West Kennet granidiorite article published

Corestone cobble and associated grus -- a photo from the article

This article by Ixer et al has now been published -- we have referred to it before.   But then I was not able to provide a link.  Here it is again:

Rob Ixer, Richard Bevins, Nick Pearce, Duncan Pirrie, Josh Pollard, Alex Finlay, Matthew Power and Ian Patience. 2025 "Exotic granodiorite lithics from Structure 5 at West Kennet, Avebury World Heritage Site, Wiltshire, UK."  Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 118 (2025), pp. 1–18

https://www.academia.edu/125773662/West_Kennet_Granodiorites

Quote: West Kennet provides yet another possible example of Late Neolithic long distance prehistoric transport, a distance of between 450km if taken from outcrop and 150km if collected from secondary glacial drift sources, although North Sea coastal glacial tills as a source for the stones appears unlikely and from East Anglia very unlikely.......

Thius is a detailed geological study, and I agree with the authors that the assemblage of rotten bits and pieces found around West Kennet is something of an enigma.  But I do not for a moment accept the assumption that glacial transport of the debris was effectively impossible.

Quotes:  

Initially, the heavily weathered and degraded appearance of the corestones and associated sandy grus led to the assumption that they were more likely collected as glacial erratics rather than from an in situ location (Ixer et al. 2022), but further investigation suggests this may not be so.

.........the very strong similarities between the samples is easier to explain if they were collected and manuported from a single highly weathered outcrop within the complex rather than collected from glacial tills, where a greater lithic variability might be expected.  Collecting from glacial till (Ixer et al. 2022) now seems an unsafe assumption and hence an in situ collection within the Cheviot Hills is now favoured.

I don't think the case is made, and Ixer et al (2022) is not a strong enough citation. Even if granites and related rocks do not travel well in gacier ice (especially of they are already heavily weathered) glacial transport of granidiorite erratics from Cheviot to the chalk lands of Wiltshire was certainly not impossible -- and the idea that the erratics were transported and dumped during one of the early glaciations is by no means disposed of.........

As usual, this article is underpinned by the ruling hypothesis that all of the "foreign" stones on the chalklands were obtained from identifiable quarry sites and then "manuported" into their present positions.
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