Posted on 12/07/2015 1:02:37 PM PST by BenLurkin
The study, published in the current issue of the journal Antiquity, indicates that two quarries in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, in southwest Wales, are the source of Stonehenge’s bluestones. Carbon dating revealed such stones were dug out at least 500 years before Stonehenge was built — suggesting they were first used in a local monument that was later dismantled and dragged off to England.
The very large standing stones at Stonehenge are sarsen, a local sandstone. The smaller ones, known as bluestones, consist of volcanic and igneous rocks, the most common of which are called dolerite and rhyolite.
Geologists have known since the 1920s that the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge from somewhere in the Preseli Hills, around 140 miles from Stonehenge. But the outcrops of Carn Goedog were only recently identified as the main source of Stonehenge’s dolerite and Craig Rhos-y-felin as the source for the rhyolite bluestones.
The new research focused specifically on the Craig Rhos-y-felin outcrops.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
Thanks BenLurkin! For years there's been an intermittent beef that the stones were largely chipped off in Wales and moved to the Salisbury Plain by glaciers, during the last ice age. It's not so, of course.
And it's about time for those eccentric anachronistic nutjobs pretending to be druids (and the druids didn't build Stonehenge) carried out their annual solstice stupidity.
I doubt they know what they are talking about. You can’t use carbon dating on rocks. It only works on dead, but former living, things:
Carbon-14 is an unstable isotope of carbon, Carbon-12 being the stable form. Living things, being made of carbon to a large extent, have a ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-14 which is the same throughout life. But once they die and stop eating, the carbon-14 decays slowly to an isotope of nitrogen, with a half-life of maybe 6000 years. Of course, the nitrogen goes into the atmosphere. Over time, the ratio changes to have more and more carbon-12 represented. After some years, all of the carbon-14 has decayed, leaving only carbon-12 represented. After that time, carbon dating is not available.
It is more likely that Stonhenge was built right where it is now, using rocks quarried from another place. Probably the heavy stones were moved just the same way as the blocks that make up the pyramids, by extraterrestrials. LOL.
Or, and more likely - it was prefabricated in Wales. It doesn’t make sense to ship the raw material. More weight, and a chance that fabrication will destroy the piece you just shipped at a great expense. As today, it makes far more sense to fabricate it in the yard before shipping it to it’s destination.
That’s the problem with science types. a lack of real-world experience often causes them to postulate erroneously. Like their declaration that the stones were moved by manpower over corduroy roads. Insanity.
Ah...like the American Constitution
stoned henge?
Good grief, they moved it?
Those neolithic people didn’t sit around staring at their iCampfires all day did they?
Refrigerator Henge?
If they’d finish that and fill it with beer they might attract a significant following.
Only to be expected when Druid priestess’ are involved.
“Athelstone, I’ve been thinking since the last summer solstice that the Stones are looking a bit crowded, what with all these oaks blocking the view.
I know a delightful spot on the Salisbury plain with simply marvelous views all around. Location, location, location, first three laws of real estate and religion you know.
Would you be a dear?”
Back when roadies were roadies.
I found this amusing:
‘No evidence’ Stonehenge bluestones quarried
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-35025352
[snip] Radiocarbon-dating of burnt hazelnuts and charcoal from the quarry-workers’ camp fires reveals that there were several occurrences of megalith-quarrying at these outcrops. Stonehenge was built during the Neolithic period, between 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Both of the quarries in Preseli were exploited in the Neolithic, and Craig Rhos-y-felin was also quarried in the Bronze Age, around 4,000 years ago. [/snip]
http://phys.org/news/2015-12-stonehenge-bluestone-quarries-miles-wales.html
http://cdn.phys.org/newman/csz/news/800/2015/stonehengebl.jpg
:’D
The extremely useful road that passed right by the site has been totally removed, now.
Access is either Shank's Pony or a Silly Landtrain pulled by a LandRover.
So those Stones are stuck in place now ,Pickfords will never be able to move them again.
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