Researchers 1 step closer to solving mystery of famous bluestones of Stonehenge

LONDON - Researchers are one step closer to solving the puzzle of how the famous bluestones of the Stonehenge originated.

New findings from geologists at the National Museum museum in Cardiff believe they have identified the source of one of the rhyolite types.

One type of bluestone, the so-called spotted dolerite, was convincingly traced to the Mynydd Preseli area of North Pembrokeshire in the 1920s, but the origins of many of the others have remained a mystery.

The findings, which involve the application of zircon chemistry as a new tool for “provenancing rhyolitic lithics”, point to a source for the stones in an area north of the Mynydd Preseli range, in the vicinity of Pont Saeson.

“It has been argued that humans transported the spotted dolerites from the high ground of Mynydd Preseli down to the coast at Milford Haven and then rafted them up the Bristol Channel and up the River Avon to the Stonehenge area,” Culture 24 quote Dr Richard Bevins as saying.

“However, the outcome of our research questions that route, as it is unlikely that they would have transported the Pont Saeson stones up slope and over Mynydd Preseli to Milford Haven.”

Bevins was “like looking for a needle in a haystack”, said that an alternative route should now be considered for their transportation from Pembrokeshire to Salisbury Plain.

Stonehenge scholar Mike Parker Pearson, Professor of Archaeology at Sheffield University, said the findings were “a hugely significant discovery.”

“It forces us to rethink the route taken by the bluestones to Stonehenge and opens up the possibility of finding many of the quarries from which they came. It’s a further step towards revealing why these mysterious stones were so special to the people of the Neolithic.” (ANI)