The Bluestones -- tribute stones, petrified ancestors, or simply erratics?

Rob Ixer has kindly sent a copy of the new article from British Archaeology -- entitled "Missing Stonehenge Circle did not come from the Preselis." This refers not to the "new" circle at the end of the Avenue, near the River Avon, but to another assumed missing circle at the far western end of the Cursus, where there has also been a lot of recent excavation. He and Richard Bevins have identified many rhyolite fragments from the digs in that area -- many of them apparently not from the Preseli area at all. They are not sure where the fragments have come from.......

Interestingly, Rob and Richard have not plumped for the glacial theory in preference to the human transport theory, but have suggested a third option, namely that the stones were carried to the Stonehenge area "by different groups of people." This has been suggested for a while by Mike Pitts and other senior archaeologists who have been trying to come to terms with the fact that the bluestones are from well over 20 different locations. The geologists say that the question of how the stones were moved is "an archaeological problem." I would disagree with that. It is a geomorphological/glaciological/geological problem -- in the solution of which archaeologists do not have much of a role.

So are these stones "tribute stones" or "dead ancestors"? In one scenario, Mike Pitts has suggested that the Stonehenge ritual landscape was so important across the UK, and the tribal groups that controlled the area were so powerful, that other tribal groups from far and wide travelled to Stonehenge with "tributes" in the form of large stones which could then be set up on the developing monument. It may have been required or expected of them, in view of their status as subservient tribes, acknowledging the power of their masters. A nice theory? Hmmm -- I'm not convinced. Sounds like special pleading to me -- and there is no evidence for this sort of thing ever having happened in the British Neolithic or Bronze Age, as far as I know. Also, we seem to be obtaining evidence now of stones and fragments of all shapes and sizes -- would these "tribute payers" have carried with them some big stones, some little ones, and a few flakes from here, there and everywhere? You could build up a mighty fantasy here -- and archaeologists will probably do just that. Another problem is that there seems to be no evidence of stones that have come from the east or south. If stones were brought to Stonehenge as tributes, one would have thought that they would be carried from east, west, north and south. So far as we know, they only come from the W and NW -- and that happens to be where the ice came from. No -- they still look like erratics to me.

The dead ancestors theory? That's even more wacky - and designed to bolster the Parker Pearson theory that Stonehenge was a place of the dead. He will probably argue that Stonehenge was a place where rituals were centred on ancestor worship and ceremonies designed to send the dead off to Paradise or some such place -- and that as this "ancestor" cult developed tribes came from tens and maybe hundreds of kilometres away, bearing with them the likenesses of their ancestors in the form of stone pillars, to be incorporated (with due ceremony) into Stonehenge. Sorry, but again this takes fantasy to absurd lengths. And again, why did these dead ancestors all come from the west, with none of them coming from the other points of the compass?

This is all ridiculously elaborate, and for my money the new evidence simply confirms that what we had on or near Salisbury Plain was an assemblage of glacial erratics, of all shapes and sizes, from many different locations, conveniently available for picking up and incorporation into the monuments of people who enjoyed working with stone.

Now the geologists join the fray

This is a major development, with two senior geologists presenting their evidence in print. The article is in the new edition of British Archaeology, dated 9th October. Needless to say, I feel very chuffed, and don't feel quite as lonely as I did yesterday!

Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins have studied thousands of rock specimens from recent excavations at Stonehenge. They conclude that many bluestones came not from Pembrokeshire, but from a far wider area, perhaps north Wales (Snowdonia, the Llyn Peninsula and Anglesey), or even beyond. The well-known spotted dolerite is a Preseli rock, they say – but the likely source was not Carnmenyn (where archaeologists have recently claimed to have found quarries) but nearby Carngoedog.

The photo above is of Carngoedog -- identified quite a long time ago as the most likely source of the majority of the spotted dolerites, but of course studiously ignored by Profs Darvill and Wainwright and most of the other key archaeologists working in the UK.

More about ice on Salisbury Plain

Been looking at Alun's model again. There is a lot of controversy about it -- not least relating to the extensive ice shown over the uplands of Devon and Cornwall. Some people will not accept that there was ever any ice cover over dartmoor and Exmoor -- but other geomorphologists beg to differ. Personally, I have no problem with a cover of thin cold-based ice maybe 100-200m thick, moving very sluggishly -- the landscape effects will have been minimal.

It gets much more interesting when we look at Somerset and Wiltshire. The ice is shown as covering the site of Stonehenge -- again this would have been thin, sluggish ice. But I'm quite intrigued by the idea that there was a divergent ice flow over Somerset, with ice coming in from the west and then being split into two streams, one on either side of the Mendips. The southern stream, which (according to this model) reached its greatest extent near Yeovil and Sherborne, must have travelled from the NW towards the SE. The northern stream, affecting the Bath area and pressing down towards Stonehenge, would have moved approx WNW - ESE. The southern ice stream -- simply on the basis of reconstructed ice movement directions -- would have been the one most likely to have carried Pembrokeshire erratics. The northern one might have carried more material from Mid Wales and the Marches. That opens up all sorts of exciting possibilities relating to the origins of the "unknown" rock fragments that have been showing up in some recent digs on Salisbury Plain.

What is most interesting about this new work is that it pretty well confirms what dear Geoffrey Kellaway said almost 40 years ago -- and for which he has been vilified by senior archaeologists (not to mention geologists and geomorphologists) ever since.......

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........