Thursday, 8 October 2009
Now the geologists join the fray
This is a major development, with two senior geologists presenting their evidence in print. The article is in the new edition of British Archaeology, dated 9th October. Needless to say, I feel very chuffed, and don't feel quite as lonely as I did yesterday!
Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins have studied thousands of rock specimens from recent excavations at Stonehenge. They conclude that many bluestones came not from Pembrokeshire, but from a far wider area, perhaps north Wales (Snowdonia, the Llyn Peninsula and Anglesey), or even beyond. The well-known spotted dolerite is a Preseli rock, they say – but the likely source was not Carnmenyn (where archaeologists have recently claimed to have found quarries) but nearby Carngoedog.
The photo above is of Carngoedog -- identified quite a long time ago as the most likely source of the majority of the spotted dolerites, but of course studiously ignored by Profs Darvill and Wainwright and most of the other key archaeologists working in the UK.