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Famed British Geologist Was Spectacularly Wrong About Stonehenge
Live Science ^ | July 6, 2018 | Laura Geggel, Senior Writer

Posted on 07/12/2018 4:00:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

In 1923, famed British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas published a seminal study on Stonehenge, claiming to have found the precise spots where prehistoric people had quarried the stones.

There was just one problem with his analysis: It was wrong. And it has taken geologists about 80 years to get it right, a new study finds.

To debunk Thomas' work, Bevins and Ixer donned their Sherlock Holmes hats and examined Thomas' maps and rock samples. Thomas (1876-1935) was a geologist for the British Geological Survey who spent just one day in December 1906 surveying Mynydd Preseli...

During his Preseli Hills visit, Thomas collected several samples of distinctively spotted dolerite, a type of bluish gray stone of the same kind used in Stonehenge's smaller bluestones, at an outcrop called Carn Meini. About 10 years later, the Society of Antiquaries of London had a package containing debris from Stonehenge's bluestones (named for their bluish tinge when wet or broken) sent to Thomas and asked him to determine the stones' provenance.

Upon opening the parcel from the society, Thomas immediately recognized these Stonehenge samples as being identical stones of Carn Meini, the researchers wrote in the study. Thomas also identified another spot on the southern slope of the Preseli Hills, called Cerrig Marchogion, as a spotted dolerite outcrop.

Thomas was so widely respected that nobody questioned his work for decades. Moreover, it led to the idea that, after getting the bluestones from Carn Meini, the prehistoric people then traveled southward, downhill, to Milford Haven, where they apparently picked up Stonehenge's purplish-green altar stone (made of sandstone) and then possibly boated the stones though Bristol Channel as one leg of the trip back to Salisbury Plain, Ixer said.

(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: ancientnavigation; archaeoastronomy; carngoedog; carnmeini; godsgravesglyphs; justatroll; megaliths; navigation; pembrokeshire; plateofsimpleton; preselihills; stonehenge; ufos
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Herbert Henry Thomas

Herbert Henry Thomas

1 posted on 07/12/2018 4:00:09 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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To: SunkenCiv

it wasn’t aliens?


2 posted on 07/12/2018 4:05:53 PM PDT by beergarden
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To: SunkenCiv

https://youtu.be/HMofDWzfA6A
Builder. One man.


3 posted on 07/12/2018 4:08:18 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: beergarden

.
Just a pagan sungod worshipping observatory.
.


4 posted on 07/12/2018 4:12:06 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (Freepers: Not as smart as I'd hoped they'd be)
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It gets better:
The towering rocks at Stonehenge are so heavy that, according to a new controversial idea, a glacier, rather than Neolithic people, may have carried them from western Wales and dropped them off at Salisbury Plain in England, where the ancient monument stands today...

This glacier hypothesis isn't new; it was first proposed in 1902 in the journal Archaeologia. But a seminal 1923 paper by British geologist Herbert Henry Thomas -- who linked the bluestones to rock outcrops in Pembrokeshire in western Wales -- dismissed the glacier idea....

But many archaeologists disagree, saying that this hypothesis lacks evidence and downplays the achievements, skill and imagination that the ancient builders likely displayed...

The bluestones (named for their bluish tinge when wet or broken) are considerably smaller. They weigh up to 4 tons (3.6 metric tons) and are made up of about 30 types of rock that come from several locations in western Wales, a distance of about 140 miles (225 km).

Archaeologists, to put it mildly, disagree.

"[The glacier hypothesis] is looking increasingly untenable," Josh Pollard, a professor of archaeology at the University of Southampton in England, told Live Science. "We just don't find evidence of glacial deposits with big chunks of bluestone anywhere near Stonehenge. And it's inherently unlikely that Neolithic communities would have entirely picked over and removed all deposits of glacial [stones]." ...

Glacial rocks are typically scuffed up, he added. While some of the bluestones at Stonehenge -- such as the spotted dolerite -- are too hard to get scrape marks from a glacier, the rhyolites and sandstones aren't, Pollard said.

"I would think [the rhyolite] would just disintegrate, to be honest, if it was in glacial deposits," he said...

What's more, other stone monuments in the Neolithic United Kingdom do include rocks from afar, including Scotland's Ring of Brodgar and Ireland's Newgrange. Even though other monuments include only local stone, that doesn't mean exceptions don't exist, he said.
| New Controversial Idea About Stonehenge Has Archaeologists Shaking Their Heads | Laura Geggel | May 21, 2018

5 posted on 07/12/2018 4:12:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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Archaeologists Figure Out Mystery Of Stonehenge Bluestones
IC Wales | 6-24-2005 | Western Mail
Posted on 06/24/2005 10:14:46 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1429888/posts

Stonehenge First Built in Wales, Study Claims
discovery.com | Rossella Lorenzi
Posted on 12/07/2015 1:02:37 PM PST by BenLurkin
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3369467/posts


6 posted on 07/12/2018 4:13:38 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: beergarden
#2: "it wasn’t aliens?"

No it wasn't aliens. It was ancient Zulu tribesmen from Africa who quarried the stone from the diamond mines and transported the monoliths to Albion on giant ancient African cargo planes.

Of course this was long before the blue-eyed devils stole all their technology and burned all the African libraries, leaving them for centuries without a pot to p*ss in.
 

7 posted on 07/12/2018 4:14:00 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (MAGA in the mornin', MAGA in the evenin', MAGA at suppertime . . .)
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New glacier theory on Stonehenge
BBC News | June 13, 2006
Posted on 06/13/2006 10:27:54 AM EDT by billorites
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1648503/posts


8 posted on 07/12/2018 4:15:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: Snickering Hound
If one man can put it up, then one man can take it down.


9 posted on 07/12/2018 4:15:56 PM PDT by C210N (Republicans sign check fronts; 'Rats sign check backs.)
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To: SunkenCiv

The click-bait headline makes it sound like Thomas was completely in error about his research.

“After spending 10 years examining various rocky outcrops in the Preseli Mountains, Bevins and Ixer realized that Stonehenge’s bluestones did, in fact, come from the Preseli Mountains, but from completely different outcrops than Thomas had initially identified.”

Whoop-de-do. They fine-tuned his work. They didn’t debunk it.

But that doesn’t make for an interesting read. The writer had to make it sound like Thomas was involved in some petrological cover-up and super-sleuths Bevins and Ixer used modern techniques and knowledge not available to Thomas to suss him out.

Whee!


10 posted on 07/12/2018 4:17:44 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...

11 posted on 07/12/2018 4:18:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: Snickering Hound

https://gizmodo.com/how-one-man-created-a-1-000-ton-coral-castle-in-1923-1443356836


12 posted on 07/12/2018 4:23:06 PM PDT by vladimir998 (Apparently I'm still living in your head rent free. At least now it isn't empty.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Blue stone? Have Smurfs been eliminated from suspicion?
13 posted on 07/12/2018 4:25:16 PM PDT by Bullish (My tagline is here. you just can't see it.)
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To: SunkenCiv

Besides the other problems, I would think if the stones were moved by glacier there would be a moraine thereabouts with lots of stuff deposited. But Salisbury Plain really is flat.


14 posted on 07/12/2018 4:27:31 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: beergarden

15 posted on 07/12/2018 4:34:27 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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Stonehenge rocks Pembrokeshire link confirmed
BBC | Monday, December 19, 2011 | unattributed
Posted on 12/20/2011 6:33:10 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2823102/posts

Archaeologists looking for Stonehenge origins ‘are digging in wrong place’
Guardian (UK) | Wednesday, November 20, 2013 | Steven Morris
Posted on 11/28/2013 5:42:27 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3096465/posts

Stonehenge II is found! Radar search reveals giant line of standing stones from 4,500 years ago
Daily Mail | Published: 18:01 EST, 6 September 2015 | Colin Fernandez
Posted on 09/07/2015 8:19:35 AM PDT by Enlightened1
Edited on 09/07/2015 11:03:06 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3333989/posts


16 posted on 07/12/2018 4:41:18 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

Right but the real trick was wiping the memory and knowledge from the minds of these advanced thinkers.


17 posted on 07/12/2018 4:44:03 PM PDT by gibsonguy
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To: SunkenCiv
Stonehenge
18 posted on 07/12/2018 4:48:37 PM PDT by MuttTheHoople (Yes, Liberals, I question your patriotism)
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To: SunkenCiv

The Neolithic peoples in Britain and Ireland put up big rocks. Sometimes they put other rocks beside these rocks. And sometimes they surpassed this accomplishment and put rocks on top of other rocks.

And then the light of Jesus Christ fell on both lands, and they produced O’Carolan and Yeats, Shakespeare and Python, Guinness and Fuller’s.

I rest my case.


19 posted on 07/12/2018 4:49:26 PM PDT by PlateOfShrimp
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To: Bullish

:^)


20 posted on 07/12/2018 4:51:01 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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