The Myth of the Myth: Thomas Was Just Reviewing and Rejecting Judd — With Evidence

 

Claims have been circulating that the idea of human transport for Stonehenge’s bluestones was “invented” by geologist Herbert H. Thomas around 1920–1923. The story goes that, in the aftermath of the First World War, there was a national need for a feel-good narrative about heroic, highly skilled ancestors — and Thomas obligingly supplied one, while ignoring or suppressing the glacial transport views supposedly held by his fellow geologists.

This version is itself a myth.

The debate did not begin with Thomas. In 1902, geologist J.W. Judd published his thoughts on the foreign stones at Stonehenge. Judd proposed they were glacial erratics — boulders carried by ice and left on Salisbury Plain. He was struck by the variety of rock types and especially by the abundance of bluestone fragments around the monument. This, he argued, suggested the stones had been worked and dressed on site from pre-existing glacial deposits rather than being laboriously brought from afar. Judd acknowledged challenges with the known limits of glaciation but suggested earlier, more extensive ice action could explain it.

H.H. Thomas’s 1923 paper (“The Source of the Stones of Stonehenge”, Antiquaries Journal) did what scientists are supposed to do: he reviewed the existing hypothesis, applied new petrographic analysis, and tested it against the geological evidence available at the time.

Thomas’s key points were straightforward:

• He matched many of the bluestones — particularly the distinctive spotted dolerites — to specific outcrops in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire.
• He assessed the glacial transport idea and found it implausible on geological grounds. There was no convincing evidence of the extensive glacial drift, boulder trains, or ice-scratched surfaces that would be expected if a glacier had carried large stones all the way to Wiltshire. In his view, the ice front did not extend far enough east or in the right way.
• Therefore, the only reasonable explanation for the stones’ presence at Stonehenge was deliberate human transport by Neolithic builders.

Thomas did not invent human transport as a patriotic fable. He arrived at it by examining Judd’s hypothesis and finding the geological evidence against it stronger. This is normal scientific process — propose, test, refine or reject on the basis of data — not myth-making or morale-boosting.

Note on the 1921 discussion: In the discussion following Hawley’s interim excavation report (published 1921), two contributors — Mr. Dale and Rev. G.H. Engleheart — supported Judd’s glacial erratics view and mentioned possible striations on fragments. Neither was a professional geologist (Dale appears as a contributor to antiquarian/geological discussions of the period; Engleheart was a clergyman and local antiquary). Thomas, as Petrographer to the Geological Survey, was the qualified geological voice engaging directly with Judd’s ideas. Claims of Thomas ignoring a consensus of “fellow geologists” do not hold up.

The notion of a post-WWI patriotic conspiracy or deliberate ignoring of colleagues doesn’t hold up. Thomas engaged directly with Judd’s arguments in a scholarly journal. His work was published in a scholarly journal and focused on facts from rock samples and field geology, not morale-boosting narratives.

Of course, science moves on. Later researchers like Kellaway (1971) revisited glacial possibilities with new data, and the debate continues today with advanced geochemical fingerprinting, LiDAR, and field studies. Recent work has strengthened the case for human transport while refining exact source locations (e.g., Carn Goedog, Craig Rhos-y-felin).

But the 1923 paper was not myth-making. It was Thomas doing the unglamorous work of reviewing a prior hypothesis (Judd’s) and rejecting it on evidence.

The real myth is the one that turns a careful piece of geological reasoning into a conspiracy of patriotic invention. The evidence shows something much more ordinary — and more interesting: a scientist looking at the rocks and following where they led.