Carn Menyn, Preseli Bluestones, April 2011
Carn Menyn sits on top of the ridge of the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire. A quarry below the tor has been suggested as one of the sources for the upright menhirs used at Stonehenge. The rock type is spotted dolerite, also known as Preseli Bluestone.. ---------------------
Stonehenge Thoughts
How much do we know about Stonehenge? Less than we think. This site is devoted to the problems of where the Stonehenge bluestones came from, and how they got from their source areas to the monument. Contrary to common belief, this is NOT sorted. Now and then I will muse on Stonehenge topics. Since I am a geomorphologist by training, I will also try to bring glacial geomorphology into the Stonehenge debate, in the hope that this will be of interest to people with inquiring minds....
Above: the famous bluestone pillar at Carn Meini that was supposedly left behind. Below: the litter of stones of all shapes and sizes at Carn Meini. True pillars are not entirely absent, but they are extremely rare...
...I also observed that where columns or pillars ARE present in the bedrock outcrops, when they are released and fall onto the scree they almost inevitably break across, because of transverse fractures or other weaknesses related to quartz veins etc.
So away with that particular piece of nonsense. I am quite convinced that there would have been NO reason for Neolithic tribesmen to "target" Carn Meini as an ideal quarry site. There was nothing special about the spotted dolerites (they outcrop over a very wide area), or about the stone shapes, or about the ease of access or stone extraction (other sites would have been easier).
For the best part of a century archaeologists have been indulging in special pleading with respect to Carn Meini. Once HH Thomas announced that that was where the spotted dolerites came from, one generation after another has sought to find justifications or reasons for the "choice" of the site. It's all there, in the literature......
PERIGLACIAL EFFECTS ON SALISBURY PLAIN
...I came across Mike Parker Pearson's references to those strange "grooves" or "striations" in the surface of the chalk, discovered during the Bluehenge excavations. They were blithely described as "periglacial" -- but I would dearly like to know more about them...
"...These were discovered during the 2008 and 2009 excavations of The Avenue where it leaves The Heel Stone beyond Stonehenge, on the northern side of the A344, whence The Avenue heads downhill in a NE direction. Very deep natural gulleys occur in the centre of The Avenue, running the whole length down to The Avenue's "elbow", at which point it turns roughly E. (This is, of course, a long way from where The Avenue meets the river Avon, near "Bluestonehenge".
Mike Parker Pearson has said that a pair of natural ridges occur either side of a the gulleys. He stated that a geomorphologist had confirmed these features were natural.
The line of gulleys and ridges just happens to be on the Solstice line. Furthermore, it is possible that The Heelstone may have been in situ,recumbent,naturally...
IMAGE: Stonehenge Riverside Project STRIATIONS WITHIN THE AVENUE