Three months after publication, I am still amazed that they thought they could "shut down" the debate about bluestone transport by forming a "gang of eleven" to write what they supposed would be the definitive and reputable opinion on glacial transport. Juggernauts and steamrollers come to mind. Articles like this, especially if they contain personal vilification, are almost always counter-productive.
I have never been so heavily cited in my life -- 44 citations in a single article, at a quick count. I am very flattered..........
This is the article:
This is the article:
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, 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.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 66, 2025, 105303,
ISSN 2352-409X,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105303.
What a fuss about a little piece of stone!! Lots of technology, but not much science. What there is is so biased and selective that we can call it pseudo-science.
Richard Bevins, lead author
Anyway, here are my thoughts. I refer to the sections in the examined paper.
2. The Newall Boulder
This is really a rather petty and sterile discussion about who did what, and when, in the history of the Newall Boulder investigations. I thank the authors for clarifying the sampling history of the stone, but some of the criticisms of Bevins et al seem to be directed at me for using the term "brief examination" when I should have used the word "investigation". I am also criticised for not referring to studies that had not been written or published when I wrote my article that was published in E&G Quaternary Science Journal in 2024. Quite extraordinary. (I may have several talents, but reviewing articles that are not yet written is not one of them.) Attention is drawn to an article by Ixer et al which was published in August 2022 -- but not in a scientific journal. I was not impressed. See my assessment: https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-newall-boulder-with-thee-samples.html
Another source of huge confusion introduced by Bevins et al is the use of the term "areas" with reference to six parts of the boulder. These "areas" are shown on Figure 1 and itemised in Table 1. They are not areas at all -- they are sampling locations. In my article of 2024 I tried objectively to describe and analyse the surface characteristics of the various "facets" of the boulder, and Bevins et al should have used the same terminology instead of making the waters very muddy indeed.
3. Testing a Craig Rhosyfelin source for the Newall Boulder
I am criticised for stating that there is no evidence in support of the claim that the rhyolitic tuff in the Newall boulder "joint block" has "all the key characteristics needed to assign it to Rhyolite Group C from Craig Rhosyfelin". Bevins et al go on at great length about the petrographic evidence and indeed introduce new data. I should have said "no CONVINCING evidence -- since the word "evidence" covers a multitude of sins. Much of the new data introduced here is interesting, but it still does not demonstrate that the Newall Boulder came from Rhosyfelin. Bevins et al do not seem capable of recognising that their analyses reveal strong similarities between some Stonehenge samples and some samples from Rhosyfelin, but there are no identical matches, and they do not have a sufficient density of sampling points in the Rhosyfelin - Pont Saeson area to demonstrate that the Stonehenge samples cannot have come from anywhere else. They are obsessed with precision provenancing. If they want us to be convinced by their glorification of Rhosyfelin, they have to demonstrate that all of the other foliated rhyolite outcrops within a few km of their supposed quarrying site are substantially different. And they need to go back and do some more fieldwork, instead of relying largely on bits of rock collected decades ago and found in cardboard boxes in museums..
4. Clarification of Craig Rhosyfelin rhyolite at Stonehenge
This section cites me as commenting on the confusing labelling and mis-labelling of bluestones 32c, 32d and 32e at Stonehenge. That's fine, and they accept that I am not the source of the confusion. There has been mis-labelling by Thorpe, Atkinson, Cleal, Ixer and others over the years, and things are not much better today. In the caption to Fig 5 Bevins et al claim that 32d is a foliated rhyolite "almost certainly from Craig Rhosyfelin". They do not know that, and it is disingenuous to make the claim. The stone has not been sampled or petrographically described, and the "identification" is based on the interpretation of a very old photograph. Stone 32d should certainly NOT be used in any way to reinforce the impression that there is a link between Stonehenge and the site which they refer to constantly and mistakenly as a Neolithic monolith quarry.
5. Morphology of the Newall Boulder
This section contains a good deal of condescending nonsense, supported by highly selective citations of evidence and ignoring anything inconvenient. In my article in 2024 I examined the claim made by Parker Pearson and others that there was a "monolith extraction point" at Rhosyfelin, which coincides with the exposure shown in Figure 6. I am perfectly aware that the shape of the proposed monolith would have been a tapered pillar; and I dispute the claim that tapering pillar shapes are common at Rhosyfelin. I have looked in detail at the fracture patterns on the rock face and in the upper slopes, and these patterns are sometimes rectilinear and sometimes chaotic. I have made a number of blog posts on this matter. Many fractures are localised and discontinuous. Bevins et al claim that the base of the imagined extracted monolith had similar dimensions to the stump of stone 32d at Stonehenge. In an extraordinary flight of fancy, they imply that said stump is actually the bottom section of the broken monolith. Having examined the "monolith extraction point" so celebrated in the media, I am quite convinced, from a careful examination of the fracture scars on the face, that they are of several different ages, demonstrating that during the evolution of the rock face a number of small blocks have fallen away. Now and then, over a long period of time. This is NOT the scar of a single removed monolith.
Bevins et al make great play of the fact that blunt bullet-shaped clasts are common at Rhosyfelin, and indeed they are, but they are common in many areas where glacial and fluvioglacial deposits are displayed, and it is difficult to discern what point they are trying to make. But might the Newall Boulder be the broken-off end of a larger block of rhyolite? Yes, of course that is quite possible. No problem with that. The breakage might well have occured during or following glacial transport.
6. So is the Newall Boulder a glacial erratic?
In their discussion of this issue, Bevins et al claim that the seven "diagnostic features" itemised in my 2024 paper "could be simply generated by surface weathering exploiting internal discontinuities". I dispute that contention, which arises from a clear lack of appreciation of glacial processes. To claim that my conclusion relating to glacial transport "has no basis in evidence" and that it is presented as "fact" is frankly absurd. It is an hypothesis based on my reading of the evidence before me, based on decades of professional experience -- and in my view substantially more worthy than the bluestone hypotheses presented by Bevins and his colleagues over the years.
In the convoluted arguments presented by Bevins et al on glaciation and ice sheet modelling, there are a number of fundamental errors. The presence of far-travelled erratics on the shores of the Bristol Channel is dismissed as having no bearing on whether Salisbury Plain might have been glaciated. On the contrary, these erratics (and associated glacial deposits) demonstrate that a powerful ice stream from the west was capable -- on at least one occasion -- of reaching the coasts of Devon and Somerset and pushing into the Somerset Lowland. If the ice reached Greylake (as is commonly acknowledged) it could also have reached the chalk escarpment further east -- and Salisbury Plain comes into the frame.
Bevins et al state that many of the erratics relate to ice rafting and "glacimarine transport". I refute that, and insist that there is not a shred of hard evidence to support this contention, whatever James Scourse may say about the matter.
On the possible dating of one or more ancient glaciation that might have been more extensive than the Late Devensian glaciation, I am not so stupid as to mix up evidence with speculation. Of course I have speculated about the extent of Anglian and Wolstonian ice in the British Isles, as have scores of other authors over the years. I have changed my mind frequently as to the most likely scenarios, in response to emerging evidence. But the statement "there is no evidence to support the reconstruction of Anglian ice limits across SW England" is nonsensical, given that abundant evidence has been cited in innumerable publications by many researchers across a century or more of field research.
Of course models are not a substitute for hard evidence on the ground -- or "ground truthing". I refute the charge that I have used ice sheet models as primary evidence for past glaciations. And I will take no lessons from Bevins et al on the use and misuse of such models, having been one of the first glacial geomorphologists (together with my friend David Sugden) to use models extensively in our textbook called "Glaciers and Landscape" back in 1976. Of course the older models of Devensian ice sheet growth and decay are unreliable to some extent, but they were nonetheless immensely valuable in assessing the interactions between multiple parameters. The BRITICE-CHRONO models are excellent but of limited use for the reconstruction of ancient glaciations, since they specifically seek to represent the events of the LGM. And they too have their errors, as the researchers acknowledge.
As regards the evidence of erratics on p 10 of the paper by Bevins et al, it is true that there are thus far no known or recorded erratics of spotted dolerite on the inner shores of the Bristol Channel -- but that does not mean that they do not exist. After all, much of the erratic transport route between Pembrokeshire and Salisbury Plain is currently under water, and rather difficult to examine. The authors of the article are mistaken when they claim that the BGS surveyors found no spotted dolerite erratics south of Narberth. In one of the memoirs there is a record of just such an erratic near Pendine. As for the "evidence" of Neolithic stone extraction at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog, Bevins et al know full well that that evidence is hotly disputed, and has been since 2015. Until now they have chosen to completely ignore the "inconvenient" data and conclusions contained in two peer-reviewed articles by Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd, John Downes and myself -- a matter which demonstrates their obsession with Stonehenge and with ruling hypothesis confirmation. There are no Neolithic quarries at the named locations. That is my considered opinion and I am sticking with it.
7. The bluestone assemblage
This discussion of lithologies is as sterile as ever, particularly with regard to the number of lithologies represented at Stonehenge. The debate is immediately compromised because I insist that ALL lithologies (including hammer stones, packing stones, monolith knockoffs, etc) are relevant for our understanding of the stone monument at Stonehenge, whereas Ixer and Bevins insist that only stones which they deem to be "bluestones" are relevant. That introduces an unacceptable bias. So it is no surprise when I refer to around 46 different lithologies and provenances, while they refer to just 12 - 15. They fail to point out that within each of their named lithologies there are samples with such substantial petrographic or geochemical variations that they must have come from different locations. And they themselves have compounded confusion by periodically changing the names of the lithologies and rock types that they have examined over and again over the past 15 years. Of course I recognize that old labels have caused some confusion, with numerous redundant labels being used for rhyolites, sandstones and tuffs, for example -- but the range of rock types represented at Stonehenge is so great that it must represent a glacially transported erratic assemblage. As pointed out by Thorpe et al (1991) and Kellaway (1970) many of the stones are "rubbish stones" that can have had no value as monoliths or slabs in the context of a stone monument. Are Bevins et al seriously suggesting that there were 12 -15 neolithic quarries in Pembrokeshitre, all deemed to be special or sacred and linbked somehow to Stonehenge?
It is thus disingenuous of Bevins et al to claim that the "foreign" stones at Stonehenge have come from a "small number of specific localities", selected and transported by human beings.
No so long ago Ixer and Bevins tried to argue that because there were so many provenances represented in the foreign stone collection at Stonehenge, that proves that vast numbers of tribal groups must have been involved in the collection and transport of "tribute stones" (if that's what they were), thereby demonstrating the vast political power of the Stonehenge builders............ Now they appear to have reveresed their opinion on that.
In the face of such inconsistency, it's difficult to know what Bevins et al really believe.
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That's not all. To be continued...........
It is the fate of all steamrollers to end up as scrap metal........
1 comment:
This 11 - author article is full of hubris - inspired gobbledygook
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