Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 17 submissions in the queue.

Quarrying of Stonehenge "Bluestones" Dated to 3000 BC

posted by takyon on Wednesday February 20 2019, @08:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the blue-truth dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Excavations at two quarries in Wales, known to be the source of the Stonehenge 'bluestones', provide new evidence of megalith quarrying 5,000 years ago, according to a new UCL-led study.

Geologists have long known that 42 of Stonehenge's smaller stones, known as 'bluestones', came from the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. Now a new study published in Antiquity pinpoints the exact locations of two of these quarries and reveals when and how the stones were quarried.

[...] The largest quarry was found almost 180 miles away from Stonehenge on the outcrop of Carn Goedog, on the north slope of the Preseli hills. "This was the dominant source of Stonehenge's spotted dolerite, so-called because it has white spots in the igneous blue rock. At least five of Stonehenge's bluestones, and probably more, came from Carn Goedog," said geologist Dr Richard Bevins (National Museum of Wales).

[...] According to the new study, the bluestone outcrops are formed of natural, vertical pillars. These could be eased off the rock face by opening up the vertical joints between each pillar. Unlike stone quarries in ancient Egypt, where obelisks were carved out of the solid rock, the Welsh quarries were easier to exploit. Neolithic quarry workers needed only to insert wedges into the ready-made joints between pillars, then lower each pillar to the foot of the outcrop. [...] The new discoveries also cast doubt on a popular theory that the bluestones were transported by sea to Stonehenge.

Megalith quarries for Stonehenge's bluestones (open, DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2018.111) (DX)

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Quarrying of Stonehenge "Bluestones" Dated to 3000 BC | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 9 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @08:37AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @08:37AM (#803918)

    That may have been the original site but the stones could have been cracked up and transported elsewhere by glaciers, then only minor cleaning up was needed at the final site.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @08:57AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 20 2019, @08:57AM (#803924)

    Or, not saying it was aliens, but, it was aliens.

    And this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbyzgeee2mg [youtube.com]

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday February 20 2019, @09:28AM

      by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Wednesday February 20 2019, @09:28AM (#803931) Homepage
      Dumb song. Woodhenge is only 2 kilometers from Stonehenge, and has nearly twice the footprint, so if Stonehenge was the largest henge he's ever seen, he clearly isn't particularly interested in henges, negating the entire thrust of the song. Yes, sometimes knowing too much does spoil humour.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves

  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday February 20 2019, @09:07AM (1 child)

    by zocalo (302) on Wednesday February 20 2019, @09:07AM (#803926)
    Seems unlikely. The glacier bit is possible, other than it's unlikely that neat slabs would survive glacial transportation in any fit state to be re-used - the more typical glacial erratics of any reasonable size are vaguely spherical as a result of the motion and erosion that results, especially given these rocks seem to have natural weak points in the form of their fissures. That neolithic stonemasons that just happened to select suitable glacial erratics from the landscape that all happened to come from a relatively small number of locations, even if they were actively looking for similar styles of stone colouration, etc., then figure out how to get them all to site, rather than just quarry them and send them all down a common transport route seems quite a bit of a stretch though. You've also got to consider whether they'd feel that there might be something significant about a glacial erratic since it is so obviously out of place, attaching some mythos to it that might have survived to modern day in the form of the various bits of folklore attached to some of the stones. If so, it seems unlikely they'd want to mess with it, even for something as significant as Stonehenge presumably was to them.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!