Welsh archaeologists discover new ways to rewrite history

A guest post by Dr Sandy Gerrard.

When studying the past one normally tries to collect and examine all the known evidence before reaching a conclusion. Sometimes there is not much to go on and any conclusions are therefore inevitably provisional. On other occasions there is loads of evidence though this does not necessary make it any easier to work out what is going on. In Wales some archaeologists have come up with a solution to this age old problem.

Sites with little or no evidence can be lumped into whatever category takes their fancy on the day. The solution for sites with loads of evidence is even more ingenious. You disregard all the evidence that does not suit your conclusion and hey presto the required result. Magic!

An example of this ground breaking approach to archaeological interpretation is provided by the Archwilio entry for the Bancbryn stone alignment which somehow manages to ignore the archaeological excavations carried out by Cotswold Archaeology, a survey conducted by Cadw and the analysis presented in the Heritage Journal over the past few years. Instead it relies solely on carefully selected sections of a report prepared by Cadw and skilfully manages to present an interpretation that the same Cadw report dismisses as unsubstantiated.

This would be amusing if our heritage was not in these people’s hands.