New Scientific Evidence proves Stonehenge is 5,000 years older than believed

A Recent paper by the University of London, Southampton, and Manchester; about the discovery of the quarry that provided the 'bluestones' for Stonehenge at Craig Rhos-y-felin caught the eye of the world by archaeologists announcing Stonehenge was originally built in Wales then transferred to Salisbury Plain 500 years later.

Which is totally incorrect and wholly inaccurate?

The ‘Craig Rhos-y-felin: a Welsh bluestone megalith quarry for Stonehenge’ was a report published in December’s Edition of Antiquity Magazine, it stated that a series of radiocarbon dates were found on the site by a 4m long monolith (ready for transportation) made of a rock which was microscopically identified as the same bluestone as the rocks that surround the existing Stonehenge site. Moreover, the report’s authors had decided that just two random sample dates (the two closest to their well-publicised hypothesis on Stonehenge's construction date) would be headlined and advertised to the mass media.

Mike Parker Pearson et al. Craig Rhos-y-felin: a Welsh bluestone megalith quarry for Stonehenge. Antiquity, 89, pp 1331-1352. doi:10.15184/aqy.2015.177.

In spite of these published radiocarbon dates the archaeologists had an obvious problem, as the samples were still 500 years older than the dates, they were hoping to find.  So they had to invent a new ‘story' to compensate for this ‘poor science’ and so started the speculation, in their report, that the monument was originally built in Wales then moved at a later date. This will no doubt be followed by another report in a few year's time (archaeologists love to do the lucrative lecture tours on limited ‘titbits’ of information) finding remains of a few small bluestones within a short distance from the quarry site and claiming them as evidence of the original Stonehenge – probably followed by even more lucrative lecture tour.

Nevertheless, if we take an unbiased and more analytical view of the report, we find something very different from the media claims and much more scientifically interesting.

Mike Parker Pearson et al. Craig Rhos-y-felin: a Welsh bluestone megalith quarry for Stonehenge. Antiquity, 89, pp 1331-1352. doi:10.15184/aqy.2015.177.

What was contained in detail within the report but overlooked, was the fact that a considerable number of Mesolithic carbon dates (fourteen compared to just two Neolithic dates the report headlined) were obtained from actual human-made hearths much, much earlier in history compared to two random nutshells found in an ‘occupation area’ - which could have been scattered by animals or even the weather?

Consequently, the lowest material found in the excavated area (remembering not the entire site was excavated) was dated at 8550 - 8330 BCE.

These earlier and more frequent dates are from hearths rather than just random nutshells and was completely overlooked by the team, as it was 'perceived' to be too early to have a connection to Stonehenge. Nevertheless, this connection was well established some fifty years ago and was reported in a 'press release' by myself in August 2011 - entitled ‘The Stonehenge Enigma; an inconvenient truth’:

http://www.the-stonehenge-enigma.info/2011/08/stonehenge-enigma-incovenient-truth.html 

The article shows that English Heritage did their utmost to conceal the truth about the real 'probable' date of Stonehenge being 5,000 years earlier than their current position. This scientific evidence was based on radiocarbon dating of the three ‘giant’ post holes found in the visitor’s car park during its construction in 1966.

At the time the wooden remains of the posts (found at the bottom of the post holes) were labelled Neolithic in origin to support the existing antler pick dating hypothesis and was placed on a shelf probably for eternity. Fortunately, some years later an inquisitive Ph.D. student writing a thesis on the Stonehenge’s environment found these samples and concluded that they could not be as claimed by the archaeological community, as they were from pine trees which pollen analysis had concluded were ‘extinct’ in this area at this time of Stonehenge’s supposed construction.

Old Visitors Car Park showing the suggested shoreline of the Avon during the Mesolithic Period

The officials (of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission, which was later renamed English Heritage) were dismay when they found out that their 'experts' were wrong, and the student was absolutely correct (sadly, never gave her a deserved job as she clearly knew more than the supposed ‘experts’) in her assumption as the carbon dating placed them at the start of the Mesolithic of 8860 to 6590 BCE just after the ice age.

 

So, rather than then admitting their fundamental error and re-opening the site to look for more holes and dates to get to the bottom of this unique mystery (which would have been the case for most credible scientific disciplines) they came up with a remarkable and unproven 'story' that these were random 'totem poles' placed by wandering 'hunter-gatherers' which did not relate to the Stonehenge site just 50m away. But was a sheer coincidence, which should be totally ignored.

Over the last four years since my ‘press release’ was ignored by the archaeology world, the story has moved on with even more evidence of English Heritage’s continuing cover-up. 

Archaeologists have now found charcoal from fires in the centre of the Stonehenge monument, which date back to the same early period (but again the news was suppressed) and less than a mile away at the top of the hill that overlooks Stonehenge a site called ‘blick mead’ excavated by the Open University, which is showing us that people were living and 'feasting' at this same earlier period  yet this 'totem pole' myth is still firmly entrenched in EH's view of our prehistoric history through their many costly guidebooks.

 

Moreover, recently the Stonehenge site has had a major transformation as it has closed the b-road that went past the stones and gave access to the old visitor’s car park - which was now moved a mile up the road to the new multi-million-pound visitors centre. Consequently, the aged tarmac was removed and was replaced by grass to make it look more like it did at the time of Stonehenge’s construction.

Now one might imagine that if you were going to remove the tarmac from the old visitor's car park (knowing you have found something quite extraordinary underneath in the past) you would take this 'once in a lifetime opportunity’ to excavate the car part fully to see if you can find any more evidence about the Mesolithic Period of Stonehenge’s history?

Did they? - did they heck!! 

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” 

― Stephen Hawking 

So I was personally saddened that further evidence which could support my theory (that these post holes were mooring posts for boats bring the stones from the Preseli Mountains of Wales) would be lost forever. However, a recent blog post has opened up a new light in this matter.

Tim Daw was a warden at Stonehenge, and he has always been active in taking pictures on the site as he worked on a day-to-day basis at Stonehenge and published them on his blog site.  Last year, he found patch marks by the centre upright stones that were identified as the possible missing circle stones of the Inner Circle, therefore his contribution to the investigation of Stonehenge has been immense.

Tim Daws picture of the post hole - EH would like to lose!! How much history is being lost through ignorance and propaganda??

Tim also took some shots of trenches dug during the reinstatement of the grass over the old visitor’s car park and found something quite remarkable - but he was not allowed to publish as EH had warned him that his unauthorized blog activities had to stop or else.... three guesses why this happened? Tim being a man of principal resisted and resigned so continuing his blog work and as a consequence, these new ‘unofficial’ pictures have been made available, showing, even more, post holes are under the car park.

This newly discovered post hole is on the line of four other known post holes.  Moreover, it supports my hypothesis, that they are all on the shoreline of the River Avon at about 8400 BCE.   Furthermore, the fact that rivers in Britain were ten times larger in the past than today effected on not only the River Avon. - but the River Nevern, at Craig Rhos-y-felin which the current ‘Brynberian Stream, (which feeds the Nevern) is only 20m away, from the newly identified quarry site.

A, B, C are the original 1966 post holes - D was found by Tim Daw (before he was asked to leave!)

Consequently, during the Mesolithic period, the newly quarried stones could be placed in boats on the shoreline of the quarry in Wales and could be sailed almost ‘directly’ to Stonehenge, via just two or three enlarged rivers. And not over the longer sea route, some archaeologist attempted to consider in the past.

Direct Boat route from Preseli to Stonehenge using the raise river levels of the Mesolithic

This report also goes into great depth in the analysing of the Stone structure of the bluestones from other Preseli sites such as Carn Goedog, Cerrigmarchogion and Craig Talfynyydd, Carn Breseb, Carn Gyfrwy and finally Carn Alw areas. All of which have streams and rivers connecting them with the River Nevern – unfortunately, the archaeologists only can conceive this connection as a ‘religious’ connection rather than something quite functional.  Yet, archaeologists seem able to consider the existence of a hypothetical road system such as Mike Parker-Pearson’s ox-cart route, that follows the current A40 route, which doesn’t take into account the woods, swamps and even forests of that period, which would make passing impossible.

Nevertheless, this should be no surprise to readers of the Craig Rhos-y-felin report is full of inconsistencies and logical inaccuracies as the layout of the site was never taken into consideration. My analysis of the area shows that the ‘Brynberian Stream’ by the rocky outcrop was much higher in the past - such as in the period directly after the last ice age. This flooding of this area is well known to geologists for they found sand deposits are in the sub-soil. Geologists on the team seemed to have created a false assumption that these flood waters are from ‘ice melt’ and rapidly disappeared after the ice age into the sea. Sadly, this idea is easy shown to be a false assumption as, if true,  the sea levels would have risen to a couple of meters short of today’s levels then plateaued – but this is not the case as the evidence shows that the ‘seepage’ into the oceans took thousands of years to occur and hence Doggerland off the East coast of Britain, took almost ten thousand years to disappear under the North Sea.

Craig Rhos-y-felin seen from space (white circle)

Criag Rhos-y-felin as it would have looked (as an island) in the Mesolithic

This misunderstanding of the past water levels has lead to Geologists misinterpreted the sediments or the past.  A very similar soil found in one location is given a different name to the same type of soil in another location – so the term ‘Colluvium’ and ‘Alluvium’ is a case in point.  If it is found in a dried-up land area it as called Colluvium, but if it’s by an active river, it’s called Alluvium – the point is THEY ARE THE SAME MATERIAL – a combination of silt and sand.

Remembering this lack of distinction, we find in the report that an old river ran around this quarry as long ago as 5620 – 5460 BCE and possibly up to 1030 – 910 BCE.

“Most of the site was then covered by a layer of yellow colluvium (035), dated by oak charcoal to 1030–910 cal BC (combine SUERC-46199; 2799±30 BP and SUERC-46203; 2841±28 BP). This deposit is contemporary with the uppermost fill of a palaeochannel of the Brynberian stream that flowed past the northern tip of the outcrop. Charcoal of Corylus and Tilia from the basal fill of this palaeochannel dates to 5800–5640 cal BC (OxA- 32021; 6833±40 BP) and 5620–5460 cal BC (OxA-32022; 6543±37 BP), both at 95.4% probability” 

Consequently, what the report is trying to tell us, is that an enlarged stream that feed into the River Nevern was flowing at during the Mesolithic Period up to the quarry outcrop rocks and just a few metres away even up to 1000BCE, the obvious system to transport large stones to their destination as we have seen from other such construction else where in the world like Egypt.

The 'enlarged stream' is more of a huge river - perfect to float a boat with a four-tonne bluestone down river to the Nevern

Moreover, the site layout also gives a clear indication on when the stone was truly quarried. There is a single monolith ready for transportation is by the river on the east side of the site and the hearths which are clearly man-made are a few metres south of this monolith – where you would expect them.  The problem for archaeologists is that these are Mesolithic hearths, and they're not just one but four hearths dating from 8550 – 8330 BCE; 8220 – 7790 BCE 7490 – 7190BCE and 5210 – 4947 BCE and yet the report quite clearly states:

“There is no evidence of any Mesolithic Quarrying or working of Rhyolite from this crop” 

This is an astonishing unscientific claim for how would they know what tool marks are Mesolithic or Neolithic (would they not be the same tools?) And secondly, what do they think they were doing there during at the quarry during this 1500 year period?

However, what is quite remarkable is the fact that this is a ‘rhyolite’ Quarry. For back at Stonehenge Pit 9580 which was excavated in 1989, was found to be in line with not only with the four post holes found in 1966, but moreover, the one found last month by Tim Daw we talk about earlier

The excavation report stated that  Pit 9580 width started at 1.3m and was then widened to 1.9m  – so what was this large trunk of a tree used for? The archaeologists believed it to be a ‘totem pole’ – but why remove such a pole to put in a larger version at a later date? What I am sure is that it could take a considerable weight if required – but what could be the load be?

The answer comes 20cm down the infill of this post hole as they found a piece of Rhyolite (would you believe?)  And the date of this deposit can be estimated as the soil deposit it was sitting upon was carbon dated as 7560 - 7335 BCE overlapping with the date of hearth number three found at the quarry site.  

The final and conclusive proof of my hypothesis!!

Post holes at Stonehenge on the shoreline of the River Avon - taking off the Preseli bluestones from the boats

Moreover, we can now narrow down the exact date for the construction of Phase I of Stonehenge (bluestone placements in the Aubrey holes) to 7490 to 7335 BCE. In fact, if we look at the carbon dating of the hearths at Craig Rhos-y-felin and the Car park post hole samples date at Stonehenge we see something quite remarkable – not only do we have one hearth matching radio carbon dates at Stonehenge – we have all three!!

• Craig Rhos-y-felin (BCE)                             Stonehenge Visitor's Car Park(BGE)
• Hearth One: 8550 – 8330                               Post A. HAR-455 8820 - 7730 
• Hearth Two: 8220 – 7790                               Post B. GU-5109: 8090 - 7690 
• Hearth Three: 7490 – 7190                             Post C. QxA-4220: 7580 – 7090 
• OxA 30503: 7490 – 7190                               Post B. Har-456: 7480 – 6590 
• SUERC-51163: 7540 - 7300                          Post 9580. QxA- 4219: 7700 - 7420 

So is it a ‘cock-up’ or a conspiracy? 

EH has invested millions in its new 'money spinner' the Stonehenge Visitors Centre. Within it you will see many claims and models about the origin and possible function of Stonehenge - this exhibition has cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to design and build.  BUT what would happen if their assumptions are proven wrong?

Not only would it have to scrap all the exhibits and a new ones installed, but also the books and literature were written over the decades would need to be 'pulped' as they tell a story of nonsense, just as the Victorian literature was ‘shelved’ when carbon dating revealed that it was not a Roman Temple after all.  Moreover, the directors responsible for this multi-million pound fraud would suffer a potential financial and credibility loss would have to 'fall on their swords' and find new jobs (and there is not many jobs around for discredited archaeologists or historians).

Or they are just very good at their job!