New Views over Megalithia

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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 7:06 am

Now being called "The Irish Thornborough"

Image

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/f ... 18185.html
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 9:44 am

Breaking news! (only 10 years old)

Orkney Islanders are more closely related to people in Siberia and in Pakistan than those in Africa and the near East, according to a novel method to chart human migrations. The surprising findings come from a new way to infer ancient human movements from the variation of DNA in people today, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford and University College Cork, which has pioneered a technique that analyses the entire human genetic makeup, or genome.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/scienc ... tives.html


Ginger nuts come from Russia after all.
We've mentioned the Russian redhead hotspot anomaly before haven't we?

Image

Reindeer herders became auroch herders on Orkney (before it was an island)?
Via Doggerland?

But:

It is now almost certain that native Irish and Scottish Celts were taken (probably as slaves) to southwest Norway by the Vikings, and that they increased the frequency of red hair there

https://www.eupedia.com/genetics/origin ... hair.shtml


Some mistake Shirley?
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Mick Harper » 12:39 pm

Reindeer herders became auroch herders on Orkney (before it was an island)?

Why so? Do aurochs dislike islands?
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 2:03 pm

Once upon a Doggerland time, two-legged and four-legged mammals could have walked to Orkney (before it was an Island). No need to swim or take a boat ride to get there. Except for the voles perhaps?
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 4:11 pm

Al Beeb has confirmed it.

Stonehenge: First residents from west Wales

Researchers have shown that cremated humans at Stonehenge were from the same region of Wales as the stones used in construction.


Gosh, that sounds definitive enough. I wonder which region of Wales they mean?

While it is already known that the "bluestones" that were first used to build Stonehenge were transported from 150 miles (240 km) away in modern-day Pembrokeshire, almost nothing is known about the people involved.


Oh dear, it's already known. And it's that old region of Wales. Still, it must be good new evidence mustn't it?

Lead author Dr Christophe Snoeck compared the levels of different forms, or isotopes, of the element strontium against a national database to work out where the cremated individuals spent the last years of their lives. Strontium is present in many bedrocks. And different geographical areas have distinctive strontium signatures. So by matching the strontium "fingerprints" in human remains to the strontium profiles of different geographical regions, a person's place of origin can be roughly determined.


Sounds like a promising new technique.

However, Dr Rick Schulting, senior author on the study, said: "These must have been important people. Being buried at Stonehenge is the ancient equivalent of being interred in Westminster Abbey today."


Oh dear, an act of faith just slipped in. But the rest is good surely? Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to the original paper we go...

Strontium isotope analysis on cremated human remains from Stonehenge support links with west Wales
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-28969-8.

New developments in strontium isotopic analysis of cremated bone reveal that at least 10 of the 25 cremated individuals analysed did not spend their lives on the Wessex chalk on which the monument is found. Combined with the archaeological evidence, we suggest that their most plausible origin lies in west Wales, the source of the bluestones erected in the early stage of the monument’s construction.


Gosh that sounds conclusive. Then the crucial evidence, a map of the Strontium levels.

Image

Hang on, I thought you said "West Wales"? But that's not what the map shows. Higher Strontium levels are spread all the way across the west of Britain, from Cornwall to Cape Wrath and beyond.

Previous strontium and oxygen isotopic research on human enamel concluded that the Beaker period (ca. 2400–1800 BC) ‘Boscombe Bowmen’ found near Stonehenge may have originated in west Wales, or perhaps from even further afield, in Brittany.


"May", "perhaps"... Sharp-eyed readers will already have noticed the sleight of hand.

Strontium isotope analysis has also been used on cattle from Durrington Walls, a large henge monument near to and contemporary with the later phases at Stonehenge (ca. 2500 BC), with some individual animals showing more radiogenic signals typical of the older bedrock of western or northern Britain.


Or northern?... like the cattle that were regularly driven from Northern Wales and Scotland all the way to Wiltshire and even London?

Those with the highest values (>0.7110) point to a region with considerably older and more radiogenic lithologies, which would include parts of southwest England (Devon) and Wales (parsimony making locations further afield – including parts of Scotland, Ireland and continental Europe – less probable).


Parsimony :
1. Unusual or excessive frugality; extreme economy or stinginess.
2. Adoption of the simplest assumption in the formulation of a theory or in the interpretation of data, especially in accordance with the rule of Occam's razor.

The rule of Occam's razor in archeology appears to have a special meaning. Just trust what you've already been told, and don't look too closely at the evidence.

That kind of "parsimony" would never had accepted that Grooved Ware from Orkney ever got as far as the south of England.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grooved_ware

A more enquiring mind might wonder : Did the cattle drive themselves from Wales and Scotland? With their own Grooved Ware?

An even more enquiring mind might wonder : How is it already known that the Stonehenge "bluestones" were transported from Pembrokeshire?
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby hvered » 7:30 pm

Combined with the archaeological evidence, we suggest that their most plausible origin lies in west Wales, the source of the bluestones erected in the early stage of the monument’s construction.

Such an admission of uncertainty is surprising in view of geologists' certainty the original quarry is in the Preseli hills.

I'd assumed archaeologists can pinpoint the place where the stones were quarried but you're quite right to question this assumption. However, if there are no other known bluestone quarries apart from the Preseli Hills, the proposed source is likely to be correct.
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 8:38 pm

hvered wrote: Such an admission of uncertainty is surprising in view of geologists' certainty the original quarry is in the Preseli hills.

The geologists are (actually) not certain, because there are so many types of (blue)stones with very little similarity. But the archaeologists keep insisting.

hvered wrote: I'd assumed archaeologists can pinpoint the place where the stones were quarried.

How could the archaeologists possibly know? They are not geologists and the stones rather carelessly do not have a manufacturer's stamp on them. Not even "Made in Wales".

Even people from Wales (who one might think would willingly grab the kudos, glory and tourist trade if they could) say it's all a hoax from c. 100 years ago.

(More to follow)
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 9:08 pm

Is the bluestone myth based on scientific fraud?

HH Thomas -- hero or dastardly villain? He was the man who "established" the links between Stonehenge and Carn Meini and Carn Alw in the Preseli Hills. It now looks as if he might have been guilty of a calculated and successful scientific fraud.


Who is this HH Thomas?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Henry_Thomas

And why should we care?

HH Thomas was very keen on the idea that Carn Alw was the source of the main rhyolites at Stonehenge, because it is geographically quite close to Carn Meini. But in the analysis of his thin sections, his selection of samples, and his reporting of research results, how selective was he with the truth? It looks as if Rob Ixer and Richard Bevins are now going to suggest that he was indeed a "naughty man" who does not quite deserve the reverence which he is given by those who do not know much about geology.


https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/ ... tific.html

Did HH Thomas cook the books?

I have come across a lot of fraudulent science lately, in other contexts, and this got me thinking about whether HH Thomas deliberately "cooked the books" when it came to his original stunning revelations about the link between Stonehenge and Preseli. Increasingly, I think that he did distort and select his evidence in order to prove his point. For example, we still do not know how many samples he took, and we do not know how many "inconvenient" stones he chose simply not to report on


It was Herbert Thomas who speculated on a Preseli origin for the Stonehenge bluestones in 1908 and then went on to propose, in his famous 1921 lecture, that the bluestones were identical to rocks cropping out within one small area around Carn Meini. .. Most people believe that Herbert Thomas actually sampled the bluestones in the stone settings at Stonehenge. He did not do that. Instead, his work was based upon a visual examination of 34 in situ stones and an analysis of fragments and samples from assorted collections made by William Cunnington, Nevil Maskelyne and William Judd.


In other contexts, that's known as Cherry Picking.

His paper was remarkably vague and unsatisfactory in many respects; we have no idea, to this day, how many samples he looked at and whether he reported on ALL of his analyses. He was driven by the belief that all of the stones must have come from one small source area, as suggested initially by Sir Jethro Teall. So although some of his rock identifications were anomalous, he seemed unprepared to consider the possibility that they had come from other far distant sources. For example, he rejected the possibility of some dolerite samples having come from the Cader Idris district on the grounds that “this locality may be disregarded as a possible source.” There was no explanation for this curt dismissal. He was far too hasty in assigning a Preseli origin to some of the rhyolite samples to which he had access.

He also avoided a proper discussion of the source of the Altar Stone, and he made no mention at all of the “inconvenient” micaceous sandstone bluestones (numbered 40g and 42c) or the equally inconvenient fragments of sandstones, grits, quartzites, greywackes, argillaceous flagstones and slates, and of the glauconitic sandstone listed by Judd in 1902. He was familiar with Judd’s work, but treated it with disdain, largely because Judd was convinced that the Stonehenge bluestones were erratics of glacial origin! Thomas’s results were not tabulated or itemised anywhere, and it is impossible to tell which of his assumptions and conclusions are based on which samples. In the grand tradition of Stonehenge studies, confidence and bluster were sufficient to overcome any shortcomings on the data front.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/ ... books.html


In other contexts, that's known as Fraud.

However, notoriety and glory beckon, and with a gullible media picking up on anything spectacular, no matter how nonsensical, the archaeologists happily play along, ignoring all of the principles of proper academic reporting and sound science.
https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/


Judd sounds worthy of more examination.
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby Boreades » 9:29 pm

Breaking news (today)

We have seen the same sort of thing in the recent research on strontium isotope ratios in cremated bone, with the authors attaching extraordinary significance to Presely, Rhosyfelin and West Wales simply because Prof MPP told them all that that's where the bluestone quarries are. So the research contains such powerful bias that it should never really have been accepted for publication -- and all those who have read the paper carefully have expressed incredulity that it contains anything at all about West Wales, since no evidence of any sort is adduced to demonstrate a link between the cremated individuals and the bluestone source area.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/


Boom!
Academic bun fight!
You get the popcorn, I'll get the front row seats, this could be fun.
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Re: New Views over Megalithia

Postby hvered » 8:30 am

Interesting that an academic has attacked the bluestones theory but it'll upset the archaeo-astrologists just as much. One of the Stonehenge hypotheses is a Pythagoras triangle linking Stonehenge, Preseli and Lundy proposed by Robin Heath and John Michell.

One wonders though, if H.H. Thomas had come up with a different bluestones location, would a similar triangle have been traced, on the basis that you find 'sacred geometry' when you look for it?
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