Ice on Salisbury Plain

This is a new map kindly supplied by Dr Alun Hubbard of Aberystwyth University. It shows modelled ice thicknesses and ice limits for the time of the last glacial maximum, around 20,000 years ago. A lot of "ground truthing" has to be done, but the model is a pretty sophisticated one, and fits well with what we know for most of the ice covered area. What I hadn't spotted before (because the older maps did not have this level of detail)is the thickness of the ice over the Somerset coast (about 600m) and the fact that the ice surface contours curve around in the Bristol Channel because of the "blocking effect" of the Brecon Beacons and the other uplands of South Wales. Ice always flows perpendicularly to the directions of the ice surface contours; and this is exactly right for the postulated ice stream running over the Preseli Hills, eastwards up the Bristol Channel, and deep into the heart of Somerset.

Bluestonehenge -- some science, much fantasy

The "official" press release relating to Bluehenge or Bluestonehenge has now been released by MPP and the National Geographic Magazine. There is some useful info in it, but what we have is the usual heady mix of small amounts of evidence, vast assumptions, and a great deal of fantasy. It's all here:

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=23928&mode=&order=0&thold=0&nocache=1

and here (with lots of pics):

http://www.eternalidol.com/?p=4909

Time to pour some cold water.

1. "The stones were removed thousands of years ago but the sizes of the holes in which they stood indicate that this was a circle of bluestones, brought from the Preseli mountains of Wales, 150 miles away." The evidence indicates nothing of the sort. There were only two fragments of spotted dolerite found on the site, and only nine stone holes have been found. If there were stones in all of the holes, they could just as well have been small sarsens. And as ever, the fairy tale of human transport is trotted out without a moment's hesitation and without a scrap of evidence.

2. "......the stones were put up as much as 500 years earlier – they were dragged from Wales to Wiltshire 5,000 years ago." I have always suggested that the stones were on Salisbury Plain around 5,000 years ago -- and indeed they were there (because they were glacial erratics) many thousands of years before that. But where is this evidence of dragging over this great distance? There isn't any.

3. ".....another 56 Welsh bluestones were erected at Stonehenge itself (in the decades after 3000 BC)" Again, sheer fantasy. Because it is assumed that there are 56 Aubrey Holes, it is assumed (on the basis of virtually no evidence) that all of them held bluestones.

4. "Archaeologists know that, after this date, Stonehenge consisted of about 80 Welsh stones...." With all due respect, they know nothing of the sort. Where is the evidence?

5. "....a ‘domain of the dead’ marked by Stonehenge and this new stone circle." Fantasy again -- there is no evidence.

6. "They (the stone holes) compare exactly with the dimensions of the bluestones in the inner oval at Stonehenge." But the bluestones vary enormously in their dimensions -- some are slim and tall, others are short and stumpy, and others are more like slabs. In those circumstances, the sockets for those stones also vary widely in their dimensions. This is slack thinking.

7. "Around 2500 BC the bluestones were re-arranged in the centre of Stonehenge and numbered about 80 stones. Where did the extra 24 or so stones come from? We think we know the answer!" All fantasy -- it has never been shown that there were 56 bluestones in the Aubrey Holes, or 80 stones in the later bluestone settings, let alone 24 stones in the newly discovered Bluestonehenge.

Oh dear -- when will archaeologists learn not to allow their instinct for fantasy to run miles ahead of the established facts? I hoped that we would have some sound science here -- there is evidence of careful work and interesting findings, but sadly, what we have (yet again) is a wild story meant for the mass-market "pop science" media........ Should we blame the National Geographic? I don't think so. If the senior archaeologists involved in this dig can't control what is said about it, they deserve a good drenching by all the cold water that some of us might pour on them.

MPP denies media manipulation

Mike Parker Pearson has gone on the record to say that he did not do any media manipulation here -- the story was written up and published by the Daily Mail without his knowledge, and then picked up by other parts of the media. He says he wanted to wait until the end of the year, by which time some "facts" might be available -- eg radiocarbon dates etc.

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forum&file=viewtopic&topic=3600&forum=4&start=20

So somebody did "leak" the story -- or maybe it was written by somebody who had a guided tour of the site and picked up enough info to do the piece.

A fine storm in a teacup. But with the National Geographic involved, and a "ratings war" between Timewatch and Time Team, with Nat Geog Mag involved as well, there is bound to be media management, press manipulation etc all the time. So MPP should not be too aggrieved if not everybody works to some carefully managed schedule that he happens to approve -- you make your bed and you lie in it.

Fuss about Bluehenge

Fine fun and games just now about a supposed "leak" which has led to articles about "Bluehenge" in the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, and across much of the internet as well. Once a story is out, it's out.......

This isn't a leak -- just a piece of typical news management by Mike Parker Pearson and his colleagues. We can expect more over the coming months -- well in advance of the "official" or published version of the research and the discoveries, which is supposed to follow in the spring of 2010.

Bluehenge is supposed to be a smaller circle close to the river bank at West Amesbury, at one end of the Avenue. At the other end is Stonehenge itself. According to the "leak", the circle was made entirely of bluestones, and was about 60 ft across. None of the bluestones are left, so they were supposedly moved to Stonehenge, and used there in various stone settings. That assumes that Bluehenge was actually finished, and was then dismantled -- we'll reserve judgement on that, and see if there is any evidence to support the idea. According to the press reports, fragments of spotted dolerite have been found, confirming the idea that the stones were all bluestones rather than sarsens. Again, we'll reserve judgement. No geology has been done on the fragments yet, so far as we know.

There is every reason to assume that bluestones of all types were used in all sorts of stone settings, all over Salisbury Plain.

Those of us who believe that the stones are glacial erratics have been saying this all along........

The Stonehenge Blau Stones

Some time ago I was in correspondence with Geoff Kellaway, the first man to bravely stick his head above the parapet on the glacial transport theory for the bluestones.

He sent a paper in which he argues that the bluestones were never described as BLUE stones by the early visitors to Stonehenge, but that in the Middle Ages (ie around the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth and later) they might have been referred to in Ango-Saxon as BLAU stones — with the word “blau” meaning striking, different, or of unusual or striking appearance. This is interesting — I hadn’t come across this idea before!! Is anybody else familiar with it?

Of course, this would make sense, since the stones are not actually blue at all — they are not that different in colour from the sarsens. But it’s intriguing to think that from an early stage people might have recognized them as simply DIFFERENT.

Archaeology and the "feel-good factor"

"Seriously clever, they were....."

A few months ago I spoke to the archaeologist and antiquarian Stephen Briggs about the idea (which I explore in the book) that sometimes an archaeological idea can be used for the promotion of the national interest. We only have to look at the manner in which the pyramids, the Easter Island heads, Angkor Wat, and the Great Wall of China are promoted as national icons or as symbols of great and ancient civilizations. Stonehenge is no different -- as journalist David Keys has pointed out in assorted newspaper articles. Stephen confirmed for me that after the First World War there was a strong emphasis -- during the rebuilding of a battered world -- on the triumph of civilization over the forces of darkness, and on the civilizing influence of the British Empire. Archaeologists and politicians were interested in flagging up the great achievements of our ancestors -- and when HH Thomas came up with his story of the great stone-hauling expeditions this was like manna from heaven! The media loved it, and I actually think that the lack of critical analysis and criticism from other academics was largely down to the fact they they thought any criticism would have been UNPATRIOTIC. There was also, says Stephen, an attempt to show that the Neolithic tribes of Britain were actually cleverer than the Neolithic tribes of Germany -- the defeated enemy. German archaeologists were, at the time, discovering that most of their megalithic monuments were built of stones collected from the immediate vicinity; what better way to show the "superiority" of British Neolithic tribes than to show that they were capable of collecting their stones from vast distances away? So the Stonehenge story was born -- as a way of flagging up to the world that the inhabitants of this small island were incredibly clever, at a time when others were still brutes who were incapable of organizing great civil engineering projects. "Anything you can do, we can do better!" This all sounds too crazy to be true? Indeed -- but you'd better believe it, since it's quite well authenticated.

Movers and Shakers

I picked up a comment on one of the discussion sites from somebody who argued that archaeologists are no worse than any other academics in their refusal to accept radical new ideas or dissent. Maybe that's true. But archaeology does seem to have strayed into fairytale territory, with a lot of emphasis placed on wacky tales -- not, maybe, about giants and fairies, but about healing springs and massive civil engineering projects involving rafts and rollers. And since the days of Richard Atkinson (a man who liked to form opinion, and who was quite intolerant of opinions he did not agree with) there has been quite a tradition of shooting the messenger when somebody comes along with an inconvenient story. So Geoff Kellaway, Olwen Williams-Thorpe, Stephen Briggs, and Aubrey Burl have all had to put up with vilification -- just because they upset the establishment. I blame the media to some degree for this intolerance and intransigence -- once TV producers get their hands on the likes of Profs Darvill and Wainwright, they encourage them to be as wild and wacky as possible, simply in order to make good television. To hell with the truth, and to hell with good science. And when they say things to camera, with qualifications, I wouldn't mind betting that the qualifications end up on the cutting floor.