Bevins and the Bluestone Bully Boys: much bias and bluster, and not much science

"What on earth were they thinking?" I have been asked that question by a number of my geology contacts.  Well, I can't see into their minds, but it's fair to assume that they wanted -- metaphorically, one hopes -- to kill me off and to demonstrate that the bluestone transport debate is now dead. After ignoring me and my work for more than a decade, and arrogantly refusing to enter into any sort of debate, they decided that they couldn't any longer turn a blind eye to a string of my peer-reviewed articles that they found very uncomfortable indeed.  So, from their strange perspective, enough was enough. Richard Bevins took the lead, assembled his team of prominent and widely-published experts, and cobbled together that extraordinary tirade designed specifically to discredit almost everything I have written about the bluestones and the glacial transport theory.

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. 2025. The enigmatic ‘Newall boulder’ excavated at Stonehenge in 1924: New data and correcting the record, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 66, 105303.

The article by the Bevins Bully Boys was rejected by the Journal of Quaternary Science (an earth science publication) and was then accepted by the Journal of Archaeological Science, a journal about which I have expressed concerns on many occasions in the past. It appears to me that they will publish almost anything vaguely archaeological as long as the authors include some complicated graphs or tables and can afford to pay the APC (article publishing charge) of $4608 USD...........

Anyway, I am not going to be pushed around by anybody.  I will continue to do what I think we should all be doing -- scrutinising the "specialist literature" in my own field of interest as honestly as I can, to the best of my ability.  So I have summarised my main points of concern about the Bevins et al tirade, leaving out many smaller points of disagreement in the cause of brevity.  Here are the details:

Brian S John, 2026.  The Newall boulder at Stonehenge: correcting the "corrections".  Researchgate pre-publication document, 13 pp.

• DOI: 
• 10.13140/RG.2.2.10844.86401

The Newall boulder at Stonehenge: correcting the "corrections". Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399619799_The_Newall_boulder_at_Stonehenge_correcting_the_corrections[accessed Jan 10 2026].

ABSTRACT

This short article contains a critique of a paper published in 2025 by Prof Richard Bevins and ten others in which they claim to have “corrected” the record concerning the Newall Boulder found at Stonehenge and concerning the transport of bluestones from West Wales to Salisbury Plain. The paper was accompanied by a high-pressure publicity campaign in which it was claimed that the glacial transport thesis is now dead. The paper, in turns petty, condescending and misleading, was also a thinly disguised ad hominem attack on the present author, involving no less than 52 citations of his work. The paper by Bevins et al adds little in the way of new evidence, and numerous speculations and assertions are presented as facts. The contents of the paper are therefore refuted, and it is suggested that instead of claiming that the glacial transport debate is dead, and that their “human transport narrative” is proved, Bevins et al should accept that their ideas are scientifically disputed and that new research is needed to establish the length of time that has elapsed since the bluestones were originally deposited on Salisbury Plain.

The document in its present form may well be modified in response to feedback, while I consider future publication options.