Reconstructing extraction techniques at Stonehenge’s bluestone megalith quarries in the Preseli hills of west Wales

Lithological description and provenancing of a collection of bluestones from excavations at Stonehenge by William Hawley in 1924 with implications for the human versus ice transport debate of the monument's bluestone megaliths

“…and 6a-c, notably the white weathered crust, the dark blue-grey 'fresh' interior, its mineralogy, and the strong foliation.To test the proposed provenance of the three Rhyolite Group C stones in the Newall Collection to Craig Rhos-y-Felin, based primarily on petrography, we undertook nondestructive portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analysis of the stones and compared them to in situ pXRF analyses from the rhyolitic tuff outcrop at Craig Rhos-y-Felin. While analytical methods are presented elsewhereBevins, Pearce, Parker Pearson, et al, 2022;Bevins et al, 2023;Pearce et al, 2022;Parker Pearson et al, 2022), a brief summary of methods is presented here. Analyses were performed using a Thermo Fisher Scientific™ Niton™ XL3t GOLDD+ handheld XRF analyser.…”