A Gallery of Erratics from the Isles of Lewis and Harris

Callanish and its standing stones

Not everybody likes looking at old rocks stuck in the ground......

Observations from a flying visit on 7th June 2014


 Introduction

Colin Richards:  The end product -- the circle or the stone setting -- may not be the prime focus.  We should concentrate more on "the immediate and socially significant acts of quarrying and dragging individual stones" (In "Rethinking the great stone circles of Northwest Britain.") Richards does not like the idea that monoliths are always obtained from the most convenient source (because the final form was assumed to be of prime concern).  Rather, he wants the emphasis to be on the ritual acts of quarrying and transportation, and argues that there would be a preference for the use of stones from many different "special" sources. Quote: "This importantly shifts attention away from the circles and back to the location of the megalithic quarry sites."  Quote: "....  construction was a social process as much as a feat of engineering......."   Quote:  "........the discovery and investigation of quarries may reveal them to be special places, possibly already having sacred qualities."

The Lewisian Gneiss complex of NW Scotland

"The crust of NW Scotland, together with parts of Greenland and North America that make up the ancient continent of Laurentia, was built up mainly from igneous rocks that crystallized around 2900 to 2700 million years ago. At that time, the rocks we now see were deep in the Earth's crust. They were deformed and metamorphosed at very high temperatures, producing gneisses with a folded layering. Actually, there were two periods of deformation and metamorphism (named the Scourian and Laxfordian events), separated by a stable period when the crust fractured and allowed in basic magma that crystallized as a set of dykes."
http://www.earth.ox.ac.uk/~oesis/nws/nws-geolhist.html

Smashed-up coastline of highly contorted, fractured and foliated Lewisian gneiss on the Isle of Lewis, north of Callanish.  Inland from the cliffline the land surface is smoothed and streamlined as a result of intensive erosion beneath the Scottish part of the British and Irish Ice Sheet.

"Lewisian Gneiss is metamorphic, in that volcanic heat and pressure has altered its structure somewhat, originally the rocks were like granite which changed as the Earth's crust became molten and they solidified, which is the reason you can see great variations in the way the layers are displayed, ranging from the white, to pale grey and even then the really dark grey.The rock is mainly grey with coarse bands of white and dark minerals through it. The pale bands contain quartz and feldspar, whilst the darker bands are dense minerals , like maybe biotite mica and hornblend."
http://www.virtualheb.co.uk/lewisian-gneiss-rocks-of-the-isle-of-lewis-and-harris-western-isles-geology.html

For the most part the rocks exposed at the ground surface and in the cliffs of NW Lewis are felsic gneisses, which are rich in light-coloured minerals like feldspar and quartz. There are abundant masses of white quartz exposed in and near the coastline.  In places the whitish rocks could be mistaken, from a distance, for limestones......

A chunk of highly contorted Lewisian gneiss, left as a stranded erratic on a dark-coloured ice-smoothed dedrock slab.  Near Gearrannan, NW Lewis.

The Callanish landscape

The landscape around Callanish is deeply scoured by overriding ice, with abundant small knolls of Lewisian gneiss (and other ancient rocks including altered granites, pegmatites, dolerites, gabbros, schists and basalts) exposing many glaciated slabs, whaleback / streamlined forms and roches moutonnes.  It appears that the last direction of powerful ice movement might have been from the south-east towards the north-west, but there is little evidence of striations at Callanish to support this since the local rock is unsuitable -- so many of the glaciated forms might be inherited from earlier glacial phases.  There are, however, fresh striations on the outer coast and on slabs of suitable rock including basalt -- suggesting the the last ice flowed more or less S-N.  These observations are in line with the latest ice modelling which shows that there might have been a local ice cap centred in the highlands of Harris around 18,000 -16,000 years ago. (Clark et al, 2010)  It's reasonable to hypothesise that the ice from this ice cap flowed northwards across the site of Callanish, leaving behind striated bedrock and fresh glacial deposits.

Striated bedrock slabs on the coast north of Callanish.  The striations run approx south - north.

The landscape of smoothed rocky knolls and intervening depressions is very beautiful, having been determined above all else by the highly convoluted and fractured nature of the Lewisian gneiss which has allowed deep erosion in the most fractured areas and the survival of hillocks in areas where rocks are less fractured or more resistant on account of lithological differences.  In many areas it appears that meltwater has had a powerful role in landscape formation, with survivals of short sections of meltwater channels and in some cases longer deeply cut channels which appear to have been major meltwater routes.  Again, it is almost inevitable that these channels are of many different ages, with the freshest dating from the Devensian and others being of great age, periodically re-used and freshened up during the Ice Age.  In the depressions there are accumulations of till and mixed deposits incorporating fluvio-glacial materials and some periglacial or slope deposits.  Scree and rockfall deposits are rare, except beneath crags and short lengths of inland cliffs.  At the coast there is abundant evidence of rockfalls in a highly complex "high energy" coastal environment which includes collapsed caves, stacks, arches and coves containing storm beaches.

One feature makes the environment around Callanish very suitable for "stone gathering"  -- and that is the extent to which the bedrock surface has been washed by meltwater derived from the dissipating Devensian ice and maybe also from extensive snowfields at the end of the last glacial episode.  I would guess that there were many centuries of heavy snowfalls and rapid thaws in this highly dynamic western environment characterised by strong seasonal variations.  The washed surfaces are almost as spectacular as those of the Stockholm Archipelago where the coast is still recovering isostatically and is emerging from the sea; but this comparison cannot be taken too far, since there is no trace of raised shorelines here on Harris.  (There must have been considerable isostatic uplift here, so glacier ice must have survived until a late stage in the isostatic recovery process.)

Glacially streamlined whaleback forms near the coast north of Callanish.  The ice was flowing towards the N or NW.  The surfaces are washed clean by glacial meltwater and snowmelt.

In addition to the evidence of deep scouring, we see signs of cliffed sections on the western flanks of many of the knolls, where broken boulders and slabs have accumulated.  Some of these  rocks are elongated and flattened (ie similar shapes to the elongated slabs built into the Callanish monument) and are already detached from the bedrock.  Other slabs are exposed via elongated fractures parallel (and in some cases not parallel) with the foliations in the gneiss;  they are still part of the bedrock, but could be separated from it without too much difficulty through the use of wedges and levers by just a few men.   One of these cliffed faces is within 50m of the standing stones, on the W side of the rocky knoll called Cnoc an Tursa, between the standing stones and the visitor centre.  Some of the standing stones are so thin that they cannot have survived long distance transport either by ice or human agency.  So they must have come from the immediate locality -- probably within 50m - 100m of the sites where they were used. This "stone gathering" of very local stones is assumed in the bulk of the literature about Callanish. (I prefer the term "stone gathering" to the term "quarrying" since in truth virtually no technology would have been involved in the sourcing of the utilised monoliths.)

The up-glacier (SE) side of the rocky hillock at Callanish, showing heavily scoured and eroded glaciated bedrock surfaces with no remaining "litter" of erratics.  Were there any, and have they been incorporated into the stone settings?

Prof David Sugden looking at some rocks.  This is the down-glacier (SE) or lee side of the rocky knoll at Callanish, showing evidence of plucking or block loosening through pressure release at the time of ice melting, or maybe later.  There are some blocks still lying around.  Flattened slabs have fallen from the overhang -- maybe naturally, and maybe with human assistance.  These slabs have probably been incorporated into the stone settings.

Ice-smoothed slabs of Lewisian gneiss running under the wall of the Carloway Broch, some miles north of Callanish.  Note the fractures coinciding with the foliations, and note how many of the gneisses in this area break down into elongated flattened slabs.

Another exposure of Lewisian gneiss near the coast to the north of Callanish.  Note how the fractures in the rock lead to the creation of elongated flattish slabs.  They are lying about all over the place -- no need for quarrying......

What was the natural mechanism for block removal from the bedrock?  In some cases (as on the down-glacier flanks of roche moutonnees) there must have been direct plucking or dragging away of blocks by thin active glacier ice -- probably around 20,000 - 18,000 years ago.  Other blocks and elongated slabs on the flanks of glaciated ridges and knolls might have occurred by rock bursting or pressure release, possibly assisted by periglacial processes following ice wastage. This probably loosened elongated slabs and made them easily available.

The rocks used in the standing stone settings all appear to have come from the "native rock"  -- all within 100m of the places where they were set into the ground as vertical monoliths.  The coarse foliated Lewisian gneisses -- white and grey in colour -- may in some cases have been moved by ice, but not very far.  So it would not be a good idea to call them glacial erratics.    This is true of Callanish 2 and 3 as well -- in each case the stones have come for the most part from nearby crags with broken detached blocks and slabs lying about beneath them. (Mostly the source cliffs are west-facing, suggesting an easterly flow of ice maybe close to the Devensian glacial maximum?)  Some "suitable" stones are still to be seen lying around partly covered by turf.  Colin Richards has suggested that many of the flattened elongated slabs used at Callanish have one face that is more weathered than the other, suggested that the slabs were recumbent and that some faces were exposed (and affected by overriding ice) while the lower faces were protected until the slabs were levered upward by Neolithic quarrymen.  On my visit I did not notice any great difference between "fresh" and "old" stone faces, given that for the past 5,000 years or so the west-facing stone surfaces of the standing stones have received a much greater battering from the weather than the east-facing surfaces, and that north-facing surfaces have spent most of their time in shadow while south-facing surfaces have been drier and sunnier.

At Callanish 3 all the stones except two are "normal" Lewisian gneiss.  These other two are of a darker rock type-- more like dolerite.  There seems to be an exposure of it near the road about 100m away -- in the place where a boat is parked.  The outcrops here have a quite different colour from all the other rocks in the area, and a different surface patina. (I did not have time to investigate properly.)  One of the darker standing stones has a groove on its surface which looks as if it might have resulted from glacial erosion -- but I would not stake my reputation on it.  Another source of confusion arises from the fact that for the greater part of 5,000 years  the Callanish stones have had their lower parts buried in an extensive "protective" cover of blanket bog.  When the stones were excavated, this layer of peat was stripped away, and records show that it was in places 5 feet thick.  

Conclusion

The 3 Callanish monuments were built here because this is where elongated slabs were available in some abundance.  For the most part the stones would have simply been available as litter on the flanks of some of the glaciated knolls in the Callanish area.  One cannot discount the theory that some slabs might have been  forced from the rock face, but this sort of human intervention would generally have been unnecessary, since there must have been an abundant litter of slabs available on a relatively clean rock surface in Neolithic times.  Indeed, many slabs and pillars are still available, lying about in the landscape, and either unused or rejected as being unsuitable (too heavy, not elongated enough etc). Many of these remaining stones are buried or partly buried in the turf.   I can see no evidence of serious quarrying.  Neither do I see any evidence that the stone settings were put up in predetermined "auspicious places" (related to astronomical alignments etc) and that the builders travelled far to find stones to fit what they were intent upon doing.  Callanish 1 is in quite a prominent position, on a ridge, so it might have been put there as a sign of status, or to impress neighbouring tribes etc.  But to claim anything else would be fanciful.  Callanish 2 and 3 are not in very prominent positions at all -- but they are very close to potential rock sources. 

So was there a huge and deliberate quarrying exercise designed to provide stones for a group of stone monuments in predetermined auspicious locations related to astronomical alignments?  No -- the evidence on the ground does not support this.

(My thanks to my colleague Prof David Sugden, in whose company I visited the site and whose observations and suggestions are incorporated in these notes.)

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

What was Callanish for?

The Callanish No 1 stone settings, seen from the air

How about this for an hypothesis? "If you draw a straight line from stone 2 to stone 5 of the Callanish Circle, it hits the horizon at the precise location of the brightest star in the constellation Magnus Minor on the 5th day of February every 54th year. This suggests that the builders of the circle were technically very advanced, with a detailed knowledge of the heavens, and that the tribal groups involved performed certain rituals on every occasion that this auspicious event occurred. It also suggests that the movements of the stars, and not the sun, were the events that governed the key ceremonies of the tribal year."

OK -- that's all a bit far-fetched, but it's not all that far removed from the most popular hypothesis relating to the PURPOSE of Callanish.

According to at least some of the literature, Callanish is where it is, and is designed as it is, because the moon skims especially low over the southern the horizon once every 18.6 years, "dancing along the distant hills like a great god visiting the earth." So, the theory goes, those who were blessed with the knowledge of this event (the proto-astronomers) were invested with earthly authority by simple folks whose daily lives were governed by the great cycles of the tides, the seasons, the movements of the sun and the moon and the stars. As fas as romantic twaddle goes, this is almost as delightful as the Magnus Minor hypothesis.

So let's get real here. The stone setting as we see it today consists of the following elements:

1. A circle that is not quite circular or symmetrical, with irregularly spaced stones of many different heights, and a large central monolith that is not quite in the centre of the ring.

2. A southern stone row with irregularly spaced monoliths which is almost aligned N-S, but which is actually slightly curved.

3. An avenue consisting of 19 stones on the northern side of the "circle" -- with two rows that are not parallel. They are actually converging towards the circle. Again, the spacing of the stones is quite irregular. There are considerable gaps in these rows -- have the missing stones been removed, or were they never put up in the first place?

4. Two short alignments of stones roughly at right angles to the avenue, one to the west of the circle and one to the east. They are not truly aligned E-W, and the one is not lined up with the other. They are actually a little to the south of the centre of the circle, and so the big central stone is not on an alignment of either the western arm or the eastern one. Again the spacing of stones in these arms is irregular, and there appear to be gaps.

5. There are two eccentric stones to the south of the stone circle, one to the west of the southern row and the other to the east of it.

The Callanish stone "circle", seen from the centre of the avenue

Some of the stones of the "circle", with the tallest central stone left of centre.  The ruins of the chambered cairn are irrelevant to the present discussion.

The magnificent central stone and some of the others of the circle.  Here we also see the ruins of the chambered cairn.

The stones are mightily impressive, but if truth be told the settings are a bit of a shambles, and one has to do a great deal of stretching of credibility to see any precise geometrical arrangements at Callanish, let alone any attempt on the part of the builders to align their stones with auspicious heavenly happenings.

So what was Callanish for?  I can understand why Colin Richards now says that the final form of the monument was not important in places like Callanish --  indeed, why would lots of clever people want to build a stone monument in which nothing quite fits, and in which the circle is not circular, and the lines are all curved and wobbly?  One would have to conclude that they were either careless or incompetent, or even plain stupid. So if you want to maintain a belief in the cleverness of your Neolithic tribesmen, you might well argue instead, as Colin has done, that the final form was immaterial and that the REAL reason for Callanish lies in the skillful quarrying of the stones from auspicious places and the transportation of said stones to a single place where they could be used as status symbols or for ritual purposes.  The ACTIVITIES themselves were the things that mattered, creating social coherence and demonstrating the organizational abilities of the leaders and the technical skills of the workers.

Hmmm.  Don't like any of that either.  It's almost as fanciful as the Magnus Minor hypothesis. Colin is shifting the centre of attention from the stone settings in the ground to the quarries.  That means he has to find quarries by hook or by crook............ even if there aren't any........

So here's my theory.  The Callanish stone settings are where they are because that is where the stones were.  A lot of STONE GATHERING went on (I use that term quite deliberately, instead of the term "quarrying", since the latter implies a degree of technical skill and organization that I currently see no sign of).  The broad ridge to the north of the glaciated rocky knoll called Cnoc an Tursa was relatively dry and stable, with sediments thick enough for stone sockets.  There was also a good solid surface for dragging and arranging the stones into the positions chosen for the stone settings.  I think the builders were attracted by patterns and not alignments, although there may have been some desire to align the axis of the monument  with the highest point reached by the sun in the middle of summer, with the avenue directed roughly towards the darkest part of the winter sky.  The cross arms might have been deliberately pointed roughly towards the equinox sunset and sunrise. The emphasis is on the word "roughly" -- and I do not think that the builders were especially bothered about accuracy.

Given that a lot of human effort was expended here at Callanish, what was it for?  We may never know the answer to that, and we can speculate till the Highland cattle come home about rituals, but I think Callanish was all about status -- built by people who simply wanted to impress their neighbours.  A grand folly, just like all the other grand follies that continue to be built by arrogant (and even mad) people to this day.

The stones are mightily impressive, but if truth be told the settings are a bit of a shambles, and one has to do a great deal of stretching of credibility to see any precise geometrical arrangements at Callanish, let alone any attempt on the part of the builders to align their stones with auspicious heavenly happenings.

So what was Callanish for? I can understand why Colin Richards now says that the final form of the monument was not important in places like Callanish -- indeed, why would lots of clever people want to build a stone monument in which nothing quite fits, and in which the circle is not circular, and the lines are all curved and wobbly? One would have to conclude that they were either careless or incompetent, or even plain stupid. So if you want to maintain a belief in the cleverness of your Neolithic tribesmen, you might well argue instead, as Colin has done, that the final form was immaterial and that the REAL reason for Callanish lies in the skillful quarrying of the stones from auspicious places and the transportation of said stones to a single place where they could be used as status symbols or for ritual purposes. The ACTIVITIES themselves were the things that mattered, creating social coherence and demonstrating the organizational abilities of the leaders and the technical skills of the workers.

Hmmm. Don't like any of that either. It's almost as fanciful as the Magnus Minor hypothesis. Colin is shifting the centre of attention from the stone settings in the ground to the quarries. That means he has to find quarries by hook or by crook............ even if there aren't any........

So here's my theory. The Callanish stone settings are where they are because that is where the stones were. A lot of STONE GATHERING went on (I use that term quite deliberately, instead of the term "quarrying", since the latter implies a degree of technical skill and organization that I currently see no sign of). The broad ridge to the north of the glaciated rocky knoll called Cnoc an Tursa was relatively dry and stable, with sediments thick enough for stone sockets. There was also a good solid surface for dragging and arranging the stones into the positions chosen for the stone settings. I think the builders were attracted by patterns and not alignments, although there may have been some desire to align the axis of the monument with the highest point reached by the sun in the middle of summer, with the avenue directed roughly towards the darkest part of the winter sky. The cross arms might have been deliberately pointed roughly towards the equinox sunset and sunrise. The emphasis is on the word "roughly" -- and I do not think that the builders were especially bothered about accuracy.

Given that a lot of human effort was expended here at Callanish, what was it for? We may never know the answer to that, and we can speculate till the Highland cattle come home about rituals, but I think Callanish was all about status -- built by people who simply wanted to impress their neighbours. A grand folly, just like all the other grand follies that continue to be built by arrogant (and even mad) people to this day.

Watch this space -- now that I have stopped travelling, I'll soon put up another post about the geology and landscape of Callanish, with some further thoughts on the purpose of the stone settings.

Brithdir Mawr Stone Circle

 The Brithdir Mawr stone circle, with Carningli in the background.

Acknowledgement to Ian Pegler and Megalithic Portal for this pic, which is the nicest one I have been able to find while I am absent from my own photo library.

The stone circle at Brithdir Mawr is not supposed to be there -- ie it is not recorded on any maps or on the Welsh archaeological sites data base.  But there it is, not far from the road, and clearly visible from the summit and flanks of Carningli.  The details are from hearsay, but as I recall, about 20 years ago somebody from the Brithdir community noticed a couple of recumbent stones in a field and thought they looked interesting.  so they were investigated, and as a result of dowsing by various people it was realised that there was a whole circle of recumbent stones buried in the turf.  Without any consents or notifications, a sort of long-term project was started, and over the course of several years many people were involved in digging up the stones and placing them in their "proper" positions.  The task was completed in 2002.

Is the site really important, or is it a piece of fantasy?  Should the members of the community have consulted with Cadw or Dyfed Archaeological Trust before taking it upon themselves to "reconstruct" the circle?  If they had, there would have been decades of bureaucratic nonsense to cope with, and there is no way the circle ever would have been reconstructed.  Have the stone erectors done untold damage to a valuable site?  Who knows........

The stones now in position in the circle are for the most part short and stumpy -- less than 2m high.  They are also well spaced, and there is no way they could have supported lintels.  If the site is a genuine prehistoric site (and this remains to be demonstrated) it will be more closely related to Gors Fawr and other Pembs circles than to Stonehenge or Callanish.  Watch this space.....

Here is an extract from the "Powerful Places" web site:

On my return, I was immediately asked by friends to go to Brithdir Mawr, a community in Pembrokeshire, and while sitting talking, I noticed a picture of a standing stone on the wall. When I asked where it was situated, my friends said it was in their field. They wanted me to look at it as they thought it might be the remnant of a stone circle. Indeed, buried in the ground were 20 or so stones, forming a fairly coherent circle. I offered to help bring them out of the ground to remake the circle for all to see.

I had blithely assumed that the stones would be of a comparable (small) size to the only stone circle left in the area, Gors Fawr, and be around 1-2 tons at most. But when we started digging them out, they were actually more like 5-9 tons, and our original plan to get them up over a weekend had to be abandoned!

Over the next two years we spent several weeks at the site, moving approximately three stones each time, with levers and wooden rollers, until an amazing, beautiful circle emerged. Most of the stones were already in position, i.e., they were suitably placed to mark the rising and setting points of the sun and moon over the course of the years and the months. This seems to have been a major feature of most ancient circles, making them stone calendars. We moved a few to mark points not covered already. The finished circle is an amazing place to be and, when dowsed, has many energy leys running through and around it.

Many people saw this circle, and soon another friend asked me to create a circle for her for a new Community Woodland project. This was also in the Preseli Mountains, and we found many bluestones around the edges of the fields to use for the circle. The old maps of the place showed a stone row and a burial chamber/dolmen. So we decided to make a new dolmen too, and to resurrect at least one stone from the row, in the centre of the field leading up to the circle, and another next to the circle, as an outlier. This is a common feature in Welsh circles.

http://www.powerfulplaces.com/blog/a-modern-creator-of-stone-circles/

Breaking News! Proto Stonehenge discovered near Newport!

So there we are then.  One of the followers of this blog has kindly brought a press release to my attention.  With a notable lack of self-doubt, our old friend Robin Heath (see some earlier entries on this blog) has announced that he has found the original version of Stonehenge, near Newport in Pembrokeshire.  To quote:  "Breathtakingly accurate, what has been discovered is a work of creative genius, completely lost until now and totally absent from our history books."

I'm always happy to promote (or at least mention) the work of other Stonehenge researchers -- so check the links to Robin's sites, or keep an eye on Megalithic Portal if you want to know more.  Unfortunately, there is no mention of any of this on Robin's sites -- maybe more info will be posted shortly.

The location of the earth-shattering site is clearly a closely guarded secret, known only to a few initiates.  I thought my ear was fairly close to the ground in the Newport area, since that is where I live -- but this is all news to me.  All I can assume is that Robin has been working at the "reconstructed" stone circle at Brithdir Mawr -- but I am just speculating.........

Hang on in there, folks.  Robin will reveal all in a carefully stage-managed event on 22nd June, which is of course just after the summer solstice.
 
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Grateful thanks to Megalithic Portal for this info, published today.
http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?thold=-1&mode=flat&order=0&sid=2146414202#52705

'Proto Stonehenge' discovered in West Wales 

 submitted by dodomad

Here's what Robin Heath claims to have discovered. Over to him:

The rumours are already about, at least here in West Wales, that I've discovered a Welsh Stonehenge. 'Tis true, I own it, and I call the artifact the Proto Stonehenge, because it dates earlier than the pile of impressively large stones on Salisbury Plain, and it uses the same design rules as were later to be applied to the earlier (pre-sarsen circle) stages of the monument.

It provides a second and unconnected link between the Preseli hills and Stonehenge, supporting the argument that the bluestones were taken to Stonehenge ' at vast expense of toil' by human action.

This is a significant moment in our understanding of what Thom called megalithic science and what most archaeologists have called the lunatic fringe. It is going to be very hard to dismiss what I have found, and I have involved several significant others in checking it out. Green lights from them all.

STONEHENGE – The Welsh Connection
Presentation, Exhibition, Book Launch and Q&A session by Robin Heath
At the Small World Theatre, Cardigan, Wales on Sunday the 22nd June at 1:30 pm

A (very) Brief History of Modern Attempts to understand Stonehenge. Stonehenge evolved over fifteen centuries. The early phases of the monument began around 3150 BC and consisted of a 380 foot (115m) diameter circular bank, which created a ditch outside the circle. Inside the circular arena was an alignment to the solstitial sunrise, through a break in the bank to the Heel stone. A century later, 56 large holes were dug around the perimeter of an accurate 283 foot (86m) circle, now known as the Aubrey circle after the antiquarian John Aubrey, who discovered the remains of these holes. Current ideas are that these holes may once have held wooden posts or even bluestones.

About a century further on, a bluestone semi-circle was built in the centre, which had lintels carried aloft long 8ft slender uprights. This was truly a proto-Stonehenge, for in the middle of building this first architectural structure, a much more ambitious project was about the be initiated, that of hauling seventy five huge sarsen sandstones, some weighing in at forty tons, from the Marlborough Downs, twenty miles north of Stonehenge, near Avebury stone circle. This became the 100 ft diameter sarsen circle and the trilithon horseshoe. Prior to the arrival of these monsters, perhaps around 2800 BC, four standing stones were placed around the perimeter of the Aubrey circle to define a ‘near perfect’ rectangle whose side lengths were in the ratio 5:12.

The sarsen structures at Stonehenge, the circle and the five bigger trilithons that rise up inside the circle, are the logo that everyone thinks of when the word Stonehenge is mentioned. However, this is the grandiose later structure, and the earlier phases are just as important. There are still the remains of most of the bluestones on site. Some were very polished, some still have the tenon or mortice joints that must have once enabled them to form a trilithon structure in the earlier bluestone ‘henge’. These recycled bluestones were placed in a bluestone circle within the sarsen circle or in a horseshoe arrangement within the trilithons.

Stonehenge in Modern (post-Roman) Times

The link between Stonehenge and West Wales goes back much further than one might think, Carmarthen-born legend Merlin claimed that the Stones arrived from Ireland, in a fanciful tale invoking giants, yet in his lifetime, West Wales was administered by the Irish and even the language spoken here was Irish. But there’s another problem with Merlin’s tale – the stones to which he refers are the giant sarsen stones, which weigh up to 40 tons, not the bluestones which weigh in at a tenth of this.

In 1603 a local Pembrokeshire nobleman, George Owen, who, according to a brass plaque in Nevern church was ‘The Patriarch of English(!) Geologists’, made a connection between the stones and the design of Pentre Ifan and Stonehenge. And in 1655, Architect General to the King, Inigo Jones made the first well popularised (and very inaccurate plan) of the inner part of Stonehenge, for King James I. Major archaeological surveys of the monument have been undertaken during the last two centuries.

Sir William Flinders Petrie, the ‘father of modern archaeology’, accurately surveyed the inner part of Stonehenge in the 1870s, before he was twenty years old. IN the early part of the twentieth century, Col Hawley spent years excavating the site, adding greatly to our knowledge of what Stonehenge had once been. In the 1950s professor Richard Atkinson, from UCSW, Cardiff, devoted many years to another major survey, and one outcome was a bestselling book called simply, Stonehenge, published in 1956 by Hamish Hamilton. In 1973, Atkinson asked ‘the father of modern archaeoastronomy’ professor Alexander Thom, to undertake ‘the most accurate survey ever undertaken of the monument at ground level’.

The Matter of the Bluestones

In the Preseli mountains of coastal West Wales, there are several volcanic outcrops that during the past ninety years have been identified as the source of the bluestone megaliths at Stonehenge. In 1923, Geologist Dr H H Thomas published an academic paper suggesting that many of the Stonehenge bluestones had come the Preselis. This discovered has fuelled along standing debate, acrimonious at times, as to whether these stones arrived at Stonehenge through deliberate human intent, or by the action of glacial flow.

Recent work by professor Mike Parker Pearson (UCL), and geologists from Aberystwyth University, has employed improved petrological analyis to begin the process of identifying the source of each of the bluestones  that now remain at Stonehenge.

Supposing it can ever be proved that human endeavour was responsible for moving these 4 ton monsters all the way from Preseli to Salisbury Plain, then beyond marvelling at the engineering and cooperative skills shown by our distant ancestors, a much bigger question needs to be answered. That question is why they should have moved these stones over 150 miles? What purpose was being served by moving them? Robin Heath now claims to have an answer.

Robin is an independent researcher and author of three books on Stonehenge. He has been working for over twenty-five years to find an answer to this question, and that answer is to be found in the landscape of West Wales, near Newport, Pembrokeshire. In the summer of 2013 he discovered a previously unknown megalithic complex, a Proto Stonehenge, forging a second link has been forged between the Preseli region of Wales and Stonehenge.

This discovery, duly surveyed with modern theodolites , GPS and satellite imagery, reveals that Stonehenge was the end result of a long project undertaken over several centuries. The goal was to develop a Neolithic technology capable of accurately measuring and recording time and space. Breathtakingly accurate, what has been discovered is a work of creative genius, completely lost until now and totally absent from our history books. Once understood, it allows us to lift the capabilities of Neolithic culture to a new level and reveals a practical prehistoric science with which to integrate the rhythms and cycles of the sky with those experienced on earth.

The Small World Theatre Event

The forthcoming presentation of this discovery takes place at the Small World Theatre, Cardigan, and is appropriately timed for the midsummer solstice period, on Sunday June 22nd. A small exhibition with large models will also be available, and Robin will be launching his new book, Proto-Stonehenge in Wales, to begin telling a new story about how Stonehenge came to be, and why, and how our ancestors forged the earliest known beginnings of astronomy and surveying in West Wales.

Biography

Robin Heath is an independent researcher and for over twenty five years has lectured widely, in Britain, Ireland and France, undertaking tours, presentations, workshops and media interviews on the ancient megalithic  sciences. An internationally published author of seven books on the subject of megalithic science, including four with Stonehenge in their title, Robin’s book Stonehenge (Wooden Books, 2000) has remained a best-seller at the monument. Previously the head of technology at Coleg Ceredigion, for the past thirty years Robin has lived in the Preseli region of West Wales.

Bibliography

Robin Heath is the author of A Key to Stonehenge (1993), Sun, Moon & Stonehenge (1998), Sun, Moon & Earth (1999), A Beginner’s Guide to Stone Circles, Hodder-Headline (1999), Stonehenge (2000), The Measure of Albion (with John Michell, 2004), The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth (2006), Powerpoints (2007), and Bluestone Magic (2010).

Further details are available at www.skyandlandscape.com or www.robinheath.info

The East Greenland Albums

I've been compiling a number of photo albums in connection with my new novel set in East Greenland during the Cold War. Incidentally, the albums contain some fantastic images of glaciated terrain and glaciers -- by all means take a look and enjoy!  The links should work OK.

Arctic Riviera 1.  https://www.facebook.com/brian.john.526/media_set?set=a.702247896457246.1073741827.100000161271278&type=3

Arctic Riviera 2.  https://www.facebook.com/brian.john.526/media_set?set=a.702257586456277.1073741828.100000161271278&type=3

Arctic Riviera 3.  https://www.facebook.com/brian.john.526/media_set?set=a.194066627275378.57631.100000161271278&type=3

Arctic Riviera 4.  https://www.facebook.com/brian.john.526/media_set?set=a.892694900745877.1073741840.100000161271278&type=3

Acts of God.  https://www.facebook.com/brian.john.526/media_set?set=a.720426031306099.1073741830.100000161271278&type=3

East Greenland Seasons.  https://www.facebook.com/brian.john.526/media_set?set=a.794725497209485.1073741835.100000161271278&type=3

East Greenland Trappers' Huts.  https://www.facebook.com/brian.john.526/media_set?set=a.748079405207428.1073741833.100000161271278&type=3

Historic photo -- Oxford Icelandic Expedition 1960

If anybody wondered where all this interest in ice and glaciers came from, it all dates back to 1960 when my mate David Sugden and I decided to mount an intrepid expedition to Iceland.  This pic was taken in my room in Jesus College, Oxford, while we were getting all our gear together.  There's young we look......

In the valley of Kaldalon in NW Iceland I met my first glacier, and it was love at first sight.  Some people hate glaciers, but luckily I have never had any seriously bad experiences on them, so I am probably biased or starry-eyed. (Never been in a crevasse, but there have been episodes of extreme discomfort, not to mention exhaustion in connection with whiteouts and horrible conditions around the firn line........)  Maybe my good luck has something to do with the fact that I have always treated glaciers with the utmost respect, and have never taken stupid risks.

After that 1960 expedition we actually managed to get a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal, Geografiska Annaler, so we were very chuffed.   It wasn't very learned or original, and I suppose the Editor published it just in order to encourage us, but that was the start of quite a few other adventures, not to mention two academic careers!