This week’s archaeology story of note is that someone has discovered the quarry in Wales from which the bluestones at Stonehenge were cut. The Guardian has a report.

From an archaeological point of view the main story is that we now know a lot more about how the stones were quarried. However, the thing that has excited the journalists is that the stones appear to have been cut several hundred years before they were raised at Stonehenge.

Now of course it is possible that it took that long to get the stones to Salisbury Plain, but that seems unlikely. The other possibility is that they were originally erected somewhere in Wales and only later moved to Stonehenge.

All of which has given rise to lots of silly speculation about the English having stolen a Welsh monument, or having been sold one by some neolithic Taffy second hand monument dealer, presumably at a vastly inflated price (and possibly under the pretense that they were buying a bridge).

Except of course that the bluestones were erected at Stonehenge around 2900 BCE. There would not be any English in these isles for over 3000 years. It is entirely possible that one of the social groups that lived in southern Britain at the time stole (or bought) the stones from a rival group. It is also possible (and bear in mind that there is strong evidence of a thriving trade between Stonehenge and Orkney) that the inhabitants of the island saw themselves as a more or less united social group. No one really knows.

Of course I could argue that all of the inhabitants of the islands at the time were Brythons, whom we can describe as either Welsh or Cornish, and that the Scots and Irish were Goidels who arrived much later. But then Kari would probably tell me that I’m spouting Victorian twaddle so I shall restrain myself.

But Stonehenge is Welsh, obviously.