if what I saw this week was an old recoding that has been discussed before here tell me.

TV exposures of 'new findings' and 'furhering our knowledge' and 'new light' always put me on guard and fan my disbelief. So what of all these ne premis upon which were built pyramids of concepts?

If the avenue is a natural sunken causeway then what of all the many others that have been found? This may be so nbut no proof of it was put forward. So the alignment was on the solstice line and therefore hallowed. The cremated bone shards - were they found by the 1920's dig under each place that the prof reckoned the blue stones were first placed? A cemetry of revered families, he thought - why not cremated sacrificial remains?

The winter feasting sounded over the top too - I could go on about that but really want to know if there is sincere following for his notions...... and proven back up. I also wonder if the strontium evidence denoting cattle from northern Scotland might not also match anything from the Brittany area? ferv will know and set me straight on that.

The majority of the content was not new P, even the business about the geology being orientated on the solstice has been around for a while. The only new thing I could see was the S I A of the cattle bones and it doesn't appear to have been published yet. If I see it, I'll let you know. Cows from Orkney to Wessex, that's a clever trick. I suppose they just might have brought some calves by boat, they certainly didn't walk them across the whole of Britain. Like you I wondered about how precisely the isotopes were matched with the Orkney geology etc.
I'm a bit confused by some of what he said about the Henge going out of use around 2500 BCE, (assuming I heard him correctly) that doesn't entirely agree with his latest dating paper of last year, co written with Tim Darvill and the other site co-directors. I've copied that 5 phase dating scheme below.

Mike P.P. is usually pretty good with his stuff, at least on paper, but as usual it's all so Wessex centred. There's been a fortune thrown at that area compared with, say, Ness of Brodgar which looks like it might overturn a lot of received wisdom about the Mid - Late Neolithic. For a long time it's been believed that everything started in the south and then spread out from there whereas now it's increasingly looking as if a lot of it was going the other way, either from Ireland and spreading west or from Orkney and the North spreading south.

I Construction of a circular earthwork enclosure 110m in diameter bounded
by a bank and ditch with main access on the NE and smaller entrance to
the S (3000–2920 cal BC). Deposition of ancestral tokens in the base of
the ditch. Digging of 56 Aubrey holes around the inner edge of bank,
possibly to hold bluestones and/or posts. Cremation burials begin to be
inserted into the ditch, bank, and Aubrey holes. Pits dug in the central
area. Timber posts and stakes set up, in some cases forming simple
rectangular structures. Possibly in this stage (or earlier) a post-built
structure in the NE entrance; stones B, C and 97 outside the NE entrance.
3000–2620 cal BC

2 Trilithon horseshoe comprising five sarsen trilithons set up in the centre of
the site with SW–NE solstitial axis (midwinter sunset/midsummer
sunrise). Double bluestone circle of between 50 and 80 bluestones set up
outside the trilithon horseshoe with a shared SW–NE axis. Sarsen circle
comprising 30 shaped uprights linked by 30 lintels built outside the
double bluestone circle. Altar stone perhaps placed within the trilithon
horseshoe. Four Station stones. A D-shaped rammed chalk floor
(?structure) around stone 92 at the SE entrance superceded by the south
barrow. Stones B and C removed. Stone 95 (Slaughter stone) erected with
stones D and E added inside the NE entrance. Possible modifications to
the earthworks in the NE entrance. Cremations continue to be deposited
through to c. 2400 cal BC. EITHER stone 96 (Heel stone) added to the
existing stone 97 outside the NE entrance to form a pair fixing the solstice
axis OR the stone formerly in stonehole 97 removed and re-erected as
stone 96 (Heel stone). Ditch dug around the Heel stone (or early Stage 3).
2620–2480 cal BC

3 Bluestones (perhaps from Bluestonehenge) arranged as the central bluestone
circle within the trilithon horseshoe. Main ditch recut. Stones D and E in
the NE entrance removed. Avenue constructed to link Stonehenge to the
henge built around the former Bluestonehenge beside the River Avon
2.8km away. Large pit dug against great trilithon. Beaker-style inhumation
burial in ditch.
2480–2280 cal BC

4 Central bluestone circle and double bluestone circle dismantled and re-built
as bluestone oval of c. 25 monoliths inside the trilithon horseshoe and the
outer bluestone circle of between 40 and 60 monoliths in the space
between the trilithon horseshoe and the sarsen circle.
2280–2020 cal BC

5 Extensive use of Stonehenge with working of some bluestones into artefacts.
Working floor and occupation outside the earthwork on the NW side.
Rock-art including Arreton-stage axes and daggers applied (c. 1650–1500
cal BC) to stones forming the sarsen circle and trilithon horseshoe.
Construction of the Y and Z holes in the period 1630–1520 cal BC.
Numerous round barrow cemeteries built in the surrounding landscape.

Thank you ferv, the above filled in some gaps in the sources that I have with me - or ratr develop them. Sadly the prog comes over with a glib account and as ever wil be the mud that sticks; tv is a dangerous place to attempt to bring scholarship with one eye on reputtation and the other on ratings; the cross-eyed effect.

As you said much was known earlier - and even was saying that througout. It was almost as if the prog was porduced to counter the Ness prog made last year. here was no mention of it either. I really did not buy the Aubtey holes grave marker notion - I know that wood carbon was found in many of them. When the paper is released about the weird S I A correlation , yes would be interested; their explanation seems no more unrealistic than smoked Aberdeen Angus sarny packs for travellers. I still wonder if France might not be a better source. Obviously I am only an interested person of little knowledge so appreciate your follow through all the more.

Being a Stonehenge related post, I'll pop this in here.

Photo taken by a Lieutenant Sharpe of the Royal Engineers from an observation balloon of Stonehenge in 1906. Must be one of the earliest examples of aerial archaeology:

Triceratops,

and some related information on Stonehenge.
https://projectauthenticity.org/2018/08/03/belgian-scientist-dr-christophe-snoeck-made-a-groundbreaking-discovery-concerning-stonehenge/

In the 1920’s the thousands of years old remains of 25 people were found close to the mysterious monument. Unfortunately they had been cremated, so not much information could be derived from them.
Belgian scientist Dr Christophe Snoeck and his team came to different conclusions. He discovered that cremated remains may even be surprisingly useful in some ways.
“The recent discovery that some biological information survives the high temperatures reached during cremation (up to 1000 degrees Celsius) offered us the exciting possibility to finally study the origin of those buried at Stonehenge,” he said.
New studies on the cremated remains of 25 Neolithic people buried at the site show that nearly half of them lived nowhere near the now world-famous monument.
A team from University of Oxford analysed the 25 skull bones, discovering that ten of those cremated originated from western Britain. Five of the ten were potentially from southwest Wales; the same area from which the bluestones that made the monument’s original structure originated from.

And:
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-08/uoo-nls073018.php


Kind regards from Paul.

I saw in the time and still see several discussions on both French and English language fora about the way the arrivals of new people in Britain happened. Some speak about an Iberian/Atlantic coast arrival and some speak about an arrival from mainland central Europe along the Channel link.
Is this study not an answer to that question?
The neolitical farmers along the Iberian way
The Bell Beaker farmers along the central continental route

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47938188


Kind regards from Paul.