Stonehenge Bluestone Discovery

I picked up a press release last night on the discovery of the source of the bluestones for Stonehenge. Bournemouth University have very kindly sent me some photos to go with it, which arrived this morning. I’d be grateful if no-one hotlinked to them, partly because of my bandwidth troubles and also because they’re not mine as the copyright notices show.

Leading Stonehenge expert, Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University, believes he has discovered the answer to one of the stone circle’s oldest mysteries – the exact location in Wales where Stonehenge’s ‘magical’ bluestones were quarried centuries ago.

Writing in the July/August issue of ‘British Archaeology’, Professor Darvill describes the very spot high in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire from where the bluestones – which form the inner circle of Stonehenge – were transported, some 240 miles west of Salisbury Plain.

What Professor Darvill and his colleague Geoff Wainwright believe they have found are the remains of a stone enclosure. Professor Darvill describes a “small crag-edged promontory with a stone bank across its neck” in one of the most elevated parts of Carn Menyn. The enclosure is small (less than half a hectare) but according to Professor Darvill it provides a veritable ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ of made-to-measure pillars for aspiring circle builders.

Detail of the excavation through the stone boundary on the north side of the Carn Menyn Enclosure. Photograph by Timothy Darvill © 2005 Bournemouth University and SPACES.

“Within and outside the enclosure are numerous prone pillar stones with clear signs of working,” he writes. “Some are fairly recent and a handful of drill holes attest to the technology used. Other blocks may have been wrenched from the ground or the crags in ancient times with simpler, but no less efficient, technologies that leave no trace.

Excavation of the Carn Menyn Enclosure boundary wall in April 2005. Photograph by Timothy Darvill © 2005 Bournemouth University and SPACES.

“Three things are clear from just looking round the site,” Prof Darvill concludes. “First, those outcrops have been exploited as a source of stone for a long time and much has been taken away. Second, our understanding of what a ‘quarry’ is perhaps needs to be modified because here the extraction of pillars simply involves levering suitably shaped but naturally detached blocks from the ground or a fractured outcrop. And third, the remoteness of the place and its mountain – top situation invite comparison with other known sources of prized stone, exploited for axeheads during the fourth and third millennia BC.”

Carn Menyn, Pembrokeshire, main source of the bluestones used in the central circles at Stonehenge. View looking northeast. Photograph by Timothy Darvill © 2005 Bournemouth University and SPACES.

The reason I’m excited about this, well one is that I’m a naturally excitable person. Another is that it means that the use of the bluestones is starting to make sense. There’s been a bit of controversy in recent years over the use of the bluestones. – If you can call 99% of archaeologists being on one side and 1% on the other a controversy.

The minority have argued that the bluestones were transported by glaciers. This makes a huge amount of sense. All other circles were built using locally available rock. Neolithic people weren’t stupid and wouldn’t have created needless effort. One argument against this is that it’s odd that the glaciers dropped exactly enough bluestones to make a circle. This is a terrible argument. Get yourself a handful of peanuts. Now arrange them into a circle. Isn’t it amazing that you picked out exactly the right number of peanuts to make a circle? A better argument against the glacial theory is that with what we currently know about glaciations in the British Isles, it’s impossible. Stonehenge wasn’t even covered by the ice sheet at the last glacial maximum.

The reason that there were still a few people looking at the glacial option is that the human transport theory didn’t make much sense either. The normal story has been the bluestones were taken by boat from Pembrokeshire. It didn’t tie in with what we thought of Neolithic peoples at the time. It also suffered because the geology wasn’t that good. The rocks were from the Preseli Hills but where? For a long while the source region was 70 miles across with many suitable sites a long way inland. The best reason for supporting this theory was that while it was very very weird, it wasn’t actually impossible.

Prof. Darvill’s work helps in to ways. If he’s pinned down the source then it makes discussion of the transport of the stones a lot more feasible. It should now be possible to examine likely transport routes and see if we can find more evidence. It also helps because we now have a more sophisticated view of the Neolithic (see work by Hannah Lynch and Julia Dawson at Newcastle). By referring to the remoteness of the site he’s framing his findings in line with independent evidence about the Neolithic from elsewhere. When you consider the relatively low population of Neolithic Britain then places like the Langdale Axe Factory suddenly look a lot busier.

Langdale: The view from the bed. Photo by Itsjustanalias.

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