An update on
my announcement of a possible Bluestone debitage scatter find at Stonehenge:
I discovered this surface scatter in the spoil from animal burrows, the black round object is from a rabbit, last summer.
(click pictures to enlarge)
Over two hundred chips were seen on the surface. The find was very close to Stonehenge, in the landscape but not within the Stonehenge Triangle. It was on the footpath of the A344 between the tunnel and Heel Stone, which has now been covered over with the restoration of the landscape scheme.
Rob Ixer has very kindly examined a sample and provided me with a Press Release on the findings:
Lithics from within
the Stonehenge landscape collected by Mr T. Daw.
A selection of small lithics were collected by Mr T. Daw
from within the Stonehenge landscape, they were macroscopically identified
using x20 magnification. Their uniform but very restricted size range is of
note as this would be unusual for Stonehenge debitage.
They comprise a mixture of modern roadstones, mainly
fine-grained basalt , altered basalt and felsite, plus a single Stonehenge
saccharoidal sarsen. The majority of the lithics are fine-grained igneous and
similar in appearance to the spotted dolerites comprising most of the
bluestones. Although the lithics are too small to determine macroscopically
they appear to include two different types. No non-dolerite bluestone (rhyolite,
tuff/ashes, sandstone) was recognised.
Two representative samples were sectioned to determine if
either main group of lithics was a Stonehenge bluestone but neither was. A sample of the abundant white feldspar and
one of the rare, white feldspar classes of possible preselite were sectioned
and petrographically described in transmitted and reflected light. Neither thin section showed Preseli Dolerite.
The abundant white feldspar is an altered feldspathic rock
possibly a basalt and the rare white feldspar rock is an altered felsite and
more acidic carrying primary quartz.
The two sections add to the large number of adventitious
lithics-mainly 19th and 20th century roadstones found in
the Stonehenge Landscape.
Archive
Saccharoidal sarsen 1.3g
Purple fine-grained lava same as from Fargo Wood Test
Pits 1.9; 0.4g
Black, non-epidote bearing fine-grained dolerite with
?bornite 1.4g
Basalt/micrite
0.4g
Abundant white feldspar
basalt
1.1; 0.9g
Few white feldspar 1.6;
1.5; 1.0; 0.6g
Rare, white feldspar, some pale green colouration felsite 1.6; 1.4; 1.3; 1.2; 3x0.8;
2x0.7; 0.6; 0.4