THE BOOK
Some of the ideas discussed in this blog are published in my new book called "The Stonehenge Bluestones" -- available by post and through good bookshops everywhere. Bad bookshops might not have it....
To order, click
HERE

Tuesday 30 August 2016

Rhosyfelin -- bad news from the rock face




I recently put up a post with the title "Rhosyfelin -- good news from the rock face", and congratulated the archaeologists on the imminent publication of another paper about the site which would give us a detailed stratigraphy and chronology for the episodes of human occupation.  This is the paper that should have come before the one published in "Antiquity" last year, which we have slammed on the basis that it is nothing better than an extended exercise in ruling hypothesis confirmation.  So something more measured and more scientific is what we all need.......

But I am now informed by one of my tweeting sparrows that I have misunderstood or misinterpreted my messages.  There is no such paper in the pipeline.  Apparently the forthcoming paper is not about the Rhosyfelin sedimentary stratigraphy at all, but about the bedrock geology, concentrating on the dating of the Fishguard Volcanic Series.  Should we laugh or cry?

So is that it?  Is the Rhosyfelin paper already published the definitive last word on the matter from the archaeologists?  Maybe they would just like to forget all about it and move on to the next exciting episode in the saga of the bluestone quarrymen........

5 comments:

TonyH said...

So is MPP no longer going to Rhosyfelin, accompanying that Specialist whose actual name you gave in your previous "Good News.." Post?

You thought that he was going to identify specific strata of rocks for chrono testing, did you not? Or is THAT still going to occur?

BRIAN JOHN said...

Oh, I think THAT plan must be going ahead still -- it's in everybody's interests to know how old the rock surfaces are. No further digging is required -- most of the key rock surfaces are still visible and accessible. I hope that will result in a new paper in due course.

Myris of Alexandria said...

What what a little world we all inhabit.

I doubt that the number of Earth Scientists interested in the Recent history of CRyf is anything like the number that will be glad to have the first fine scale Ordovician radiometric age for the FGV and its integration into the world system. That has true international importance to geology. For most geologists SH is an irrelevant fancy, diverting competent scientists from doing their duty-- so they have been told for decades.

SH is like the space race-remember that?- it is the spin offs that are often as important as this Neolithic-EBA McGuffin.
M


M o A said...

or even MacGuffin
Must go and take a shower.
M

BRIAN JOHN said...

Some nice old-fashioned geology. Yes, it will be good to see those dates and to see how the FVG igneous rocks fit into the great scheme of things.....

Should this be mentioned in the RIGS citation?

Another nice benefit of the dig -- leaving archaeology strictly on one side -- is that we now have from Rhosyfelin a rather rare description of a Pleistocene stratigraphic sequence which helps us to match up the inland story with what we see on the coast.