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New glacier theory on Stonehenge
BBC News ^ | June 13, 2006

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."



TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: archaeoastronomy; brianjohn; carngoedog; catastrophism; craigrhosyfelin; dolerite; dyfedelisgruffydd; glaciers; godsgravesglyphs; johndownes; lwenwilliamsthorpe; megaliths; neolithic; pembrokeshire; preselihills; rhosyfelin; rhyolite; stonehenge; wales
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Of Stonehenge Pyramids and Man:
a new and unique theory on the movement of heavy stones
by Gordon Pipes

21 posted on 06/13/2006 10:59:12 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (All Moslems everywhere advocate murder, including mass murder, and they do it all the time.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Unearthed, The Prince Of Stonehenge
22 posted on 06/13/2006 11:13:38 AM PDT by blam
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To: robertpaulsen

Can anyone hear the word 'Stonehenge' without thinking of Spinal Tap?


23 posted on 06/13/2006 11:14:31 AM PDT by dfwgator (Florida Gators - 2006 NCAA Men's Basketball Champions)
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To: billorites
3D glasses needed.


24 posted on 06/13/2006 11:19:46 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know.)
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To: blam

and...

Archaeologists Figure Out Mystery Of Stonehenge Bluestones
IC Wales | 6-24-2005 | Western Mail
Posted on 06/24/2005 1:14:46 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1429888/posts


25 posted on 06/13/2006 11:21:42 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (All Moslems everywhere advocate murder, including mass murder, and they do it all the time.)
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Druids Despair As Seahenge Set For Dry Berth
IOL (South Africa) | 11-19-2001
Posted on 11/20/2001 12:49:22 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/574946/posts

Tests Reveal Amesbury Archer "King Of Stonehenge' Was A Settler From The Alps
Popular Science | 2-8-2004
Posted on 02/08/2004 3:40:04 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1074020/posts


26 posted on 06/13/2006 11:24:54 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (All Moslems everywhere advocate murder, including mass murder, and they do it all the time.)
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To: dfwgator

Since I have no idea what your "spinal tap" reference is to I guess I for one must be counted as not thinking of it.


27 posted on 06/13/2006 11:25:29 AM PDT by ASA Vet (Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know.)
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To: MHGinTN

The present head is not the original head, but is cut down from the original head to about half the proportionate size. In addition, the neck is not smoothly faired into the body anymore but was chopped to fit the present head. The original head was of a lion, there being enough material in the original yarddang outcrop, and when the muzzle either broke off due to weathering, or was cut off to put the human face on, most likely when the body was buried in sand as it was until recently, the proportions of the rest of the body were ignored.


28 posted on 06/13/2006 11:50:33 AM PDT by RightWhale (Off touch and out of base)
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To: RightWhale

That's the theory. One wonders what secrets the Sahara holds to be discovered, that may relate to a civ which carved the Sphinx originally. There's grist for a great novel in that, somewhere. I have one related to al Shamiya Desert, perhaps I should do one for the Sahara?


29 posted on 06/13/2006 12:07:41 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: MHGinTN

I don't know what the theory is. That is my hypothesis, which I came up with before any of these Egyptologists bothered to mention the obvious facts.


30 posted on 06/13/2006 12:09:47 PM PDT by RightWhale (Off touch and out of base)
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To: billorites

There are a lot of nutjobs in academia. A glacier built stonehenge, aliens built the pyramids, the sphynx is a million years old, etc. Anything to sell books. Publish or perish.


31 posted on 06/13/2006 12:14:30 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: RightWhale

Well, first of all, Egyptologists don't ascribe to that theory, it's what Schoch, West, and Bauval came up with. Bauval was the first to connect the arrangement of the great pyramids to the arrangement of the stars in Orion's belt. Secondly, Egyptologists don't like it when conventional 'wisdom' is challenged. The site known as Obiados (sp?) is impossible to explain with conventional notions regarding the Giza plateau and whom carved the Sphinx and placed the foundational stones for it and the pyramids.


32 posted on 06/13/2006 12:20:10 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: ozzymandus
No one is saying the glaciers built Stonehenge, they are saying that the boulders were dropped off by the glacier ( see my post about Heytor) making it far less of a mystery on how they could have transported something so large over such a great distance. That side of the UK is scattered with debris from the last few ice ages.
33 posted on 06/13/2006 12:22:03 PM PDT by stacytec (Nihilism, its whats for dinner)
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To: MHGinTN

I don't buy the Orion's Belt hypothesis any more than the layout of the City on Mars. Do you happen to know the story of the origin of the third pyramid, the smaller one?


34 posted on 06/13/2006 12:26:58 PM PDT by RightWhale (Off touch and out of base)
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To: RightWhale
Menkaure's? Please refresh my memory.

[Menkaure, also known as Mycerinus, ruled from 2490 - 2472 B.C.. He was king of the smallest of the three pyramids at Giza, and is believed to be Khufu's grandson.]

35 posted on 06/13/2006 12:39:38 PM PDT by MHGinTN (If you can read this, you've had life support from someone. Promote life support for others.)
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To: MHGinTN

Yes, but that isn't who built it, and relating the story of how it was built, financed, would be grounds for suspension.


36 posted on 06/13/2006 12:42:33 PM PDT by RightWhale (Off touch and out of base)
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To: blam

"And, if a glacier moved them over to Stonehenge, how many Blue Stones have been found 'strewn along the route' from the outcropping?"


The hogs ate 'em.

[ya gotta be a hillbilly to 'get' that].....;D


That was some danged intelligent and orderly glacier, I'll give it that.


37 posted on 06/13/2006 2:35:18 PM PDT by Salamander (And don't forget my Dog; fixed and consequent)
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To: dfwgator

"Can anyone hear the word 'Stonehenge' without thinking of Spinal Tap?"

Only if the volume is set at "11".....:)


38 posted on 06/13/2006 2:38:10 PM PDT by Salamander (And don't forget my Dog; fixed and consequent)
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To: billorites

Stonehenge is actually a calendar and outpost built by the men of Numenor in the Second Age of the World, probably after the arrival of Tar-Minastir and his forces c. 1700 S.A.


39 posted on 06/13/2006 7:56:57 PM PDT by Vicomte13 (Paris vaut bien une messe.)
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To: robertpaulsen
"Look, look. Look, this is what I was asked to build. Eighteen inches. Right here, it specified eighteen inches. I was given this napkin, I mean..."

I happen to know that Stan Laurel built it for Santa, and boy did he get in trouble for it!
40 posted on 06/13/2006 8:03:25 PM PDT by PoorMuttly (A Muttly saved is a Muttly earned)
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