More on the Silbury Hill bluestone fragments

Thanks to Paula for the photo

We have talked a lot about these fragments in the past -- use the search facility to track down previous posts. Now there is a new note by Ixer, Bevins and Pollard which examines the petrography of the stones in more detail and which suggests matches with other bluestone fragments scattered across the landscape. 

Details:

"Bluestones from Silbury Hill" by Ixer, Bevins and Pollard
Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Magazine, vol. 118 (2025), pp. 270–309

https://www.academia.edu/144003051/Slbury_Hill_lithics

There are four or five bluestone fragments derived from mixed / disturbed / undisturbed contexts near the summit of the mound. Four of these were described by Ixer in 2013, and it appears that these are all made of spotted dolerite. This short article describes another of the samples (Wilts 391) in more detail. It is concluded that it is related to Andesite Group A. Quote: Andesite Group A is defined as a foliated, lithic tuff and as debitage is widely distributed throughout the Stonehenge Landscape.  Another sample (661) is described as a typical dolerite or "preselite" flake.

So far so good.  But then the authors get onto a discussion of origins and significance, and set off by saying (about the dolerite flake):  "....there can be no doubt but that it is a flaked piece of Stonehenge ‘preselite’ debitage."  That is a completely unsupportable statement. No link with Stonehenge can be assumed.   Even if this flake has lithological similarities with some orthostats or debitage at Stonehenge, it simply shows that material of this type is quite widely distributed across the landscape.  Nothing more, nothing less.

In the "Discussion" section of the article things get even more dodgy. The authors refer to the suggestion that the occurrence of bluestone fragments at Silbury Hill appears to support the hypothesis of glacial bluestone transport. They say this idea was "soundly refuted by Ixer (2009) and by Leary (2010)."  Here Ixer, somewhat absurdly,  is citing himself  -- not in a learned article but in a book review.  The citation of Leary 2010 is equally strange -- it seems to point to a letter in a popular glossy magazine, not a considered scientific analysis. 

It gets worse.  The authors then suggest that the foreign fragments at Silbury Hill are "post-prehistoric  adventitious introductions" and even possibly "evidence of the emptying of antiquarian or archaeologist's pockets."  That's stretching things a bit -- why should people carry around Stonehyenge fragments in their pockets and then choose to empty their pockets when standing on top of Silbury Hill?  Ixer and his colleagues provide no evidence whatsoever to counter the argument that the fragments have been at Silbury Hill since the time of the building of the mound (or possibly since the end of an early glacial episode), and that they may have come from broken or destroyed glacial erratics -- incorporated either knowingly or unknowingly into the building materials.

The bias continues.  The authors refer on P 274 to Wilts 391 coming from "a tuff from Stonehenge" and even from buried orthostst 32c.  I repeat.  The Stonehenge connection is entirely speculative.  Then they refer to "the four pieces of Stonehenge bluestone...."    Four pieces of identifiable bluestone maybe, but why cannot the "parent erratic" not have been deposited in the Silbury Hill area instead of further afield?

In referring to the possible "prehistoric introductions" of foreign rock fragments into the building of the Silbury Hill mound, the authors talk about "those responsible for reducing monoliths and distributing fragments" -- again making the huge assumption that everything started off at Stonehenge, having been brought there from West Wales,  and then ended up somewhere else.   In the final paragraph the authors refer to fragments of volcanic ash and dolerite being "brought to" Silbury Hill. Then they bring the granidiorite lumps at West Kennet into the frame, and say: "Transporting small rocks and depositing them on and within major monuments could have served to connect in a token fashion disparate places and events."

The authors conclude: "The finding of five samples of Stonehenge debitage, one in a secure Neolithic context, supports the suggestion that all were brought to Silbury in prehistoric times and can no longer be dismissed as extraneous."

Sorry, but this piece is so full of speculations and unsupported assertions relating to Stonehenge that it really adds nothing to our understanding of the mound we refer to as Silbury Hill.