7 replies to this topic

[Jimit]

"The best laid plans of mice and men....etc." What an heroic disaster! Everything that could go wrong, did.
They mention that the bluestones could have been moved by glaciation but I thought that this theory had been disproved long ago?
  http://www.guardian....,890686,00.html

[Nigel]

So did I, but Burl is adamant...

http://www.historybo...nge-myth-ht.asp

[Jimit]

A very thought provoking article. One would shudder to argue with the magisterial Burl but so far as my limited knowledge is concerned there is little evidence of ice sheets of sufficient power to move these large rocks present in this part of England. Outwash gravels perhaps. Has our resident geologist Iskaheen got any thoughts?

[Jimit]

I'm not sure if this article helps as it is concerned with the S. coast of England but it mentions the possibility of stones being transported by icebergs along the English Channel.I infer from this that similar movement could have occured along the Bristol Channel.It begs the question of how, when the sea level was considerably lower than it is now, the stones were moved to the then higher Salisbury Plain area.
  http://www.soton.ac....tic.htm#sarlink

[Nigel]

He seems to be circumventing most of the anti-glaciationists by suggesting it was a much earlier ice age. Perhaps the evidence for the extent of that is less well known or perhaps he's suggesting that the evidence is buried at deep levels (but if so, why would the bluestones be on the surface?) He certainly seems short on detail on the crucial point, and concentrates more on folklore etc. I'd like him to quote solid support from geological authorities.

Coming from an area where glaciation definitely happened, I know that if you go out into a ploughed field you find pebbles and rocks of thousands of different types from thousands of different sources. In Wiltshire it's just flint and chalk and nothing else. He says a few bluestones have allegedly been found elsewhere, but why wouldn't there be loads of them, and granite and everything else?

OK he's magisterial. But is he a geologist? Is it horses for courses? My hero, Fred Hoyle, wasn't so hot when he tried his hand at archaeology!
(I hope neither of these blasphemies results in a thunderbolt!)

[Pete G]

If the Bluestones were moved by ice then there would be a trail of smaller peices and gravel along the route. Nothing has been found.
None of the Tombs between Prescelli and stonehenge have blustone in them.
Boles barrows near stonehenge did have a few pieces but it is generaly reckoned they came from stonehenge.
Now if we cannot move a small blustone imagine the trumph of engineering of our neolithic ancestors who moved the huge sarsens from the Marlborough downs!
PeteG

[Jimit]

My sentiments entirely. Majestic glaciers sweeping over Wiltshire? As chalk is one of the softest rocks around, glaciation would have removed it in a flash of geological time. The logic seems flawed, either the Bluestones were deposited at an earlier date (Pre Cretaceous?) or later, both of which scenarios seem to have inherent contradictions. One wonders why Burl seems to be taking this controversial line?

[Nigel]

OK, so now we've been able to dismiss Burl's annoying intervention we're left only with human intervention. Which means that, in a way, the fiasco was a triumph. They set out to prove it was possible to transport that stone, and failed. Yet transported it was. So they've proved what a truly superhuman feat it was!

So now comes the question of how. Any thoughts?