Sci. Journal 73, 117–134,

https://doi.org/10.5194/egqsj-73-117-2024

Bevins, R. E., Ixer, R. A., Pearce, N. G., Scourse, J., and Daw, T. 2023: Lithological description and provenancing of a collection of  bluestones from excavations at Stonehenge by William Hawley
in 1924 with implications for the human versus ice transport debate of the monument’s bluestone megaliths, Geoarchaeology, 38, 771–785, 

https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21971, 2023

Richard E. Bevins, Nick J.G. Pearce, Rob A. Ixer, James Scourse, Tim Daw, Mike Parker Pearson, Mike Pitts, David Field, Duncan Pirrie, Ian Saunders, Matthew Power, 2025.  The enigmatic ‘Newall boulder’ excavated at Stonehenge in 1924: New data and correcting the record,
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 66, 2025, 105303,
ISSN 2352-409X,

 
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105303

Victorian gifts: new insights into the Stonehenge bluestones
Rob Ixer, Richard Bevins, Nick Pearce, and David Dawson explain more. 2022.
CURRENT ARCHAEOLOGY, AUGUST 29, 2022, 5 pp

https://the-past.com/feature/victorian-gifts-new-insights-into-the-stonehenge-bluestones/

Streamlining, Blidö, Sweden

 

 

Nice pic from one of my kayaking trips this summer.  There is not much doubt in this area about the direction of ice movement -- all the features associated with glacial erosion point to ice movement pretty well exactly north to south......

The shortcomings of the human transport hypothesis

"Who ordered this thing? Anyway, what's it for? I reckon it will bring us far more trouble than it's worth...."

Since some people are apparently celebrating a great victory for the human transport theory in the Bluestone Transport Stakes, let's just remind ourselves that celebrations are a little premature....

1.  There is no sound evidence from anywhere in the British Neolithic/Bronze Age record of large stones being hauled over long distances for incorporation in a megalithic monument (Thorpe et al., 1991). Many of the claims of long-distance haulage ignore the evidence of glacial transport routes for large erratics; but some large stones might have been moved short distances prior to erection. And it is self-evident that stones were moved about in the Stonehenge area during building work.

2.  Field observations show, consistently, that the builders of Neolithic monuments across the UK simply used whatever large stones were at hand (Burrow, 2006). The builders were pragmatists and opportunists, and they were not stupid. Thus said Stephen Briggs.

3.  If special or sacred stones were being transported to Stonehenge, it is vanishingly unlikely that they would all have been collected in the west, to the exclusion of all other points of the compass (John, 2018a).

4.  There is no convincing evidence either from West Wales or from anywhere else of bluestones (for example foliated rhyolite or spotted dolerite) being used preferentially in megalithic monuments or revered in any way (Darvill and Wainwright, 2016). 

 
5.  If long-distance stone haulage was an “organised activity” for the builders of Stonehenge, it is noteworthy that there is no evidence of the development of an appropriate haulage technology leading up to the Late Neolithic and a decline afterwards. In other words, there is no sign of any diffusion of innovation (Rogers, 2003).

6.  The evidence for quarrying activity in key Preseli locations is questionable (John et al., 2015b). No archaeological or cultural links have been established between Stonehenge and the proposed “quarries” at Craig Rhos-y-felin and Carn Goedog.

7.  The sheer variety of bluestone types argues against human selection and transport. There cannot possibly have been multiple “bluestone monolith quarries” scattered across West Wales (Thorpe et al., 1991).

8.  No physical evidence has ever been found of ropes, rollers, trackways, sledges, abandoned stones, quarry worker camps or anything else that might bolster the hypothesis (Kellaway, 1971). Bevins et al (2025) might argue that these thngs were ephemeral and were unlikely to survive for 5,000 years or more -- but this argument is no more convincing than mine when I say that ancient glacial deposits might exist, degraded and still undiscovered....

9.  Experimental archaeology on stone haulage techniques (normally in “ideal” conditions) has done nothing to show that our ancestors could cope with the sheer physical difficulty of stone haulage across the heavily wooded Neolithic terrain of West Wales (characterised by bogs, cataracts, steep slopes and very few clearings) or around the rocky coast. Burl (2007) made this point forcefully, and it remains forceful today.

10.  No convincing evidence has ever been found of a “proto-Stonehenge” in West Wales, built of assorted local stones that were dismantled and taken off to Stonehenge. Mike Parker Pearson's claim that a “giant stone circle” at Waun Mawn in Mynydd Preseli was the source and the inspiration for Stonehenge has been criticised by Darvill (2022) and others and has now been abandoned (Bevins et al., 2022).


There are other problems too, of which more anon.........