Issue 109
Nov / Dec 2009
Contents
news
Museum calls for fund to study treasure finds
Missing Stonehenge circle did not come from Preselis
Important revision to Stonehenge bluestone theory
An interim note on the latest developments, by Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins
Found: "The great lost monument of Cambridge"
features
Nevern Castle – Castell Nanhyfer
Tracking Hunters and Gatherers on the Continental Limits
Bibliography
Additonal material for feature article
Remembering the Great War with Lutyens
letters
your views and responses
on the web
Caroline Wickham-Jones looks at excavation websites
Matt Ritchie introduces Forest Heritage Scotland
CBA Correspondent
Don Henson looks at the Marsh Award shortlist
ISSN 1357-4442
Editor Mike Pitts
news
Important revision to Stonehenge bluestone theory
In the News pages of the Nov/Dec 2009 issue of British Archaeology, it is reported that new petrographical work by Rob Ixer (University of Leicester, Department of Geology) and Richard Bevins (National Museum of Wales) had suggested that some of the Stonehenge bluestones had not come from Pembrokeshire, but (in Ixer's words) from "a far wider and, as yet, unrecognised area or more likely areas". As the magazine was being printed, however, Bevins was out in the field, and found an apparent source for the rocks in question north of the Preselis. Ixer and Bevins have kindly written this interim note on this latest development.
Stilpnomelane-bearing rhyolites/rhyolitic tuffs at Stonehenge are most probably from the Preseli Hills region
Field and petrographical work continues on new Stonehenge lithics and on in situ material from areas around the Preseli Hills. This includes excavated material from the Avenue at Stonehenge, and rocks from undistinguished outcrops in the low ground north of Mynydd Preseli, close to Pont Saeson.
The former, as expected, conformed to the range of lithologies seen throughout Stonehenge. But the latter had surprising results, and has led to our radically modifying our proposal that many of the bluestones do not have a Preseli Hill origin, but have an unknown and possibly non-southern Welsh origin.
In thin section the Pont Saeson fine-grained acidic rocks show most of the features of our class of Stonehenge rocks, informally called "rhyolite with fabric", including a lensoidal fabric and the presence of stilpnomelane. Despite nearly a century of collecting and analysis, this is the first record of this mineral in rhyolitic rocks in south Wales. The only previous recorded occurrences of stilpnomelane in acidic rocks in Wales are from the Cregenen granophyre in the Cadair Idris area of southern Snowdonia, and in granophyric rocks of the St David’s Head Intrusion, in north-west Pembrokeshire.
Although not an exact match for the Stonehenge rocks, the Pont Saeson lithics strongly suggest that the "flinty rhyolite/rhyolite with fabric" found in the excavations at Stonehenge has an origin in the Preseli region, and that there is no longer a need to look further north in Wales for this important class of Stonehenge debitage.
The other and more abundant unusual rock-type (carrying distinctive titanite-albite inter-growths) from the Great Cursus area (but not so far identified at Stonehenge) is still unprovenanced, and its petrography has still yet to be matched with rocks from south Wales, or indeed from the rest of Wales.
An interim summary of where we now believe the Stonehenge bluestones come from, and incorporating these new data, is:
- Spotted and unspotted dolerites, the flinty rhyolite/rhyolite tuffs and possibly the basaltic tuffs have a Preseli origin, but a search for their associated source rocks must no longer be restricted to the prominent outcrops on the Preseli Hills
- The Altar stone Devonian sandstone – the largest bluestone – cannot be from the Preseli region
- The rare other sandstone orthostats comprising a Palaeozoic sandstone are also not from the Preseli Hills, but may be southern Welsh in origin
- The titanite-albite-bearing rhyolitic rocks have yet to be sourced, but it is now anticipated that they too will have come from the Preseli region; only detailed and dedicated collecting and petrography will be able to prove that.
Rob Ixer & Richard Bevins
CBA web:
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