Posted on 06/13/2006 7:27:54 AM PDT by billorites
A geology team has contradicted claims that bluestones were dug by Bronze Age man from a west Wales quarry and carried 240 miles to build Stonehenge.
In a new twist, Open University geologists say the stones were in fact moved to Salisbury Plain by glaciers.
Last year archaeologists said the stones came from the Preseli Hills.
Recent research in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology suggests the stones were ripped from the ground and moved by glaciers during the Ice Age.
Geologists from the Open University first claimed in 1991 that the bluestones at one of Britain's best-known historic landmarks had not come from a quarry, but from different sources in the Preseli area.
The recent work was conducted by a team headed by Professor Olwen Williams-Thorpe, who said she and her colleagues had used geochemical analysis to trace the origins of axe heads found at Stonehenge and this backed up the original work.
| There has been a great reluctance to allow facts to interfere with a good story Dr Brian John |
"We concluded that the small number of axes that are actually bluestone derive from several different outcrops within Preseli," she said.
"Axes found at or near Stonehenge are very likely to be from the same outcrops as the monoliths, and could even be made of left-over bits of the monoliths."
The research
Dr Brian John, a geomorphologist living in Pembrokeshire, said he always thought the idea that Bronze Age man had quarried the stones and then taken them so far "stretched credibility".
But he said the debate would go on until someone was able to prove beyond doubt what happened one way or the other.
"This is very exciting, and it moves the bluestone debate on from the fanciful and unscientific assertions of the past," he said.
"Much of the archaeology in recent years has been based upon the assumption that Bronze Age man had a reason for transporting bluestones all the way from west Wales to Stonehenge and the technical capacity to do it.
"That has been the ruling hypothesis, and there has been a great reluctance to allow facts to interfere with a good story.
"Glaciers may move very slowly, but they have an excellent record when it comes to the transport of large stones from one part of the country to another."
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
Makes more sense than what Hawass is babbling!
All one has to do to appreciate the amount of rocks that can and will be deposited by glaciers is drive the back roads of Southern New England during Winter and observe the stone walls built by farmers who had removed them from their fields.
And thats in an area that was agrarian for maybe 250-300 years, not thousands.
Glacial movement may or may not be what happened to bring the boulders to Stonehenge, but it can’t be ruled out as a reasonable possibility.
Indeed and it makes for a beautiful part of the world, New England.
If the stones were brought by glaciers, then it must have been the glaciers that were manipulated by the Ancient Aliens, right?
Thanks for that link, the pic, the info. The Avebury stones came from there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockeridge#Landmarks
The glacier advocates claim that the absence of evidence — tools, rollers, ‘gouges’ — means the stones weren’t moved by humans. Since the large menhirs clearly were shaped, there must have been tools around to shape them, but by the same argument — absence of tools — the menhirs must have arrived by glaciers as well, and preshaped. The fact that the tools are not still laying around doesn’t mean that there were never any tools.
During his discussion of the bluestones from Wales, the advocate also states that the 45 ton stones left no marks on the way there — but that’s a straw man argument, as the bluestones only weigh around 4 tons each. And of course, if the bluestones were just random chunks of rock ripped out and moved by a glacier, why the similar size and shape? If there were a pile of them somewhere nearby, which there isn’t, one would expect a variety of shapes and sizes that were rejected, and possibly tailings from shaping those which were moved to the site on the plain and erected. They must have been shaped by tools, but noooooo! The tools are not around any longer.
:’)
Those dirty extraterrestrial ice-driving b*st*rds!
Dig it.
It ain’t all that bad.
After all, we got a nice stack of rocks out of the deal.
Interesting. I love this stuff, it’s all so fascinating. Thanks for this (and all your other posts/work), much appreciated.
The article doesn’t say, but I wonder if any work has been done to try to chart the direction of British glaciers? The Preseli Hills are West North West of Salisbury. The glacier would have to have been basically traveling East to move the stones to Salisbury. But I have always been under the impression the glaciers were a North-South thing.
Thanks Natufian! The stone age ancestors really roc-, uh, never mind. ;’)
Yes, that's a great big hole in the hypothesis, apparently.
now that’s funny
i just finished (i hope) some work on a project where that happened twice
Living near the terminus of the Ordovician glacier and looking around a bit causes me to believe that in “glacier terms,” the movement of surface debris is more like using a squeegee on a window than a broom in the dirt.
My neck of the woods are littered with glacial erratics. Some are in the middle of broad, alluvial rich river valleys, some sit atop hills and mountains. It would make sense to use a glacial erratic that was already sitting atop a small rise on a plain. It would stick out like a sore thumb for nomadic hunters as a landmark, gathering place. Wouldn’t take long for some to get a belly fully of elk and a little bit of fermented juice and then next thing you know Thog says, “Hey, hold my leather flask. Watch this.” And soon it’s a drunken project.
At a global level of analysis that's true.
At a smaller scale, more local topographical features may be the major determinant of the direction of glacial advances/retreats.
:’) The large ‘sarsen’ stones at Stonehenge were clearly carved under the supervision of a Type A personality. One of the lintel stones was begun on the ‘wrong’ side, and the big boss — whomever it was — made the workers change it, do it ‘right’. The problem was, they were partly done on the ‘wrong’ side, and there mistake survives.
Many more sites all over the place:
https://www.pinterest.com/JudithZiyal/megaliths-dolmen-menhirs-hunebedden/
Castlerigg, for instance:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CastleriggStoneCircle(SimonLedingham)Jul2005.jpg
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