Oxford Gletscher Wiki entry

 

"Deranged" surface morainic patterns demonstrating the scale and effect of the last 

Oxford Glacier surge, originating in the eastern branch of the glacier

Submerged forest, Amroth

 

 

After the winter gales, the submerged forest in Amroth is exposed just now.  Thanks to Sian May for publishing this great photo on the Pembs Geology Facebook page........

The Noel Hill residual raised beach

 

This photo was taken on 29th January 1966, not far from the summit of Noel Hill on the Barton Peninsula, King George Island, South Shetlands.  This is not the highest beach found on that day, at 275m asl, but it illustrates the complexity of working in this sort of environment.  

I'm standing on the edge of a raised beach deposit, made up for the most part of small rounded beach cobbles.  This is where one has to record the altitude, since it is a clear junction between a blocky till bank to the left and an undulating beach surface to the right.  So is this a washing limit?  Well, yes and no. If we look at the till bank we can see that it has been cleaned up by the waves, and that the finer matrix material has been washed out and carried away, for at least a couple of metres above the ground surface where I am standing.  So the real washing limit -- and hence the maximum elevation of relative sea level (rsl) -- is higher, but we don't know exactly where it was. 

So my feet mark the position of a stillstand, where the relative positions of land and sea were stable for a number of decades or centuries.  This is both an erosional and a depositional feature --  there has been washing of the till face or edge, abd some undercutting of the till deposit, and there must be more boulders associated with the till buried beneath and within the raised beach terrace.

The reason for the stillstand is difficult to discern. There may have been an equivalence in rates of isostatic uplift and eustatic sea level rise, or an equivalence of rates of isostatic depression and sea-level fall! Tectonic factors may also have played a part, as David Sugden and I speculated in our big article in 1971:
John, B.S. and Sugden, D.E. 1971. Raised marine features and phases of glaciation in the South Shetland Islands. British Antarctic Survey Bulletin, 24: 45-111.

David and I were certain that these high "residual beaches" on the Barton Peninsula and elsewhere were covered by a short-lived glacier advance.  Some beaches will have been destroyed, while others survived.  So the ice advance was not a very powerful one.  But it was strong enough to erode and incorporate many raised beach deposits into a patchy till cover.

Cosmogenic dating of large cobbles incorporated in one of the lower Noel Hill residual beaches by Emma Watcham gave dates of around 7,000 yrs BP.  She could not match these dates against other evidence relating to the glacial chronology for King George Island, and so concluded that the residual raised beaches are not beaches at all, but remnants of destroyed kame terraces.  I disagree.  For the kame terrace interpretation, we need much more evidence.  From the hundreds of sites we examined in the South Shetland Islands, we found no evidence for substantial meltwater deposition anywhere.  The beaches range in altitude between 275m and c 150m asl -- some are to the east of the hill summit, and others to the south-west.  There are no signs of terraces that might have been formed between a hillside and a downwasting ice margin, and no signs of catastrophic ice wastage with huge volumes of meltwater refashioning the depositional landscape.  All the signs -- as far as we could see -- pointed to a very modest amount of meltwater activity and to very subtle changes in the relationships of ice and land surfaces at a time of very high -- but falling --relative sea-level.

See also:

WATCHAM, EMMA,PEARL (2010) Late Quaternary relative sea level change in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica, Durham theses, Durham University. 

Available at Durham E-Theses Online: 

http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/485/

A little piece of history

Moving house is a traumatic experience, but in the process of chucking out old files and piles of paperwork, one discovers the occasional treasure.  

I found this -- the raw material for a morse code message which Dave Sugden and I sent to our geology research director Dr Raymond Adie in January 1996.  At the time we were working in the South Shetlands, in Antarctica, and had just discovered the highest raised beach ever found in Antarcrtica -- at 900 ft or 275m above sea level.  This was near Noel Hill on the Barton Peninsula, King George Island.  

This was how the discovery was announced to the world.  Equally exciting was the discovery of a fossil forest of petrified trees, confirming previous research showing that the rocks of west Antarctica held evidence of at least one episode of warm or subtropical climatic conditions during geological history.

I suppose that discoveries such as these lay behind the decision of the Antarctic Place Names Committee to add "Sugden Ridge" and "John Glacier" to the Antarctic map.  We still have no idea who made the recommendations or citations.

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

PS. Antarctic names are allocated in recognition of "significant and exceptional contributions to scientific understanding and/or life in the Antarctic".

Residual raised beach at c 150m asl on Barton Peninsula, King George Island.  The highest beach discovered was at 275m asl.

Another high level beach remnant on a washed surface

The Stonehenge "bluestone experts" and their multi-authored disasters

Soft rock quarrying wedges -- multi-authored fantasy, not established fact

The monolith extraction point -- multi-authored fantasy, not established fact

The revetment or loading quay at Rhosyfelin -- multi-authored fantasy, not established fact

The lost giant circle at Waun Mawn -- multi-authored fantasy, not established fact

The supposedly pentagonal socket that held Stonehenge bluestone number 62 -- multi-authored fantasy, not established fact

A stone barrier blocking off the Carn Goedog quarry exit -- multi-authored fantasy, 

not established fact

I was looking at some social media posts from around six months ago and came across one of Rob Ixer's tiresome tirades in which he attacked me for not participating in the writing of multi-authored research papers.  He implied that I am some sort of nutter, way out on a limb and unsupported by my peers -- and that my credibility would be much increased if I were to publish as part of a cross-disciplinary research team.  The further implication was that multi-dsiciplinary papers are somehow more reliable and deserving of respect than articles with single authors -- presumably because of the internal scrutiny that should exist within a group, and because of corporate responsibility for the contents of controversial or ground-breaking publications.  If only........  If only.......

Ixer and Bevins are, of course, key members of MPP's gang of around 20 researchers, who have produced scores of multi-authored "bluestone" papers over the past 15 years.  And how reliable and responsible are those papers?  Well, I think it would be fair to say that they are in general of very poor quality, packed with assumptions and speculations portrayed as facts, and showing little evidence of internal scrutiny. Some of them, as I have suggested on this blog, should never have been published, and have harmed the reputations of the journals that allowed them to appear in print or on the web.  In the cold light of day, they have also harmed the reputations of many, if not all, of the authors involved.

Let's just remind ourselves of just some of the multitude of disasters that can be laid at the door of  the MPP gang's headquarters:

1.  The so-called "Pompeii of Neolithic orthostat quarries" at Craig Rhosyfelin has been shown not to have been a quarry at all, unless it was a place where small cutting tools and rhyolite flakes were collected by hunting and gathering parties over many millennia.

2.  The "burnt hazel nuts" found in a hearth at Rhosyfelin, claimed to set a date for quarrying activities,  have no stratigraphic or other link with stone extraction acrtivities, and the radiocarbon dates flagged up as of huge importance have no more significance than the multiple other dates obtained from the site.

3.  The "monolith extraction point" at Rhosyfelin, explained for the media by MPP as being of great significance, cannot possibly have been used for the removal of a viable monolith, and the field evidence demonstrates that several small and irregular blocks of rhyolite have fallen away at different times in the history of the rock face.

4.  No Rhosyfelin monoliths have ever been found in Neolithic or Bronze Age stone settings in Pembrokeshire, and not a single Stonehenge monolith can be provenanced to this site.  There is no evidence that the Rhosyfelin foliated rhyolite was ever considered "special" by anybody other than the MPP team.

5.  The claim that there was "monolith quarrying on an industrial scale" at Carn Goedog has quietly been dropped, and it now appears that only half a dozen or so of the spotted dolerites MIGHT have come from somewhere on the Carn Goedog dolerite sill (if it is really just one sill).  Most of these are not elegant pillars but weathered and abraded dolerite boulders.

6.  There is no sign that spotted dolerite from Carn Goedog or anywhere else was valued either in Pembrokeshire or at Stonehenge.  To pretend that the stone was special in some way is highly disingenuous.

7.  The radiocarbon dates from Carn Goedog do not fix a quarrying episode at the site.  They simply demonstrate (as at Rhosyfelin) a long history of intermittent use by hunting and gathering parties over many millennia.

8.  The "engineering features" listed by the MPP team at their two "quarrying sites" are shown to be figments of a fertile imagination, and do not withstand scrutiny.

9.  At Waun Mawn, the disasters are even greater.  The "lost giant circle" announced with the aid of a massive and tightly orchestrated media and TV campaign, has quietly disappeared, and the MPP team has had to accept that (as pointed out by me and many others) there never was a stone circle.  The ludicrous fallback position is that Neolithic tribesmen INTENDED to build it but never quite got round to actually doing it.........

10.  The claim that Stonehenge bluestones were "parked up" in a lost circle at Waun Mawn before being uprooted and carted off to Stonehenge has now been quietly abandoned.

11.  The claim that monoliths from Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog were used at Waun Mawn was shown by me to have no foundation in fact, and the MPP team has now been forced to accept that I was right.

12.  In spite of the "astonishment" of Alice Roberts and others in the media about the initial placing of Stonehenge monolith No 62 in a perfectly shaped socket at Waun Mawn, MPP and his team have been forced to admit that it was all fantasy.

13.  There has been no acceptance from rock mechanics specialists or other geologists that soft rock "wedges" were used at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog to assist in the removal of pillars and slabs from the rock face.  The idea simply makes no sense whatsoever.

14.  The idea that there was a revetment or quayside at Rhosyfelin, used for the loading of monoliths onto sledges or rafts, has not been supported by anybody who is familiar with the site.

15.  The wide range of radiocarbon daates obtained from Waun Mawn (extending from the Mesolithic to the Iron Age) effectively falsifies the idea that this was a special site with intense activity before and during the construction of Stonehenge.

16.  The current theory that large stones were placed across the "quarry exits" at both Carn Goedog and Rhosyfelin (to prevent future quarrying) is patently nonsensical since there are no "exits" that could not be bypassed quite simply at either site.

17.  After arguing for many years that there are very few rock types in the Stonehenge bluestone / debitage assemblage,  the MPP team has had to accept my point that the bluestone material has come from multiple provenances, predominantly in the west.  The team has had to turn its own argument on its head, and now claims that the bluestones came from many different places, in all quarters of the British Isles.

18.  The provenancing of Stonehenge bluestone fragmants (from excavations and museum collections) is deemed by the MPP team to have provided "exact matches" with at least two localities in upland Preseli.  The matching is NOT exact, and doubt still remains as to where the Stonehenge bluestones might have come from.  The assumption that the bluestones have all been "brought from" upstanding tors or crags is not supportede by hard evidence.

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

I could continue, but I can't be bothered.  If you get this much confusion in a group of authors, such a lack of internal discussion and scrutiny, and such a total lack of consistency in both evidence presentation and interpretation, then the credibility of science itself is brought into question.  

Let's just invite all 20 authors in the MPP group to write their own papers in future, which can be submitted to appropriate journals with skilled editors and robust peer review processes.   With a bit of luck, we might then get some relief from this endless stream of dodgy science, wild speculation and media hype.

The myth of the Newgrange "white quartz facade"

 

I was intrigued to see, in the latest "distant stone sources" paper from MPP and his merry gang, that the source of the quartz used in the facade of Newgrange was claimed to be around 80 km away, to the south.  See Fig 1 in the article, and text page 114.  As far as I know, there is not a shred of evidence to support this contention. Cooney (2000) and Stout (2002) are cited as references, but I am not aware of any geological research that might confirm that the quartz cobbles and blocks were taken from the Wicklow Mountains (near Glendalough).  That piece of the myth is repeated over and again in social media.

It's true that there is abundant white quartz associated with old mine workings at Glendalough,  but this does not mean that there was a Neolithic quarry there, or that this was a source for the quartz used at Newgrange!  It is disingenuous of MPP et al to pretend that this is a "known provenance" -- quartz veins (some thick, some thin) are ubiquitous across the landscape, and it is notoriously difficult to provenance any given lump of quartz unless it has some truly unique characteristics.   There is simply no reason to doubt that if (and this is a big "if") quartz blocks really were collected up and used at Newgrange for ornamental or "architectural" purposes, they were simply picked up across the landscape in the vicinity of the monument. Indeed, there are old records of abundant "water-worn" quartz cobbles and small boulders found at the site during excavation, and this ties in with the belief that much of the raw material for the old monument (as distinct fromn the reconstructed one) came from the nearby river terraces of the River Boyne. It's difficult to conclude anything from quartz stone shapes, but many of them are sub-rounded or sub-angular, and this would be consistent with sources in glacial and fluvioglacial deposits in the neighbourhood.

But a study of "facade stone shapes" would probably be very unreliable, because it is clear that many tonnes of quartz blocks and cobbles were sifted out from piles of excavation debris by O'Kelly and his "reconstruction team" between 1962 and 1975. The non-quartz material was dumped back to act as the fill as the mound was rebuilt. (This para has been corrected.  Thanks to Tim Daw for pointing out that no material was imported to the site by O'Kelly and his rather imaginative team.  He also provided a couple of additional references, listed below.)

Anyway, all things considered, this is yet another example of mythology being presented as fact............  

Parker Pearson, M., Bevins, R., Bradley, R., Ixer, R., Pearce, N. and Richards, C. ‘Stonehenge and its Altar Stone: the significance of distant stone sources’. Archaeology International, 2024, 27 (1), pp. 113–37 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/AI.27.1.13

This is interesting:

https://aliisaac.substack.com/p/controversy-at-newgrange

Yet more:

Notes on Some Non-Local Cobbles at the Entrances to the Passage-Graves at Newgrange and Knowth, County Meath.   Frank Mitchell in : The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol. 122 (1992), pp. 128-145 (18 pages) 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/25509025

Meighan, Hartwell, Kennan and Simpson, Sourcing the rocks on Newgrange's facade: granites from the north and quartz from the south. IQUA, April 2002, NS 28, pp 4-5.
http://iqua.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Newsletter-NS-No-28_grey.pdf

These articles are both rather complacent, and neither tests the hypothesis that the quartz pebbles and cobbles are locally derived from local quartz outcrops and glacial and fluvioglavcial deposits within the Boyne Valley.  There is an inbuilt assumption that because the Neolithic structures under scrutiny were "important" or "spectacular", the stones used in their construction must have been BROUGHT from somewhere else............

On rhyolite tools

Six artefacts from Paviland Cave, Gower

This is an interesting new paper dealing with the tools found in Palaeolithic settings in the caves of SW Wales.  Now I have been highly critical of some of the work of these authors in the past,  but here -- on the evidence of a first reading -- I find that I am prepared to accept their evidence and  am broadly in support of their conclusions.  There has always been a shortage of flint in SW Wales, and so it is perfectly reasonable that in the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic the local tribes will have used rhyolite instead.  This is a rock that is fairly widely distributed and easily accessible.  It doesn't generally fracture conchoidally as flint does, but it does give very sharp edges, so it's better than other non-rhyolitic alternatives.

After all, when Dyfed, John and I looked at Rhosyfelin, this was our conclusion:  that the site had been used over 7,000 years or more as a possible source for sharp-edged cutting tools, scrapers and "flakes" that could be used for a while, rejected and then replaced.  This would explain the evidence of  intermittent occupation, the hearth and hence camping and cooking. We did not suggest that Carn Goedog was a similar tool-making site -- but that outcrop is of course made of various types of spotted dolerite.

There don't appear to be any foliated rhyolites from Rhosyfelin in the 23 artefacts studied in this article -- but it would not surprise me if some were to turn up here or there.........

I'm still utterly convinced that Rhosyfelin was never used for the quarrying of rhyolite monoliths designed for local use or for export to Stonehenge -- but it looks as if we might have some sort of a consensus here, when it comes to little artefacts!

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

Richard Bevins, Elizabeth A. Walker, Nick Pearce, Duncan Pirrie, Rob Ixer, Ian Saunders and Matthew Power, 2025

Lithological and geochemical characterization of ‘adinole’ artefacts from cave deposits in southwest Wales: a material of choice during the late Middle to Upper Palaeolithic, 

Quaternary Environments and Humans, (2025) 

doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100058

Provisional version: Disclaimer. 

 "This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain."


Abstract
Twenty-three artefacts previously identified as being manufactured from adinole, a fine-grained metasomatic rock, from late Middle to Upper Palaeolithic cave sites in southwest Wales have been re-examined in terms of their petrology and geochemistry. Standard petrography has been combined with automated SEM-EDS analysis for a single artefact to determine the mineralogy and textures of that artefact, while portable XRF and μXRF have been combined to establish the geochemical characteristics of all twenty-three artefacts analysed. These investigations have shown that the artefacts were manufactured from rhyolite rather than adinole, a misidentification that has been in the literature for over 100 years. Some artefacts appear to cluster on geochemical plots, such as a group of eight artefacts from Hoyle’s Mouth Cave which share petrological characteristics and appear to have come from a common source. In other cases, however, certain artefacts with similar chemistries have dissimilar petrological characteristics and are not from a common source. This highlights the need to consider both petrological and geochemical characteristics when classifying rhyolitic artefacts. The artefacts studied show that this spotted variety of rhyolite was a preferred source of raw material throughout the late Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, despite having no obvious physical or practical advantages. Identifying rhyolite rather than adinole as the raw material used in the manufacture of the studied artefacts negates the need to consider long distance transport of either raw materials or finished artefacts. It strongly suggests that people in southwest Wales, where raw materials were scarce, were using materials that were local to them. Further, there is evidence that people were effectively planning for future use or reuse of artefacts, involving curation of tools. The next phase of work will use the lithological characteristics identified here to explore potential sources for the raw material used in the manufacture of these artefacts.

What is the treatment for erratic phobia?

They appear to be denying both the existence and the use of glacial erratics for monument building in glaciated terrain.

It's quite extraordinary that in the article by MPP et al on distant stone sources, they got away with this sort of nonsense in the text, without being pulled up by the journal editor or the "experts" selected for peer review duties.n  Whatever has happened to academic archaeology and the journals that represent it to the outside world?

Quote:

from pp 114-115

The great passage tombs of Newgrange and Knowth in Brú na Bóinne were constructed with stones brought from at least six source areas as far away as 40 km to the north and south along Ireland’s east coast (Cooney 2000, 136, Figure 5.2; Stout 2002, 30–1). The largest of these weigh around half a tonne – the greywacke blocks brought from up to 5 km away (see Figure 1).

The great passage tomb of La Hougue Bie, Jersey, incorporates different rocks from across the island (Bukach 2003). Apart from passage tombs, stone circles and other monuments at this time were also composed of different types of rock, although the distances travelled were substantially less. The two Orcadian stone circles, the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness incorporate monoliths derived from up to seven sources, covering distances of more than 13 km (Downes et al. 2013; Richards 2013a). Also, different stone circles among the complex on Machrie Moor, Arran, are constituted of different types of rock: red sandstone and white granite, both derived from different places on the island (Richards and Wright 2013, 50–9).

Parker Pearson, M., Bevins, R., Bradley, R., Ixer, R., Pearce, N. and Richards, C. ‘Stonehenge and its Altar Stone: the significance of distant stone sources’. Archaeology International, 2024, 27 (1), pp. 113–37 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/AI.27.1.13

No mention at all of the possibility -- indeed the probability -- of glacial transport of the stones used in monument building at Newgrange, Knowth, the Orkneys and Arran.   I have dealt with this matter before:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-newgrange-glacial-erratics.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/08/why-are-archaeologists-scared-to-death.html

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

See also:

http://publications.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/.../77p133.pdf
Williams-Thorpe, O. and Thorpe, R.S. 1991 Geochemistry, sources and transport of the Stonehenge Bluestones. Proc Br Acad. 77, pp 133-161

The Geological Sources and Transport of the Bluestones of Stonehenge, Wiltshire, UK
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , 1991, pp. 103 - 157
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00004527

"Geochemical provenancing of igneous glacial erratics from Southern Britain, and implications for prehistoric stone implement distributions" by Olwen Williams-Thorpe, Don Aldiss, Ian J. Rigby, Richard S. Thorpe, 22 FEB 1999, Geoarchaeology, Volume 14, Issue 3, pages 209–246, March 1999

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6548%28199903%2914:3%3C209::AID-GEA1%3E3.0.CO;2-7/abstract

Briggs, C.S. 2009. ‘Erratics and re-cycled stone: scholarly irrelevancies or fundamental utilities?’ IPG Conference Website contribution.

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/publications/publication/?publicationId=015d347c-65bd-4955-a456-a6cc009cd744

I don't know what the situation may be on Jersey, because the article by Bukach (2003) is behind a paywall -- but it appears that the bulk of stones used in passage grave construction were "local" and that some were "non-local".  I don't know how those terms were defined, and how far certain stones might have been moved.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0092.00002

The thing that concerns me the most is that three of the authors of this latest article (Bevins, Pearce and Ixer) are geologists, and that they appear to be fully signed up to a ruling hypothesis that completely denies any role for natural processes in the movement of stones in areas known to have been heavily glaciated on several occasions.  How weird is that?

It gets even more bizarre when you realise that both Ixer and Bevins have been involved in glacial erratic studies -- Ixer in regard to the erratics found and publicised in the Birmingham area in the last few years, and Bevins in the study of the Storrie Collection of erratics found in Pencoed, near Bridgend.  Perhaps both of them suffer from some strange ailment which manifests itself in the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing?

"Distant Stone Sources" paper now published.......

The latest hypothesis is that the Stonehenge stones have come from all points of the compass, as indicated in this map.  The latest Altar Stone source area is shown as somewhere near Inverness.  Hmmm.....  As for the Irish evidence, watch this space.  As usual, too many hypotheses and not enough evidence.  Will they never learn?

This paper, which should have been published on 20 December 2024 but wasn't, has at last appeared -- weeks after the media feeding frenzy during which scores of gullible journalists apparently did not notice that there was a press release but no article that they could scrutinize.  I'm not sure when it actually appeared on the journal web site -- it is dated as 31 December, but I have my doubts about that.

Anyway, the article is just as preposterous as it was in draft form, as noted on my post of 20 December:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/12/the-stonehenge-narrative-becomes-even.html

I'm sure there will be a riposte from Scotland, and we await that with interest....

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

https://journals.uclpress.co.uk/ai/article/id/3293/

Stonehenge and its Altar Stone: the significance of distant stone sources

Abstract

Geological research reveals that Stonehenge’s stones come from sources beyond Salisbury Plain, as recently demonstrated by the Altar Stone’s origins in northern Scotland more than 700 km away. Even Stonehenge’s huge sarsen stones come from 24 km to the north, while the bluestones can be sourced to the region of the Preseli Hills some 225 km away in west Wales. The six-tonne Altar Stone is of Old Red Sandstone from the Orcadian Basin, an area that extends from the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland to Inverness and eastwards to Banff, Turriff and Rhynie. Its geochemical composition does not match that of rocks in the Northern Isles, so it can be identified as coming from the Scottish mainland. Its position at Stonehenge as a recumbent stone within the southwest arc of the monument, at the foot of the two tallest uprights of the Great Trilithon, recalls the plans of recumbent stone circles of north-east Scotland. Unusually strong similarities in house floor layouts between Late Neolithic houses in Orkney and the Durrington Walls settlement near Stonehenge also provide evidence of close connections between Salisbury Plain and northern Scotland. Such connections may be best explained through Stonehenge’s construction as a monument of island-wide unification, embodied in part through the distant and diverse origins of its stones.


Parker Pearson, M., Bevins, R., Bradley, R., Ixer, R., Pearce, N. & Richards, C., (2024) “Stonehenge and its Altar Stone: the significance of distant stone sources”, Archaeology International 27(1), 113–137. doi: https://doi.org/10.14324/AI.27.1.13

The sealing of the bluestone quarry exits: another five-star fantasy

 

The dig site at Carn Goedog.  The three labelled features are inventions -- as is obvious to anybody who inspects the site.

One of the more extraordinary claims made by MPP and his colleagues is that the so-called "bluestone quarries" at Craig Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog were used on an industrial scale for the production of bluestone monoliths intended for Stonehenge.  Rhosyfelin was, of course, famously described as "the Pompeii of Neolithic quarries", and for some years the pretence was maintained that scores of monoliths or orthostats were taken from these sites and transported to Stonehenge.  That fantasy had to be abandoned when it was accepted that there is not a single orthostat at Stonehenge that is proved to have come from Rhosyfelin, and that only four or five of the spotted dolerite monoliths at Stonehenge might have come from the Carn Goedog area.  The quarrying story always was absurd, of course -- as pointed out by Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd, John Downes and me in 2015.  The range of rock types in the "bluestone assemblage" at Stonehenge is so great that they cannot possibly all have come from bluestone quarrying sites.

Then came the "lost circle" diversion centred on Waun Mawn, with more wild claims initially made and subsequently quietly forgotten.......

Then we have the latest idea, namely that Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog were used for the extraction of just one or two very special or sacred stones that were intended as tribute stones to be taken to Stonehenge as part opf MPP's grand unification process.  The timing of that exercise is of course completely unsupported by radiocarbon and other dating exercises, but we'll let that pass.

One of the most egregious claims made by Parker Pearson in print and on the telly is that the two quarries were "sealed" by the deliberate placing of large boulders across the "export trackways", to prevent the removal of any further stones by other tribes or marauding stone-stealing groups.  There were no export trackways, of course, and if there were quarries the stones could have been removed to the right, or to the left, or to any number of other access points. In other words, there were no constrained or narrow "exits" that needed to be blocked.   The whole idea is proposterous and ludicrous.  More serious, however, is the invention of evidence. Parker Pearson claims, at both Carn Goedog and Rhosyfelin, to have identified boulders that were deliberately placed as obstacles.

This is the Carn Goedog claim:  An 11m long, 3m wide ditch  was dug to a depth of 0.4 m, with its upcast deposited on the side away from the outcrop.  The ditch was then filled with large stones, creating a permanent barrier across which no monolith could be transported.  

In reality, careful examination of the site reveals nothing more complex than an irregular ground surface and a scatter of slabs and blocks, with some smaller angular stones or rubble here and there. There is no sign that sediments have been purposefully moved from one location to another, and if any stones had actually been deliberately moved into place they could certainly have very easily been moved away again!

At Rhosyfelin, MPP claims, in the Channel Four documentary, that there was a similar blockage of the "export trackway" in the Neolithic, designed to stop any further exploitation of the quarrying site.  In the film he seems to suggest that the big stones in the image below were the obstacles.  But hang on a minute -- aren't these the very stones that were referred to, in the original research, as the remains of a revetment or quayside set up to facilitate the loading of monoliths onto rafts or sledges prior to export?

One five star fantasy replaced by another.  Well, that's what you get when evidence is invented....... it's all too easy to forget today what you claimed yesterday.  You just have to hope that you don't get rumbled.

Stones exposed at Rhosyfelin following the selective removal of sediment.  This site was originally called a revetment or quayside -- but now it is apparently a site to which large stones were moved in order to stop large stones being moved.  You couldn't make it up, could you?  Well actually, yes you could...........

Sherlock Bevins and the Quest for the Sacred Stone

Remember Indiana Pearson and the Quest for the Lost Circle?  Well, that glorious and heroic tale has faded away recently with the discovery that there never was a lost circle and that it was, after all, just a romantic fantasy.........

But the media cannot resist a heroic figure fighting against the odds to discover some peculiar version of the truth.  And bang on cue, with the broadcasting of the latest Stonehenge blockbuster ("Mysteries of Stonehenge", first broadcast last Sunday) along comes Sherlock Bevins, magnifying glass in hand, with furrowed brow, wandering amongst the rocky crags of Preseli, hunting for clues that will lead him to the source of the Sacred Stone.........

There has to be a distinguishing feature, of course, and in this case it is the ubiquitous Aussie bush hat!  No doubt the director wanted Richrd to wear it for "branding" purposes during filming, and Richard obliged.

I have to admit to being rather disappointed.  I had seen Richard as a responsible scientist who was prepared to hold back some of the wilder fantasies promoted by MPP and his team, and promote the virtues of sound science, responsibly used.  Not any longer.  He has been popping up all over the place in the media, not urging caution but acting as the chief apologist for the MPP narrative, a very handy scientist wheeled out to win the trust of the public and show the media how geochemistry and petrology can be used in the solving of difficult Stonehenge puzzles.  He has even gone on the record, in this latest TV extravaganza, as saying that on the provenancing of the Stonehenge bluestones (including the Altar Stone) his reputation is on the line...........

Anyway, he is now solidly on the record as one of the key creators of the quarrying / human transport narrative  -- and I was appalled by the manner in which -- in the latest Channel Four documnentary -- he threw caution to the winds and espoused the most extreme and fantastical elements of the MPP story.  The section on Rhosyfelin was quite extraordinary, in which he pretended that the quarrying of foliated rhyolites was an established truth and even implied that this was the key location from which most of the Stonehenge bluestones had been taken.  That, of course, is complete tosh -- there is not a single bluestone monolith at Stonehenge which is known to have come from Craig Rhosyfelin, and Richard knows that perfectly well.

And so archaeological science continues its inexorable slide...........

A Scottish erratic at Morvil?

I have been looking again at this report:

Burt, C., Aspden, J., Davies, J., Hall, M., Schofield, D., Sheppard, T., Waters, R., Wilby, P., Williams, M. (2012). Geology of the Fishguard district: a brief explanation of the geological map Sheet 210 Fishguard. British Geological Survey.

https://webapps.bgs.ac.uk/memoirs/docs/B06909.html
 

It's 13 years old now, but while much of the text is dated and rather confused there is some interesting material.  For example:  

In the Eastern Cleddau area, a small incised body of hummocky glacial deposits north of Alltypityll [SM 113 250], similar to materials found in the adjacent Newcastle Emlyn district, is also considered a remnant of an earlier ice advance (Wilby et al., 2007b). Benches and mounds of glaciofluvial deposits present in the upper part of the Eastern Cleddau catchment and glaciofluvial sheet deposits in both the Eastern Cleddau and Taf valleys may comprise the denuded remnants of formerly more extensive kame deposits and outwash sheets dating from this 'Penfro' glaciation.

Till deposits to the north of the Preseli Hills are overlain or replaced by heterogeneous glacial deposits comprising poorly sorted, clast-rich, matrix-supported gravel diamictons, thought to represent proglacial debris. A ridge of such hetregeneous debris immediately east of Llanerch [SN 058 355] may mark the terminal position of a small glacier in the upper reaches of the Gwaun valley.

In the present district, outwash sands and gravels, in the form of Devensian glaciofluvial sheet deposits, were deposited in front of the retreating ice margin (Plate 8). Extensive spreads in the Western Cleddau and the Anghof valley, for example at Stradland Farm [SM 995 265], were sourced from the western tongue of the Devensian ice-sheet. Erratic clasts, including gneissic rocks from northern Britain, for example at Morvil Farm [SN 037 307], Puncheston, confirm an Irish Sea provenance. In the north-east of the district ice-contact glacio-fluvial deposits were formed as accumulations of sand and gravel buttressed against the retreating ice. Degraded sand and gravel landforms of uncertain origin in this area are shown as undifferentiated glaciofluvial deposits. 

(Comment:  where is the Morvil erratic?  The grid ref suggests the roadside not far from the church.  Will check it out...........)

Postglacial sea levels continued to rise throughout the early Holocene, only establishing the modern coastline around 5000 years ago. Raised tidal flat deposits comprising organic-rich clays and silts found at Newport and impounded behind barrier storm beaches in a cove [SN 999 393] facing Fishguard Bay represent the earliest, now abandoned coastal zone deposits. They predate the modern beach, storm beach, tidal river and salt marsh deposits (Plate 8). Inland rivers have deposited extensive alluvial tracts including abandoned and incised river terrace deposits and the alluvium of the modern floodplains. Alluvial fan deposits have formed where tributary streams meet larger rivers. Thin peat and peaty soils are widespread in the upland reaches of the district, but thicker and mappable peat accumulations are confined to areas of impeded drainage and ponding as at Wauncledau [SN 163 320]. Lacustrine deposits have accumulated in enclosed hollows in glacial deposits, possibly former kettleholes, as to the north of Newport [SN 064 3999].

More sites to check out......

Bluestone Museum goes into storage

The Bluestone Museum at our house called Trefelin has gone into storage,  following the sale of the property a few days ago.  After 48 years at the same address, we came to the conclusion, some time ago, that it was too big for us to manage any longer -- and the family agreed.  Two dwelling units and 5 acres of land.  We had a firm offer which we accepted, back in September.  Since then, there has been endless correspondence with solicitors over the minutest of details.  You know the sort of thing.  So the last month or so has been chaos as we approached exchange of contracts and then completion.  Now we are out, and the new owners are in -- and we are in temporary accommodation for 3 months while we look for somewhere small and convenient, in Newport.  So it's a time of happy memories and high emotion...........

What will happen to my rocks and the rest of the display materials?  Who knows?  There is talk of a Newport Town Museum, and if that comes to fruition, maybe a corner will be found there for my disp-lay, which is unique in that it looks at all sides of the bluestone debate.

Large free stones

 

This is fun -- on Facebook Market Place.  Glacial erratics in Kilgetty, not far from Tenby?  Free to good home.  I might just try to find out how they got to where they are now.......... and what they are made of.......

I wonder if there was an equivalent system back in the Neolithic?  I can imagine a message put out on the bush telegraph from our ancient ancestors in Preseli:  "Assortment of rubbish stones that are getting in the way of our development plans.  Free to anybody who cares to just come over and get them......"