Pippin, I lived for many years on Long Island, NY which was the terminal moraine of the Wisconsin glacier so, yes, I have no doubt that glaciers can transport rocks....we had millions of them!
However, the issue here is that these particular stones were apparently all of a similar and usable size and delivered to the Salisbury Plain in exactly the correct number to build Stonehenge because there are no other examples of such stones...either too big or too small or just left over... in the area. That seems awfully specific for a glacier-based delivery system and Leona's point, while stated whimsically, is valid too.
Archaeology claims that there was no civilization in Britain at the time which was capable of building Stonehenge....yet there it is.
New glacial creation theory for Stonehenge
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Minimalist
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Thanks for those impressive pictures and your explanation, Pippin.Forgive us native English speakers for joking around in our own crazy language!
On second glance,
the article that started this thread seems plausible to me. But right away it was presented as a joke, perhaps unjustly.
THe main problem is whether the stones were:
1. quarried by the builders of stonehenge, cut into blocks, and then taken to the site to be set up.
or
2. carried to the site by glaciers, then hewn to size and set up.
If the stones were somehow transported to Salisbury Plain overland, it must have taken many years. Why would someone do that?
HOW would someone do that?
RK'Awl -O'Gist does the "transport by glacier" idea seem implausible to you?
On second glance,
the article that started this thread seems plausible to me. But right away it was presented as a joke, perhaps unjustly.
THe main problem is whether the stones were:
1. quarried by the builders of stonehenge, cut into blocks, and then taken to the site to be set up.
or
2. carried to the site by glaciers, then hewn to size and set up.
If the stones were somehow transported to Salisbury Plain overland, it must have taken many years. Why would someone do that?
HOW would someone do that?
RK'Awl -O'Gist does the "transport by glacier" idea seem implausible to you?
The deeper you go, the higher you fly.
I would still like to see the original abstract that was submitted and I haven't found it. Very often, an article posted in the news media fails to report all of the salient points that the researchers considered.
The article seems to make a big deal about axe heads being made from bluestone also, and I don't see the relevance. So - something may be lacking in all fairness.
The article seems to make a big deal about axe heads being made from bluestone also, and I don't see the relevance. So - something may be lacking in all fairness.
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Stan,
It's possible, and I've seen Prehistoric "monuments" that were actually perfectly natural. Problem with this one is as previously pointed out; this glacier knew exactly how many rocks, of a particular shape & length, to transport to an exact location and arrange them in a near-perfect formation. Not only that, but this formation was exactly lined up to solar solstices, and lunar cycles of 19 years. That's the bit that's too hard to take; if people thought Gerald S. Hawkins was far out for his 1960s theory of Stonehenge as an observatory, the fact he seems to have been right shouldn't open doors to madcap theories taking it one step further. There aren't any randomly-deposited stones near the circle, as you would expect to find.
It's welcome because it shows people are thinking about Stonehenge, but I don't really find it very credible.
It's possible, and I've seen Prehistoric "monuments" that were actually perfectly natural. Problem with this one is as previously pointed out; this glacier knew exactly how many rocks, of a particular shape & length, to transport to an exact location and arrange them in a near-perfect formation. Not only that, but this formation was exactly lined up to solar solstices, and lunar cycles of 19 years. That's the bit that's too hard to take; if people thought Gerald S. Hawkins was far out for his 1960s theory of Stonehenge as an observatory, the fact he seems to have been right shouldn't open doors to madcap theories taking it one step further. There aren't any randomly-deposited stones near the circle, as you would expect to find.
It's welcome because it shows people are thinking about Stonehenge, but I don't really find it very credible.
Hi
I’m confused. I don’t think RK read the same article I read when I read the one he posted in the start of this debate. In the article (as I read it), it states that the Stonehenge builders did not get the stones from Wales, but found the stones lying around in the surrounding area carried there by the ice in the ice age. RK seems to think that the geologists think that the ice put them on the top of the hill in a circle. But that doesn’t appear anywhere in the article.
I agree that it sound strange that there are no other stones of this type in the area, but have they looked at all the churches, houses and castles in the area. Have looked on the fields where farmers used dynamite to remove big stones?
And then the story with the axe. It gives excellent sense to include it in the article. As I read it, the geologist wasn’t allowed to take samples from the Stonehenge itself for chemical analysis. He then took another bit of bluestone from the area and time and tested that. That seems quite clear.
I’m not sure this theory is right, but we have to look unbiased on it to make sure.
Kim
I’m confused. I don’t think RK read the same article I read when I read the one he posted in the start of this debate. In the article (as I read it), it states that the Stonehenge builders did not get the stones from Wales, but found the stones lying around in the surrounding area carried there by the ice in the ice age. RK seems to think that the geologists think that the ice put them on the top of the hill in a circle. But that doesn’t appear anywhere in the article.
I agree that it sound strange that there are no other stones of this type in the area, but have they looked at all the churches, houses and castles in the area. Have looked on the fields where farmers used dynamite to remove big stones?
And then the story with the axe. It gives excellent sense to include it in the article. As I read it, the geologist wasn’t allowed to take samples from the Stonehenge itself for chemical analysis. He then took another bit of bluestone from the area and time and tested that. That seems quite clear.
I’m not sure this theory is right, but we have to look unbiased on it to make sure.
Kim
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Hi Kim,
I agree that I seem to have misread it slightly!
The article doesn't state that prehistoric man found the stones there and re-used them, but it seems to imply that. It's the bit about tearing the stones from the ground at Prescelly and carrying them all the way to Wiltshire that I think is being disingenous. If the ice had enough power to do that (and why not?), it would also have carried vast amounts of earth and stones along and dumped them at the same location. The likelihood of the builders just finding all these stones, approximately the right size, just lying on the surface would have been an incredible coincidence. The chances are that they might have had to quarry them near the location, which would have left traces of both the operation and/or the moraine which would have been partly removed by this. They would probably also have had to level the site on an industrial scale, which although not impossible just seems unlikely.
But it still leaves the question of how they managed to transport them there, never mind raise them upright in an exact position.
Rhiannon
I agree that I seem to have misread it slightly!
The article doesn't state that prehistoric man found the stones there and re-used them, but it seems to imply that. It's the bit about tearing the stones from the ground at Prescelly and carrying them all the way to Wiltshire that I think is being disingenous. If the ice had enough power to do that (and why not?), it would also have carried vast amounts of earth and stones along and dumped them at the same location. The likelihood of the builders just finding all these stones, approximately the right size, just lying on the surface would have been an incredible coincidence. The chances are that they might have had to quarry them near the location, which would have left traces of both the operation and/or the moraine which would have been partly removed by this. They would probably also have had to level the site on an industrial scale, which although not impossible just seems unlikely.
But it still leaves the question of how they managed to transport them there, never mind raise them upright in an exact position.
Rhiannon
RK, you seem to think that they had reason and ability to go to Wales and transport the stones back, but not to transport them from the immediate area. That seems to be a contradiction to me. Could you elaborate on that?But it still leaves the question of how they managed to transport them there, never mind raise them upright in an exact position.
Lets start with simple geomorphology. When the ice flow gets to a place, it either glides over the place or peal of the top layers. This material then moves along the way as impurity in the ice. As it melts away, it deposits the material on the spot. You don’t seem to place much credit for the ancient British. The Danes did find thousand of big stones moved this way. The British must have been able to do the same.It's the bit about tearing the stones from the ground at Prescelly and carrying them all the way to Wiltshire that I think is being disingenous. If the ice had enough power to do that (and why not?), it would also have carried vast amounts of earth and stones along and dumped them at the same location. The likelihood of the builders just finding all these stones, approximately the right size, just lying on the surface would have been an incredible coincidence. The chances are that they might have had to quarry them near the location, which would have left traces of both the operation and/or the moraine which would have been partly removed by this. They would probably also have had to level the site on an industrial scale, which although not impossible just seems unlikely.
Some pictures of retreating glaciers, notice the many stones in diferent siezes lieng around in front of the glacier:
This one i prefer to leave as an url, it distord the page to much: http://members.tripod.com/ethan/alaska/icecave2.JPG
The picture below is a boulder moved by the iceflow, se more on this page (http://www.sfu.ca/~jkoch/older_stuff/gl ... ssary.html)
I even found a cubic block placed by the ice. But i do think the blocks of Stonehenge were formed by human hands. Click on the link to se the boulder itselv. The picture is to big for this page:
http://www.sethwhite.org/images/summit2 ... 20rock.jpg
This one i prefer to leave as an url, it distord the page to much: http://members.tripod.com/ethan/alaska/icecave2.JPG
The picture below is a boulder moved by the iceflow, se more on this page (http://www.sfu.ca/~jkoch/older_stuff/gl ... ssary.html)
I even found a cubic block placed by the ice. But i do think the blocks of Stonehenge were formed by human hands. Click on the link to se the boulder itselv. The picture is to big for this page:
http://www.sethwhite.org/images/summit2 ... 20rock.jpg
Pippin
FIGURE 3. This boulder in Bartlett, N.H. was formerly a tourist attraction. It was glacially transported, and as the ice melted was lowered onto four smaller boulders. (a) The boulder as it appeared during the Victorian era (from Drake, 1882). (b) The Bartlett Boulder today. It is approximately 3.7 m wide.
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Pippin, from a website on Stonehenge.
I wonder what engineers would have to say about transporting those blocks over non-existent roads, streams, rivers, hills, etc. There were no Roman roads in Britain at the time....or any other civilization capable of organizing such work. But the notion of a glacier picking up those stones at the Preseli mountains and bringing them to Salisbury Plain seems even more remote.
First, the bluestones come from the Preseli Mountains in South Wales, nearly 250 miles away. There were about 80 of them, weighing up to 4 tons each. How they were transported is not known, although scholars don't regard the feat as impossible and various theories have been presented.
I wonder what engineers would have to say about transporting those blocks over non-existent roads, streams, rivers, hills, etc. There were no Roman roads in Britain at the time....or any other civilization capable of organizing such work. But the notion of a glacier picking up those stones at the Preseli mountains and bringing them to Salisbury Plain seems even more remote.
Something is wrong here. War, disease, death, destruction, hunger, filth, poverty, torture, crime, corruption, and the Ice Capades. Something is definitely wrong. This is not good work. If this is the best God can do, I am not impressed.
-- George Carlin
-- George Carlin
I know the areas concerned pretty well.Pippin wrote:Hi
I havent seen a map of the area, so i have a hard time to know if its posseble. It is quite posseble if the ice came from the Preseli mountains in the ice age to the plain, thien it is quite possible.
Pippin
IMO it's highly unlikely that an ice sheet would have spread from the Preceli mountains to Salisbury Plain, which lies a considerable distance to the SE. Any rocks carried away from them would more likely have ended up in what is now the Severn Estuary.
However, I'm presuming this movement occurred before the last Glacial - ie over 120,000 years ago during a previous Glacial - because as far as I know no ice sheets reached Salisbury Plain during the last Glacial. Therefore, topography would have been very different.
Whilst we may not understand the motive or methods used by Neolithic peoples to move large stones such long distance, it seems to me even more unlikely that the rocks just happened to have been dumped by a glacier in that place, and nowhere else.
Thanks, finely some peopel who know something.Essan wrote:I know the areas concerned pretty well.Pippin wrote:Hi
I havent seen a map of the area, so i have a hard time to know if its posseble. It is quite posseble if the ice came from the Preseli mountains in the ice age to the plain, thien it is quite possible.
Pippin
IMO it's highly unlikely that an ice sheet would have spread from the Preceli mountains to Salisbury Plain, which lies a considerable distance to the SE. Any rocks carried away from them would more likely have ended up in what is now the Severn Estuary.
However, I'm presuming this movement occurred before the last Glacial - ie over 120,000 years ago during a previous Glacial - because as far as I know no ice sheets reached Salisbury Plain during the last Glacial. Therefore, topography would have been very different.
Whilst we may not understand the motive or methods used by Neolithic peoples to move large stones such long distance, it seems to me even more unlikely that the rocks just happened to have been dumped by a glacier in that place, and nowhere else.
Pippin