Sheffield University conducted a major excavation near the river Avon this summer to unearth what they now call Bluehenge based on splinters of blue stone found on the site. The blue stone referred to is Preseli Spotted Dolerite found in Pembrokeshire some 200 miles from Stonehenge. As Stonehenge contains just such stones, Professor Parker Pearson assumes that Bluehenge was dismantled at one point in time and its stones integrated into Stonehenge.
The exact location of Bluehenge on the already known Avenue makes a linked destiny possible, but actually doesn’t prove that much. The conjecture of a death cult linking Woodhenge further north on the Avon with Bluehenge and Stonehenge is a nice piece of creativity, but hardly historical fact. It makes good reading, but one hopes that the final presentation by Sheffield University will be on a more scientific level.
The death cult hypothesis proposes that a dead body would have started its journey in Woodhenge representing life and would then have been transported by boat down the Avon to the Avenue and Bluehenge and overland to Stonehenge. The problem with all these hypotheses is the fact that the puzzle pieces are not only mixed up, but that some or many are missing. And just by naming the point where the Avenue meets the Avon the beginning of the Avenue, you make Stonehenge the end of it. Call that point the end of the Avenue and the traveling changes direction and makes this hypothesis near to worthless.
The bare bones stripped of all flimflammery are that a mound was located that showed 27 holes. There were blue stone chips found. The site is on or near what is known as the Avenue. The site is near our modern time river Avon. For any more information we have to wait for the full report expected in 2010. Stripping that report of all its trapping, foregone conclusions, and pet theories of Professor Parker Pearson will take some work. But the crucial point will be the dating. Inexact dating is the crux of archaeology, as a hundred years actually represent three generations, little as a hundred years might look compared to 5000 years having passed by since the building of the sites.
But the next round in the Stonehenge debate has certainly been opened and we might expect some fireworks next year. If you follow these discussions, keep two facts in mind: First, what is presented as fact is based on our current knowledge which is a best incomplete, and second, is always biased by our own world view which is vastly different than it was 5000 years ago. Keeping that in mind, theories presented offer a lot of fun while you might try to find the fallacies they contain.
Further reading
Stirling Castle With Music in The Ceiling
Bruce Castle or Lordship House
Roman Troop Highway
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