Syd Kap and the Bear Islands, East Greenland

Scoured and polished landscape around Syd Kap and the Bear Islands, where ice from the interior of the Greenland ice sheet decanted out into the wider expanse of Hall Bredning and Scoresby Sund.   The Bear Islands and Syd Kap feature prominently in my novel called "Acts of God" -- and the hut at Syd Kap is where we sat and waited for our small pick-up vessel called "Entalik" in August 1962........  A fabulous landscape.......

Climber on the summit of one of the Bear Islands.  On the far horizon, Kjove Land and the Syd Kap area.

New book: Stonehenge for the Diggers

As we all know, Stonehenge was built in order to give men (well, mostly men in possession of shovels and trowels) something useful to do, with a view to enhancing their self-esteem through the writing of exciting press releases and seeing their wacky theories writ large in banner headlines.  The old ruin has attracted so much attention over the centuries that it has effectively prevented people from doing a great deal of mischief elsewhere -- and I suppose that is something to be grateful for.  The enigmatic nature of the structure was of course deliberate, which is why the word "folly" comes to mind.  Clever chaps, those old Neolithic builders..........

Anyway, here comes the latest mega-blockbuster, with a hardback price of £135 now that Boris Johnson has achieved his lifelong ambition of making one pound equivalent in value to one euro.  The paperback may be £65 or £90, depending on where you get it from.  Publication is planned for just before Christmas 2019 -- in case you want to ask Father Christmas to bring you a copy. I don't think I'll bother -- Mike will no doubt send me a complimentary copy.

Thanks to Tony for drawing attention to the forthcoming tome.  The key info is here:

https://www.sidestone.com/books/stonehenge-for-the-ancestors-part-1

Stonehenge for the Ancestors: Part 1
Landscape and Monuments
Mike Parker Pearson, Joshua Pollard, Colin Richards, Julian Thomas, Chris Tilley & Kate Welham | Forthcoming
ISBN: 9789088907029
Imprint: Sidestone Press | Format: 210x280mm | ca. 520 pp. | The Stonehenge Riverside Project Volume 1 | Language: English | 202 illus. (bw) | 190 illus. (fc)
Publication date: 20-12-2019

This is a large tome, on a par with the vast 1995 volume called "Stonehenge in its landscape" by Ros Cleal et al -- so how will it compare?  Well, that volume, which I have come increasingly to respect, was meticulous, evidence-based and indeed rather scientific, with speculation mercifully kept to a minimum.  For that reason it was rather dry and dusty, and was not exactly something one might pick up as bedtime reading!  

The new volume from Mike Parker Pearson and his merry gang is clearly the product of a post-processual world, in which the narrative comes first and the evidence comes along in support, assuming some can be found.  "Stonehenge for the Ancestors" makes it perfectly clear that this book is pushing a ruling hypothesis -- that the monument was built in a context of ancestor worship or reverence, with the stones used quite deliberately as symbols or "embodiments" of the spirits of the ancestors -- some of them from Salisbury Plain and others from the far-flung parts of the British Isles.  No messing about here with theories about the "healing powers" of the stones (as proposed by Darvill and Wainwright) or about lunar or solar astronomical observatories (as proposed by scores of Stonehenge "experts" over the years).  MPP has been obsessed with the ancestor cult for many years, and this work may well be the product of that obsession.  

Will the book stand up as scientifically reliable, and as a sound basis for future work?  I doubt it very much, given the nature of the string of publications from this group over the last decade or so.  Their ruling hypothesis has ruled their lives to the extent that they are apparently incapable of accepting that their ideas are questioned and even disputed -- and that their "evidence" is so scanty that it should  really be set in the context of a scientific hoax.  

Anyway, let's wait and see whether the great tome, and those destined to follow it, are really worth taking seriously...

=====================

ABSTRACT

For many centuries, scholars and enthusiasts have been fascinated by Stonehenge, the world’s most famous stone circle. In 2003 a team of archaeologists commenced a long-term fieldwork project for the first time in decades. The Stonehenge Riverside Project (2003-2009) aimed to investigate the purpose of this unique prehistoric monument by considering it within its wider archaeological context.

This is the first of four volumes which present the results of that campaign. It includes investigations of the monuments and landscape that pre-dated Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain as well as of excavation at Stonehenge itself. The main discovery at Stonehenge was of cremated human remains from many individuals, allowing their demography, health and dating to be established. With a revised radiocarbon-dated chronology for Stonehenge’s five stages of construction, these burials can now be considered within the context of the monument’s development. The different types of stone from which Stonehenge is formed – bluestones from Wales and sarsen silcretes from more local sources – are investigated both at Stonehenge and in its surroundings. These surrounding monuments include single standing stones, the Cuckoo Stone and the Tor Stone, as well as the newly discovered circle of Bluestonehenge at West Amesbury beside the River Avon. The ceremonial Stonehenge Avenue, linking Stonehenge to Bluestonehenge, is also included, based on a series of excavations along its length.

The working hypothesis behind the Stonehenge Riverside Project links Stonehenge with a complex of timber monuments upstream at the great henge of Durrington Walls and neighbouring Woodhenge. Whilst these other sites are covered in a later volume (Volume 3), this volume explores the role of the River Avon and its topographic and environmental evidence.

With contributions by:

Umberto Albarella, Michael Allen, Olaf Bayer, Wayne Bennett, Richard Bevins, Christopher Bronk Ramsey, Chris Casswell, Andrew Chamberlain, Benjamin Chan, Rosamund Cleal, Gordon Cook, Glyn Davies, David Field, Charles French, Robert Ixer, Neil Linford, Peter Marshall, Louise Martin, Claudia Minniti, Doug Mitcham, Bob Nunn, Andy Payne, Mike Pitts, Rebecca Pullen, Julian Richards, David Robinson, Clive Ruggles, Jim Rylatt, Rob Scaife, Ellen Simmons, Charlene Steele, James Sugrue, Anne Teather, Sarah Viner, Tony Waldron, Katy Whitaker and Christie Willis.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction
The Stonehenge Riverside Project
Background to the project
Implications of the hypothesis
Research aims
M. Parker Pearson, J. Pollard, C. Richards, J. Thomas C. Tilley, K. Welham and P. Marshall

2. Fourth millennium BC beginnings: monuments in the landscape
The landscape of the fourth millennium BC – (C. Tilley, W. Bennett and D. Field)
Geophysical surveys of the Greater Cursus and Amesbury 42 long barrow – (K. Welham, C. Steele, L. Martin and A. Payne)

3. Fourth millennium BC beginnings: excavations of the Greater Cursus, Amesbury 42 long barrow and a tree-throw pit at Woodhenge
The Greater Stonehenge Cursus – (J. Thomas)
Amesbury 42 long barrow – (J. Thomas)
Investigations of the buried soil beneath the mound of Amesbury 42 – (M.J. Allen)
Stonehenge Lesser Cursus, Stonehenge Greater Cursus and the Amesbury 42 long barrow: radiocarbon dating – (P. D. Marshall, C. Bronk Ramsey and G. Cook)
Antler artefact from the Greater Cursus and Amesbury 42 long barrow – (G. Davies)
Pottery from the Greater Cursus and Amesbury 42 long barrow – (R. Cleal)
Chalk artefact from the Greater Cursus – (A. Teather)
Lithics from stratified contexts of the Greater Cursus – (B. Chan)
Lithics from the ploughsoil of the Greater Cursus – (D. Mitcham)
Lithics from stratified contexts of Amesbury 42 long barrow – (B. Chan)
Human remains from Amesbury 42 long barrow and the Greater Cursus – (A. Chamberlain and C. Willis)
Charred plant remains and wood charcoal from the Greater Cursus and Amesbury 42 long barrow – (E. Simmons)
Woodhenge tree-throw pit – (J. Pollard)
Pottery from the Woodhenge tree-throw pit – (Rosamund M.J. Cleal)
Lithics from Woodhenge – (B. Chan)
Faunal remains from Woodhenge – (C. Minniti, U. Albarella and S. Viner)
Charred plant remains and wood charcoal from Woodhenge – (E. Simmons)

4. The Stonehenge bluestones: excavations at Stonehenge and environs
The bluestones at Stonehenge – a reappraisal – (M. Parker Pearson and C. Richards)
Aubrey Hole 7 at Stonehenge: Trench 39 – (M. Parker Pearson, B. Chan, C. Casswell, M. Pitts and J. Richards with R. Ixer)
Fargo bluestone scatter – (C. Richards, J. Pollard, D. Robinson and M. Parker Pearson)
Airman’s Corner pit circle – (M. Parker Pearson)

5. Bluestonehenge at West Amesbury: where the Stonehenge Avenue meets the River Avon
Research background and pre-excavation investigations – (M. Parker Pearson, K. Welham, C. Steele, A. Payne, L. Martin, D. Mitcham and C. French)
Archaeological excavations of Bluestonehenge within West Amesbury henge – (M. Parker Pearson, R. Nunn and J. Rylatt)
Radiocarbon dating of Bluestonehenge and West Amesbury henge – (P. Marshall, C. Bronk Ramsey and G. Cook)
Neolithic and Beaker pottery – (R. Cleal)
Lithics from stratified contexts – (B. Chan and J. Rylatt with P. Pettitt)
Other artefacts of stone, antler and bone – (M. Parker Pearson with G. Davies and R. Ixer)
Faunal remains – (C. Minniti, U. Albarella and S. Viner)
Charred plant remains and wood charcoal – (E. Simmons)

6. Sarsens at Stonehenge
Stonehenge reworked – sarsen construction – (C. Richards and M. Parker Pearson)
The sarsen-dressing area (Trench 44) – (B. Chan and C. Richards)
The flint assemblage from the sarsen-dressing area – (B. Chan)
Sarsen stone from Trenches 44 and 45 – (B. Chan)
Sarsen-working at Stonehenge – (K. Whitaker)

7. Sarsens in the Stonehenge landscape
Sarsen origins within the landscape – (C. Richards, K. Whittaker, M. Parker Pearson, C. Tilley and W. Bennett)
The Cuckoo Stone – (C. Richards)
Geophysical surveys of the Cuckoo Stone – (K. Welham and C. Steele)
Lithics from the ploughsoil – (D. Mitcham)
Excavation – (C. Richards)
Cuckoo Stone radiocarbon-dating – (P. Marshall, C. Bronk Ramsey and G. Cook)
Lithics from stratified contexts – (B. Chan)
Antler artefacts from the Cuckoo Stone – (G. Davies)
Faunal remains from the Cuckoo Stone – (C. Minniti, U. Albarella and S. Viner)
Charred plant remains from the Cuckoo Stone – (E. Simmons)
Wood charcoal from the Cuckoo Stone – (E. Simmons)
The Tor Stone, Bulford – (C. Richards)
Geophysical survey of the Tor Stone at Bulford – (K. Welham and C. Steele)
Extraction and erection of the Tor Stone – (C. Richards)
Charred plant remains and wood charcoal from the Tor Stone, Bulford – (E. Simmons)

8. The Stonehenge Avenue
Geophysical surveys – (K. Welham, C. Steele, N. Linford and A. Payne)
The Stonehenge Avenue at Stonehenge (Trench 45) – (M. Parker Pearson and R. Pullen)
Geology, geomorphology and buried soils – (M. Allen and C. French)
The Stonehenge Avenue Bend ((Trenches 46, 47, 48, 57, 58 and 59) – (D. Robinson and O. Bayer)
The Stonehenge Avenue’s ‘northern branch’ (Trench 56) – (M. Parker Pearson and A. Teather)
Radiocarbon dating of the Stonehenge Avenue – (P. Marshall, C. Bronk Ramsey and G. Cook)
Lithics from the Avenue in front of Stonehenge (Trench 45) – (B. Chan)
Lithics from the Avenue bend and the Avenue’s ‘northern branch’ – (B. Chan)
Lithics from the ploughsoil of the ‘northern extension’ – (D. Mitcham)
Chalk artefact – (A. Teather)
Charred plant remains and wood charcoal from the Stonehenge Avenue – (E. Simmons)
The orientation of the Stonehenge Avenue and its implications – (C. Ruggles)
The Avenue’s construction and purpose – (M. Parker Pearson)

9. Stonehenge and the River Avon
Along the River Avon – (C. Tilley and W. Bennett)
The Avon palaeo-channel – (C. French and M.J. Allen)
Palynology – (R. Scaife)

10. The people of Stonehenge
Human osteology – (C. Willis)
Radiocarbon dating of human remains from Stonehenge – (P. Marshall, C. Bronk Ramsey and G. Cook)

11. Radiocarbon dating: the Stonehenge modelling and results
P. Marshall, C. Bronk Ramsey, G. Cook and M. Parker Pearson

Glacial features, Blidö, Sweden

Every summer I find new things.  For example........

Washed moraine rising out of the sea on the east coast of the island.  There is deep water on all sides, and the morainic accumulation seems to rest on slabs of bedrock.

Roche moutonnee form on a small island off the NE coast.  On the right, the up-glacier side with a typical streamined form and coherent glaciated (abraded) slabs.  To the left, on the lee side or downglacier flank, the bedrock has been comprehensively smashed up by heavy sub-glacial pressure and plucking.

An enormous (house-sized) rounded erratic resting on a glaciated slab just above water-level, on the NE side of the island. How heavy?  Maybe 100 tonnes......

Beautiful whaleback forms (miniature roches moutonnees) which show very clearly that the ice travelled from the left (N) towards the right (S).  All abrasion features, streamlined forms, flutes etc are aligned almost exactly north-south in this area.

PS.

Here is an image of the island, for those with inquiring geographical minds:

Blidö is the big island to the east of the long thin one, which is called Yxlan.  To travel around Blidö by sea involves 25 kms of paddling in the kayak -- I did it on my birthday, for the third time.   Tiring, but not dangerous, with wonderful variations in scenery encountered en route.....

The stone sledge theory gets even more bonkers

Another example of a university press release designed for maximul media impact — and to hell with common sense.  This time the culprit is the Universityb of Newcastle, with one of the more ludicrous headlines..........

Stonehenge may have been built using lard
Published on: 15 July 2019

Pig fat could have been used to grease the sledges used to transport the massive stones of Stonehenge into position, new analysis by archaeologists at Newcastle University has suggested.

Quote:
“There's a general assumption that the traces of animal fat absorbed by these pieces of pottery were related to the cooking and consumption of food. But these residues could be tantalising evidence of the greased sled theory. “.    Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito

Absorbed fat residues

Fat residues on shards of pottery found at Durrington Walls, near Stonehenge, have long been assumed to be connected with feeding the many hundreds of people that came from across Britain to help construct the ancient monument.

But, new analysis by archaeologists at Newcastle University, UK, suggests that because the fragments came from dishes that would have been the size and shape of buckets, not cooking or serving dishes, they could have been used for the collection and storage of tallow – a form of animal fat.

Dr Lisa-Marie Shillito, Senior Lecturer in Landscape Archaeology, Newcastle University, said: “I was interested in the exceptional level of preservation and high quantities of lipids – or fatty residues - we recovered from the pottery. I wanted to know more about why we see these high quantities of pig fat in pottery, when the animal bones that have been excavated at the site show that many of the pigs were ‘spit roasted’ rather than chopped up as you would expect if they were being cooked in the pots.”

'Greased sled' theory

It is now generally accepted that the huge megaliths that make up Stonehenge were moved by human effort. Recent experiments have suggested that the stones - up to eight metres high and weighing as much as two tonnes - could have been moved by 20 people by placing them on a sled and sliding them over logs.

The pottery at Durrington Walls is one of the best studied for organic residues, with over 300 shards having been analysed as part of wider studies of Grooved Ware use in Britain, and more recently the Feeding Stonehenge project, on which Dr Shillito worked.

Analysis of residues of absorbed fat is a well-established technique for revealing what foods different type of pottery was used for. But more attention needs to be paid to how this information is interpreted, Dr Shillito argues.

“There are still many unanswered questions surrounding the construction of Stonehenge”, she says. “Until now, there has been a general assumption that the traces of animal fat absorbed by these pieces of pottery were related to the cooking and consumption of food, and this steered initial interpretations in that direction. But there may have been other things going on as well, and these residues could be tantalising evidence of the greased sled theory.

“Archaeological interpretations of pottery residues can sometimes only give us part of the picture. We need to think about the wider context of what else we know and take a ‘multi-proxy’ approach to identify other possibilities if we hope to get a better understanding.”

Reference: ‘Building Stonehenge? An alternative interpretation of lipid residues in Grooved Ware from Durrington Walls’ Lisa-Marie Shillito, Antiquity https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2019.62

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There is of course not a shred of evidence to link the traces of animal fat on bits of pottery with Stonehenge, bluestones or sarsens, or sledges.  It is entirely to be expected that in a society using animal products in the food supply, tallow or animal fat would have been stored in large vessels and used for a variety of “non-food” purposes including lighting, lubricating the moving parts on weapons or domestic items, building, etc.  But to jump straight in on the idea that the “lard” was possibly used for lubricating stone-hauling sledges — implying some sort of manufacturing facility used by the civil engineers — is really completely ludicrous.  Have these people no shame?

PS.  Quote:  “It is now generally accepted that the huge megaliths that make up Stonehenge were moved by human effort. Recent experiments have suggested that the stones - up to eight metres high and weighing as much as two tonnes - could have been moved by 20 people by placing them on a sled and sliding them over logs.”

One wonders how an academic like Dr Shillito can be so poorly informed that she trots out this sort of nonsense without batting an eyelid, in the full knowledge that it is not true.  It is NOT generally accepted.... the weights and dimensions cited indicate that she has got her bluestones and her sarsens mixed up, and the experiments to which she refers were conducted on the flat grass of a London park, and do NOT  suggest that 20 people could have moved large monoliths great distances across rough country.  What was I saying about the death of evidence...? 

Waun Mawn --the strange art of seeing the invisible and missing the obvious

I have been reviewing the Waun Mawn evidence, and have been struck again by the apparent determination of MPP and his team to see things that aren't there and to miss the things that are.  For a start, they seem determined to ignore the fact that there are outcropping dolerites just a stone's throw from their putative proto-Stonehenge circle of standing stones.  They so badly WANT the stones to have come from somewhere else (namely bluestone quarries) that they apparently refuse even to consider the idea that any stones erected on this site may well just have been picked up locally:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/05/waun-mawn-and-invisible-dolerites.html

Then we have all the other rather interesting features on Waun Mawn -- all the other standing stones, stone sockets, possible ruined burial sites, ring cairns, deer park enclosure traces, quarrying pits, embankments and so forth.  Not all of them are prehistoric and relevant for the proto-Stonehenge debate, but some of them certainly are ......

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/tafarn-y-bwlch-stone-complex-waun-mawn.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/deer-hunting-on-waun-mawn.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/gernos-fach-ring-cairn.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/prophecy-fulfilled.html

And all these features on nearby Banc Llwydlos:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/lake-brynberian-further-thoughts.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/devensian-till-on-brynberian-moor.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/banc-llwydlos-passage-grave.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/gallery-graves-or-passage-graves.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/more-banc-llwydlos-records.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/banc-llwydlos-cromlech-3.html

Why is it that thus far the archaeologists appear not even to have noticed any of these features?  Strange, given that they point to a rather interesting cultural complex around Tafarn y Bwlch, Waun Mawn and Banc Llwydlos.  Does it not suit their purpose to emphasise all these other traces of Neolithic / Bronze Age settlement?

Or are the archaeologists so intent on proving the uniqueness of the supposed Waun Mawn circle that all other features in the vicinity have to be ignored?

I admit to being puzzled.......

Post-processualism and the death of evidence

Last year, I published this little flow chart that seemed to me to represent the way in which MPP and his colleagues actually work.  Unwittingly, have we identified the working methods of the post-processualists?

In a recent post about "what Prof MPP thinks" we mentioned his comments about the rise and rise of post-processualism (horrible expression!) in archaeology:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-mpp-thinks.html

There is a vast literature out there, and it all gets very philosophical and convoluted; whole courses in Archaeology Departments are no doubt devoted to in-depth analyses of all the pros and cons of the processual method (stressing objectivity and the use of scientific deduction) versus the post-processual method (stressing subjectivity and the erratic nature of human behaviour).

As fellow bloggers will know, I cannot understand the cavalier attitude which MPP and his colleagues have towards hard evidence in the field -- if there is no evidence in support of a central hypothesis, never mind -- it's not really needed.  All we have to do is understand human motivation and human behaviour, and if we need to invent some evidence to support what we are saying, that's OK too.  To hell with the scientific method -- this is the ARCHAEOLOGICAL method, and nobody is going to apologise for it.  So there is a vast gulf of misunderstanding between people like me, brought up to respect science, and people like MPP, presumably brought up to try and understand why human beings occasionally do rather wacky things...........

Interestingly enough, the lack of respect for the scientific method -- including peer review and scrutiny -- seems also to spread to funding organizations and journal editors.  More than once, I have wondered, in blog posts, how on earth certain papers by the MPP team have found their way into print.

Here is one summary of the debate:
Post-Processual Archaeology - What is Culture in Archaeology Anyway?
The Radical Critique of the Processual Movement in Archaeologyhttps://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-post-processual-archaeology-172230

A summary by Kris Hirst:

Post-processual archaeology was a scientific movement in archaeological science that took place in the 1980s, and it was explicitly a critical reaction to the limitations of the previous movement, the 1960s' processual archaeology.

In brief, processual archaeology strictly used the scientific method to identify the environmental factors that influenced past human behaviors. After two decades, many archaeologists who had practiced processual archaeology, or had been taught it during their formative years, recognized that processual archaeology failed when it attempted to explain variability in past human behavior. The post-processualists rejected the deterministic arguments and logical positivist methods as being too limited to encompass the wide variety of human motivations.

And her conclusions:

The Costs and Benefits

The issues that were unearthed during the height of the post-processual movement are still not resolved, and few archaeologists would consider themselves post-processualists today. However, one outgrowth was the recognition that archaeology is a discipline that can use a contextual approach based on ethnographic studies to analyze sets of artifacts or symbols and look for evidence of belief systems. Objects may not simply be the residues of behavior, but instead, may have had a symbolic importance that archaeology can at least work at getting.

And secondly, the emphasis on objectivity, or rather the recognition of subjectivity, has not subsided. Today archaeologists still think about and explain why they chose a specific method; create multiple sets of hypotheses to make sure they aren't being fooled by a pattern; and if possible, try to find a social relevance. After all, what is science if it's not applicable to the real world?

Liverpool Land piedmont glacier apron

There is evidence in eastern Jameson Land of till having been laid down by westward-flowing glaciers.  These came from the Liverpool Land mountains and coalesced into a broad apron filling a wide transverse trough.  When the ice in the apron thickened sufficiently, flow was diverted northwards and southwards.



On this Google image we can see what a substantial through valley this is.  During the Late Devensian the piedmont glacier apron that occupied it was so thick that it spilled westwards onto the higher part of Jameson Land.

We have talked a lot about piedmont glaciers on this blog, in relation to glaciers decanting from troughs or fjords out onto adjacent lowlands — but not much about piedmont APRONS.  These are rather interesting, since they consist of  coalescing piedmont glaciers which spread laterally.

The Liverpool Land (East Greenland) example is an interesting one, and a number of authors have referred to the wide apron of glacier ice that filled the deep through valley connecting Hurry Fjord in the south to Carlsberg Fjord in the north.  This happened in the last glacial maximum (LGM) and probably in all preceding glaciations as well.  The glaciers flowing westwards came from the alpine mountain range of Liverpool Land.  On the east side of the mountains the glaciers coalesced on the open coast, and there may well have been a calving ice shelf.

According to the reconstructions, the coalescing piedmont glaciers filled the transverse trough and then flowed northwards and southwards towards the coast.  This must have happened in multiple locations in the arctic — and we can see examples today from Greenland, Arctic Canada and Arctic Russia.  We have referred in an earlier post to Putorana:

Putorana — the mountain front runs across the photo, and the morainic loops show how the individual glaciers coalesced into an extensive ”glacier apron”.

Here are some more classic photos of piedmont (unconstrained) glaciers -- in Arctic Canada and north Greenland:

In the above photo three piedmont glaciers have combined to create an apron.