Stonehenge Visitor Numbers

 Data from ALVA - https://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423

1576 Depiction of Stonehenge for sale

 

Wiltshire. Saxton (Christopher), Wiltoniae Comitatus (Herbida Planitie Nobilis) hic ob ovulus Proponitur, Anno. Dm. 1576, circa 1579, engraved map with contemporary hand-colouring and some later enhancement, large ornate strapwork cartouche and mileage scale, trimmed with slight loss to the horizontal strapwork margins, skillfully repaired and replaced in facsimile, the central fold strengthened and repaired on verso, the whole backed with archival paper, one repaired marginal closed tear, 420 x 480 mm, mounted  - https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/Auction/Lot/lot-193---wiltshire-saxton-christopher-wiltoniae-comitatus-herbida-planitie-noblis-circa-1579/?lot=427042

One of the very earliest depictions of Stonehenge. 

16th Century: First Observational and Printed Depictions

• c. 1573–1575: Watercolour by Flemish artist and poet Lucas de Heere (in his manuscript Corte Beschryvinghe van England, Scotland, ende Irland). Painted on site during his time in England; this is frequently called the earliest known realistic depiction based on direct observation, showing the stones in a more topographical, less mythical style. It captures the monument’s appearance before later collapses. Held in the British Library.
• 1576 (published 1579): Christopher Saxton’s map of Wiltshire (Wiltoniae Comitatus herbida Planicie nobilis... Anno Dni 1576), part of his pioneering Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales. Features a small pictorial symbol labelled “The Stonadge” (an early spelling) north of Salisbury Plain. This is one of the earliest printed depictions on a map and the first systematic cartographic representation of the site. Later states/editions of the plate sometimes added a more detailed inset view of Stonehenge.

Wiltshire Museum has a copy -  https://wessexmuseums.org.uk/item-record/995c645a-19ca-35ad-8e1a-4a170faa830a/

Read the Reviews, Brian

Oh dear, Dr John is trying CPR on the corpse of the Glacial Theory again, this time by raising doubts about Clarke and Kirkland's Salisbury Plain River Sediment Study. 

Brian blog post from today https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2026/03/probable-bias-in-zircon-apatite.html 

The paper is at https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-03105-3 

Peer reviews at : https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs43247-025-03105-3/MediaObjects/43247_2025_3105_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Even the toughest critic in the peer-review file — Reviewer #1 — hammered the exact point the blog post keeps circling: the dominant Laurentian zircon signature is exactly what you'd expect from the eroded Paleogene cover (Thanet Formation and London Basin strata) that once blanketed Salisbury Plain. That background signal is pre-Pleistocene recycling, not fresh glacial detritus. The authors kept the Stonehenge framing after revision, and the reviewers accepted it because the study's real punchline is the absence of anything extra on top of that baseline: no prominent Darriwilian (~464 Ma) Welsh peak, despite 550 grains analysed. One lone outlier doesn't save the glacial hypothesis; it underscores how clean the negative result is.

The specific methodological concerns raised in the blog post were already addressed in the peer review process — which would be apparent to anyone who had read the review file carefully. Working through the list:

• Handpicking bias: The grains weren't handpicked. They were bulk-mounted into epoxy discs and randomly selected using automated TIMA mineralogy at Curtin's John de Laeter Centre. Reviewer 2 explicitly asked about recovery rates and grain selection; the authors provided automated mineralogy maps showing zircon and apatite abundance across all samples.
• Sample size: Reviewer 1 raised exactly this concern, pointedly questioning whether four samples was sufficient for a Nature-family journal. The authors demonstrated that all four samples are statistically indistinguishable (KS test P>0.05), that 550 zircon and 250 apatite grains were analysed across four samples, with 401 concordant zircon ages forming the primary provenance dataset and that ~120 grains is the accepted threshold for statistically meaningful provenance interpretation. The inter-sample consistency across independent catchments is itself strong evidence the signal is real and regional.
• Hydraulic sorting and grain size bias: The Frantz separator and heavy liquid separation steps are described in the methods. Reviewer 2 interrogated the recovery rates specifically. The authors' response — that the minerals are relatively abundant in the samples (zircon 1.5–56 wt%, apatite 3.5–13 wt%) — addresses the concern that a tiny exotic population might be dominating the signal.
• The Paleogene cover issue: Most strikingly, the blog post misses the deepest challenge to the paper — one that Reviewer 1 raised so forcefully they initially declined to recommend publication. The Laurentian signal is entirely consistent with the former Paleogene cover, and that's actually the authors' own conclusion. The glacial framing survives not because the Laurentian signal is surprising, but because of what's absent from it.
• The apatite evidence: The blog post doesn't mention the apatite data at all. The complete absence of old Laurentian apatite — despite its abundance in the Laurentian basement — is independent corroboration of deep, multi-cycle sedimentary recycling. As Reviewer 2 (Gary O'Sullivan, Trinity College Dublin) noted, it would be impossible to deliver old zircon via first-cycle glacial transport without also delivering old apatite. The zircon-poor Chalk makes this the ideal null detector, and the apatite result is a second, chemically independent line pointing the same way.

This paper isn't where the Glacial Theory dies — it's just the latest nail. The glacial hypothesis has been losing ground on multiple independent fronts for years.  That cumulative burden is where the argument is effectively over — this paper simply adds one more count to an already lengthy indictment.

Stonehenge Reading Lists

Two leading UK archaeology modules for the 2025–26 academic year offer rich insights into the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (c. 4000–1500 BC). Looking at their reading lists is revealing. The University of Reading’s AR3P20: Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Britain (34 items) takes a broad, seminar-driven approach, while University College London’s ARCL0078: The Age of Stonehenge (221 items) delivers an exhaustive, lecture-focused deep dive centred on Britain’s most iconic monument. Together, the lists reveal both shared foundations and contrasting teaching philosophies in prehistoric studies.

Comparing them side by side, several texts appear in both — and these are probably the closest thing to a consensus 'essential reading list' for anyone who wants to understand Stonehenge at an academic level:

•         Parker Pearson, M. et al. — 'Resourcing Stonehenge: Patterns of Human, Animal and Goods Mobility in the Late Neolithic' (2016) — in both lists' Stonehenge/Wessex sections

•         Brace et al. — 'Ancient Genomes Indicate Population Replacement in Early Neolithic Britain', Nature: Ecology & Evolution (2019)

•         Fowler et al. — 'A High-Resolution Picture of Kinship Practices in an Early Neolithic Tomb', Nature (2022)

•         Richards, C. — 'Henges and Water: Towards an Elemental Understanding of Monumentality and Landscape in Late Neolithic Britain', Journal of Material Culture (1996)

•         Richards, C. — 'Monuments as Landscape: Creating the Centre of the World in Late Neolithic Orkney', World Archaeology

•         Madgwick et al. — 'Multi-Isotope Analysis Reveals that Feasts in the Stonehenge Environs Drew People and Animals from Throughout Britain', Science Advances (2019)

•         Cummings, V. — The Neolithic of Britain and Ireland (various editions)

•         Thomas, J. — The Birth of Neolithic Britain (2013)

•         Bradley, R. — The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland (various editions)

What This Means for the Interested Non-Specialist

University reading lists are one of the best-kept secrets for anyone who wants to go beyond the popular books. They're compiled by active researchers, updated annually, and — crucially — they distinguish between what's essential and what's merely recommended. The two lists together give a remarkably clear map of the field.

If you want to start somewhere, the Parker Pearson books are the obvious entry point — Stonehenge: Exploring the Greatest Stone Age Mystery (2012) for a readable overview, and Stonehenge: Making Sense of a Prehistoric Mystery (2015) for something more detailed. Richard Bradley's The Prehistory of Britain and Ireland provides the wider context. And if you want to push into the primary research literature, both Madgwick et al. (2019) on the Stonehenge feasts and the Brace et al. (2019) aDNA paper are genuinely accessible despite being academic articles.

 

The UCL reading list (ARCL0078) is publicly available at: https://rl.talis.com/3/ucl/lists/BCF639B2-A137-907A-94AF-8E71C1DB6E89.html

The University of Reading list (AR3P20) is publicly available at: https://rl.talis.com/3/ucl/lists/BCF639B2-A137-907A-94AF-8E71C1DB6E89.html

The Meaden Cobble Source Identified

The Meaden Cobble -- a clast of dark-coloured Carboniferous Limestone, probably from one of the Black Rock Limestone outcrops in Somerset - Brian John

Dr John is very excited by a cobble discovered on the track from Gunsite Lane (or Road) to West Kennet Long Barrow. He is concocting possible sources and glacial modes of transport for it.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2026/01/a-black-limestone-cobble-from-west.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-meaden-cobble-probably-from-somerset.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2026/03/avon-gorge-another-possible-source-for.html

As I pointed out it is just ubiquitous Mendip Limestone hardcore used on the farms of Wiltshire to make up tracks, gateways and yards since Victorian times 

I checked the eastern end of the lane and it has been made up with such cobbles:

Looking west on the cobble track, note Silbury Hill top right. 

To help in the search for the source of the cobble I have annotated his aerial photo with where to look, and I think we can be sure it was transported by agricultural machinery rather than a glacier.

The Altar Stone

 

Did Aubrey Discover the Aubrey Holes?

John Aubrey deserves immense credit for putting Stonehenge on a scholarly footing. In 1666, armed with surveying tools and a sharp eye, he produced one of the earliest accurate plans of the monument—far more precise than anything before. His drawing (from Monumenta Britannica, Bodleian Library MS. Top. gen. c. 24, fol. 64) shows the sarsens, trilithons, bank, ditch, and the Avenue with commendable detail for the era. He correctly dated the site as pre-Roman (rejecting Danish or Roman attributions), linked such circles to ancient British "Druid temples," and treated monuments like Avebury and Stonehenge as worthy of systematic recording rather than folklore.

That plan includes five small depressions marked just inside the bank. Aubrey described them as "cavities in the ground from whence one may conjecture stones ... were taken", interpreting them as sockets where megaliths had been removed—perhaps hinting at a lost outer circle. He noted these amid broader conjectures about missing stones and the site's layout, including the Avenue.

In his honour, when William Hawley excavated half the ring of 56 pits in the 1920s (spotted via probing by Robert Newall), archaeologists named them the Aubrey Holes. It's a fitting tribute to the man who first drew systematic attention to irregularities in that zone.

But did he discover them? Not quite.

Aubrey saw and recorded only five surface features, visible hollows he linked to stone removal. The true Aubrey Holes (the complete prehistoric ring, dating to ~3000 BCE, later used for bluestones/posts and cremation burials) had been backfilled millennia earlier. Their upper fills (with sarsen chips and later deposits) meant they weren't open cavities in the 17th century; they were invisible without digging. Scholarly analysis, notably Mike Pitts in his 1981 Nature letter ("Stones, pits and Stonehenge," vol. 290, pp. 46–47), argues Aubrey's five depressions were likely unrelated, perhaps later disturbances, small post sockets, or other surface oddities, not the ancient pits now bearing his name.

So: Aubrey didn't excavate, map, or fully reveal the 56-pit circle. He vaguely noted a handful of surface dips in passing, as part of a holistic survey. The real "discovery" came 250+ years later with targeted digging.

Yet the naming is spot-on recognition. Aubrey pioneered antiquarian fieldwork, accurate surveying, and the idea that these monuments deserved serious study. Without his plan and notes, later work might have taken longer to contextualize the site. He bridged folklore and science, and his curiosity laid groundwork for modern archaeology.

In short: No, he didn't discover the Aubrey Holes, but he earned the eponym more than most, he was the man who looked at Stonehenge in 1666 and saw something worth measuring, drawing, and wondering about.