Stonehenge altar stone came from Scotland, not Wales

[Nick Harbud]

Some years ago, there was an attempt by the West Wales Maritime Heritage Society to demonstrate how one of these bluestones could be slung between two sailing vessels.  However, it was not a great success and, if used by our ancestors, would probably have ended with the rocks being at the bottom of Milford Haven.

Since then, at least one living history establishment has shown how relatively easy it is to drag these objects across the landscape, especially if the grass is wet.  They tend to use groups of schoolchildren for their demonstrations.  Here is an article on the subject.

[DBS]

Not only is the distance from northern Scotland to Salisbury Plain a lot, lot further than anyone has dragged a rock thus far, there are not only some serious up and down bits in between but also some even more serious water features to negotiate, eg Loch Ness and the Humber.

There is also the question of navigation. Coastal navigation can have its... fun... components, but to some extent the principle of keeping the land on the right or left and keep heading south has value. Neolithic man may have trogged on foot up and down Britain, but a known route suitable for a tinker or whatever may not be quite so suitable for a stone transportation gang.  I find a maritime solution much more credible.

[Duncan Head]

Stop the presses - it's not from Orkney:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/05/stonehenge-tale-gets-weirder-as-orkney-is-ruled-out-as-altar-stone-origin

Don't know if the neighbouring Scottish mainland red sandstone is still a candidate.

[Imperial Dave]

That aged well....

[Jim Webster]

Stop the presses - it's not from Orkney:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/05/stonehenge-tale-gets-weirder-as-orkney-is-ruled-out-as-altar-stone-origin

Don't know if the neighbouring Scottish mainland red sandstone is still a candidate.

I wonder if there is a suitable source in Wales 

https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Lower_Old_Red_Sandstone,_Devonian,_Wales

[DBS]

Without casting aspersions on geology, I do sometimes wonder about the certainty with which some views are expressed.  I am, for example, intrigued by the declarations that there were no meaningful sources of tin in the Near East during the Bronze Age, and that the tin must have been imported from Afghanistan, Cornwall, etc.  This may well be the case for bulk production, but you do not import a commodity all that way, at great human cost, without the certainty that it is needed.  Surely there must have been some early bronze production, using relatively local sources, of sufficient quantity for people to say that this new alloy was superior to arsenical copper, and want to get more of that tin to make it.

Yes, geologists have splendid, and very scientific, knowledge of the earth, and where they have gone looking for useful resources, they have exceptional detail.  But local people may know their locality far better on occasion, especially in ancient times when they lived far closer to the land and were attuned to oddities.  I live on the very, very narrow Surrey sand belt, which lies between the clay of the London basin and the chalk of the North Downs.  At most it is a mile wide, in places it peters out or is only a hundred yards wide.  Yet the Saxons seized on it as an ideal compromise between the accessible but dirty ground water of the clay, and the clean but inaccessible water of the chalk.  That is why they planted a string of villages all along the belt, from Epsom through Ewell, Cuddington, Cheam, Sutton, Carshalton, Wallington and Croydon.  I suspect that geologists looking at large scale maps would blink and miss it...

[Imperial Dave]

Stop the presses - it's not from Orkney:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/05/stonehenge-tale-gets-weirder-as-orkney-is-ruled-out-as-altar-stone-origin

Don't know if the neighbouring Scottish mainland red sandstone is still a candidate.

I wonder if there is a suitable source in Wales 

https://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php/Lower_Old_Red_Sandstone,_Devonian,_Wales

Blow me down guv...