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Understanding the provenance of megaliths used in the Neolithic stone circle at Stonehenge, southern England, gives insight into the culture and connectivity of prehistoric Britain. The source of the Altar Stone, the central recumbent sandstone megalith, has remained unknown, with recent work discounting an Anglo-Welsh Basin origin1,2. Here we present the age and chemistry of detrital zircon, apatite and rutile grains from within fragments of the Altar Stone. The detrital zircon load largely comprises Mesoproterozoic and Archaean sources, whereas rutile and apatite are dominated by a mid-Ordovician source. The ages of these grains indicate derivation from an ultimate Laurentian crystalline source region that was overprinted by Grampian (around 460 million years ago) magmatism. Detrital age comparisons to sedimentary packages throughout Britain and Ireland reveal a remarkable similarity to the Old Red Sandstone of the Orcadian Basin in northeast Scotland. Such a provenance implies that the Altar Stone, a 6 tonne shaped block, was sourced at least 750 km from its current location. The difficulty of long-distance overland transport of such massive cargo from Scotland, navigating topographic barriers, suggests that it was transported by sea. Such routing demonstrates a high level of societal organization with intra-Britain transport during the Neolithic period.

It is 50 years this month since Enoch Powell gave the notorious speech that destroyed his career. Yet, in the intervening decades, his ideas have entered the political mainstream to [...]

The world invested in Britain as a gateway to Europe. This, rather than the Anglosphere fantasies of the Brexiteers, is what Global Britain really means today as we prepare to [...]

In the week of Theresa May's historic speech, two of our New Times contributors explore how the Brexit vote has reopened deep wounds of empire and belonging and challenged the [...]

The idea of a transoceanic ‘Indo-Pacific’ region has a long historical lineage in British political thought and practice, one whose roots lie in processes of imperial colonisation, conquest and trade in Asia and Australasia. Recent discourses of a return ‘East of Suez’ and the UK's ‘Indo-Pacific Tilt’ cannot be understood as mere imperial nostalgia or post-imperial over-reach, however. Instead, there are historical political imaginaries of Britain's global role which are being put to work in the contemporary politics of shaping an Indo-Pacific strategy for the UK. British policy in the Indo-Pacific has been marked by a consistent awareness of multi-polarity and strategic vulnerability, hierarchies of alliances that give a privileged place to the US and the countries of the ‘Anglosphere’, and the recurrence of maritime, ‘blue water’ conceptions of British identity and interests. These are now being tested by the war in Ukraine and other developments.

When Fenner Brockway, the Labour MP, lifelong anti-imperialist and peace activist, recalled his early involvement in the Independent Labour Party, he wrote, 'On Sunday nights a meeting was conducted rather [...]

During what has been an unusually turbulent period in British politics, one of the most important and potentially enduring shifts in the mindset of those at the apex of the [...]

SASK. FARM AND RURAL GROUPS EYE FEDERAL SPENDING ON DROADBAND, IRRIGATION The federal government earmarked $10 billion through the Canada Infrastructure Bank on October 1st, partly targeting rural communities and [...]

Recent petrological, mineralogical and geochemical investigations of the Stonehenge Altar Stone have negated its source in the Old Red Sandstone (ORS) Anglo-Welsh Basin. Further, it has been suggested that it is time to look wider, across northern Britain and Scotland, especially in areas where geological and geochemical evidence concur, and there is evidence of Neolithic communities and their monuments. In this context the islands of Orkney, with its rich Neolithic archaeology, are an obvious area worthy of investigation. The same techniques applied to investigations of the Altar Stone and ORS sequences in southern Britain have been applied to two major Neolithic monuments on Mainland Orkney, namely the Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar. In addition, field samples of ORS lithologies from the main stratigraphic horizons on Mainland Orkney have been investigated.

The rise of anti-politics populism in Europe has coincided with the appearance of new, charismatic leader figures whose appeal rests on their unwillingness to accept the compromises and responsibilities that [...]

Thomas Piketty's book Capital is being acclaimed as the most important work of political economy to be published in decades. His analysis of inequality has certainly caught the attention of [...]

Fir Valley Jason Turner, 171 pgs, Cloudscape Comics, cloudscapecomics.com, $25 The murder rate of idyllic small towns nestled in the woods must be off the charts. Jason Turner's Fir Valley [...]

In-field compositional analysis of large prehistoric relics, such as the Altar Stone at Stonehenge (England), is limited due to the size of the relics and difficulty in obtaining samples that can be analyzed in a laboratory. In this study, a portable Raman spectroscopy system was used to analyze the Altar Stone to help determine its origin and classification, which appears to differ from other bluestones at Stonehenge. While the study is ongoing and the definitive origin of the Altar Stone is not yet known, this study demonstrates the applicability of a portable Raman spectroscopy system in the compositional analysis of large samples in the field.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Britain spent just 12 per cent of its national output on public services and welfare support. By the onset of the financial crisis [...]

Things to Do When You're Goth in the Country & Other Stories Chavisa Woods, 224 pgs, Seven Stories Press, $29 Goth has had an unnaturally long lifespan for a subculture. [...]

The Green Ghetto Vern Smith, 318 pgs, Runamok Books, runamokbooks.com, $17.95 Name a more sorry genre than the western. For anyone weary of moody men staring off into bleak vistas [...]

ABSTRACTIn recent years, the Scottish Labour Party has lost its once dominant position in Scottish politics. Its support has collapsed, and it now faces multiple political challenges, relating both to cleavages in Scottish politics over the constitution and Brexit, and to divisions within the party over its leadership and direction. Employing semi-structured elite interviews with key figures within the party hierarchy and focus groups with grassroots activists, this paper examines the causes of this crisis through an analysis of party members’ views. It identifies sources of the decline of Scottish Labour in unresolved disagreements over strategy and identity. Unable to coalesce around a distinctly Scottish strategy for competing in a multidimensional, multilevel political space with both civic nationalist challengers and conservative defenders of the constitutional status quo, in 2017, Scottish Labour reasserted a class-based identity, seeking to compete largely on the left–right economic dimension of politics. Instead of marking out a Scottish political identity, the Scottish Labour Party chose leftward national alignment with the Jeremy Corbyn leadership of the UK Labour Party. The electoral and political failure of this strategy offers important lessons for understanding the prospects of multilevel social-democratic parties.

In his later writing, the great political scientist Peter Mair anticipated the development of party systems in which a 'partyless populism' of mainstream parties, denuded of members, appealing from the [...]

In his history of Britain in the 1950s, Having It So Good, Peter Hennessy recounts a delicious little anecdote about Richard Austen, or 'Rab', Butler (1902-82). One Friday evening, the [...]

It looks as though, after drifting the wrong way for some years, Britain is gradually becoming a more equal society. New figures from the Office for National Statistics show that [...]

The article discusses the impact that the 2016 Brexit referendum has on British liberalism and the British political parties the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) the Labour Party. An overview of the members of the British Conservative (Tory) Party attitudes towards Brexit, including the Scottish Tory political leader Ruth Davidson's support for Great Britain to remain in the European Union (EU), is provided.

•Investigation was undertaken on a rock sample purported to have been collected from the underside of the Altar Stone (Stone 80) at Stonehenge in 1844.•The sample was analysed petrographically and by using portable XRF and automated SEM-EDS techniques.•Distinctive mineralogical and geochemical characteristics support the sample’s authenticity in terms of provenance.•The sample provides a ‘go-to’ proxy for future investigations of the Altar Stone.

Financial crises cast long shadows over politics and this one has been no different. Prolonged economic stagnation risks fracturing the coalition and has brought the reelection of a Labour government [...]

The article discusses some of the major political events in 2016. Topics covered include Great Britain's exit (Brexit) from the European Union (EU), the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election, the problems of the Labour Party in Great Britain, the political disorder in Europe and the surge of populism.

Stratigraphic, chronological, environmental and faunal context are provided to the newly discovered fossils of hominins that lived in the So’a Basin in Flores, Indonesia, 700,000 years ago; the stone tools recovered with the fossils are similar to those associated with the much younger Homo floresiensisfrom Flores, discovered in Liang Bua to the west.

•The Stonehenge Altar Stone is considered to belong to the bluestone megalith grouping.•Historically, it has been thought to come from Wales, along with the other bluestones.•More detailed analysis has failed to find a source in Wales or adjacent areas.•We question whether the Altar Stone should not be ‘lumped’ with the Welsh bluestones.•We intend to broaden our search for the Altar Stone source into northern Britain.

•Stone wedges were among the most common tools at Stonehenge’s bluestone megalith quarries in Wales.•Three stone wedges were found in situat the bluestone quarry of Craig Rhos-y-felin.•Two of these wedges with evidence of being driven into joints around a pillar.•Geochemical analysis confirmed that these two wedges had been introduced into these joints from elsewhere.

By the end of the next parliament, the number of people locked up in England and Wales is likely to reach 100,000. That's twice as many people in prison compared [...]

The government is next due to review education policy in 2008. According to the author, reform should include the separation of Further Education provision for young people and adults.

Do dog lovers have fewer children? George Orwell thought so. Britain's 'cult of animals', he complained, had contributed to a falling birth rate. Writing after the Second World War, he [...]

Those Labour ministers who can remember Antonio Gramsci might care to dust down their copies of his Prison Notebooks. Twenty years ago, Gramsci helped a demoralised left understand how Thatcherism, [...]

A Neolithic stone circle at Waun Mawn, in the Mynydd Preseli, west Wales, has been proposed as the original location of some dolerite megaliths at Stonehenge, including one known as Stone 62. To investigate this hypothesis, in-situanalyses, using a portable XRF, have been obtained for four extant non-spotted doleritic monoliths at Waun Mawn, along with two weathered doleritic fragments from a stonehole (number 91). The data obtained have been compared to data from spotted and non-spotted dolerite outcrops across the Mynydd Preseli, an area known to be the source of some Stonehenge doleritic bluestones, as well as data from in-situanalysis of Stone 62 (non-spotted dolerite) and ex-situanalysis of a core taken from Stone 62 in the late 1980′s.

It is clear that significant progress must be made towards meeting the needs of disadvantaged young adults in the UK. Research indicates that boosting the educational achievement of this social group can have very positive results. In particular, ensuring that more young people obtain at least 20 GCSE points would bring significant advantages. There is also a need to substantially improve the completion rate for education between the ages of 16 and 19 and to reform qualifications, creating a structure made up of smaller units.

The article examines Chinese carved jade landscapes from the collection of the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida. The author explores Daoist and Buddhist meanings of mountains in Chinese art. Topics addressed include a Qing dynasty boulder depicting the Daoist figure Shoulao, carvings related to the Chinese Emporer Qianlong who was also a poet, and a Qing dynasty carving depicting the Buddhist figure Cudapanthaka.

In Old Chinese Porcelain and Works of Art in China, a catalogue published in 1911, its author, A. W. Bahr, claimed that the original exhibition of which the catalogue was a record, which had taken place in Shanghai three years earlier, was the first of its kind. Organized by the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, the 1908 art exhibition was also, Bahr claimed, representative of China’s artistic legacy as it was then known. The organizing committee included Chinese representatives, and a significant number of Chinese collectors and dealers lent items, giving further credence to Bahr’s claims of the exhibition’s originality and compass. In this article these claims are examined in the light of the collecting tradition in China and in the West on the eve of a period that would, over the three succeeding decades, witness an increased understanding of China’s archaeological past. With the use of evidence from published and archival sources, the organization of the exhibition will also be discussed, as will the role of Abel William Bahr (1877–1959), who initiated both the exhibition and the subsequent catalogue.

The article presents the authors' views on the need for the Labour Party to reshape social democracy and improve the living standards of low and middle income communities in Great Britain. They believe that the centre-left should promote equality through fair distribution of pre-tax income, closing the productivity gap, and securing employment. They also assert that the party should create a policy framework that protects the valued ways of life and forms a social base for progressive politics.

The article discusses the impact of a rational society on its progress towards 21st century enlightenment in Great Britain. The author compares the role of national identity in early 21st century British society and its 18th century Georgia antecedent. The question of happiness and rational decision with regards to enlightened politics is also examined. It is explained that the challenge of reason to the authority of faith is part of the origin of Enlightenment.

The article explores the connection of qin, which is the zither-like Chinese musical instrument, with painting and ideas coming from Chinese visual culture, and its close relationship with the elite class. While the instrument produces delicate sounds, it is also capable of making highly distinct sounds that provided it with mythological associations.

Coastal sections in the Auckland region reveal highly carbonaceous and/or highly weathered clay-dominated cover-bed successions with numerous discrete distal volcanic ash (tephra) layers, fluvially reworked siliciclastic (tephric) deposits, and two widely distributed pyroclastic density current (PDC) deposits generated from explosive silicic volcanism within the Taupo Volcanic Zone (TVZ). The younger of the two PDC deposits (informally named Waiuku tephra) is glass-isothermal plateau fission-track (ITPFT) dated at 1.00 ± 0.03 Ma and occurs in a normal polarity interval interpreted as the Jaramillo Subchron. Waiuku tephra is correlated with Unit E sourced from the Mangakino Volcanic Centre of the TVZ. Waiuku tephra can be subdivided into two distinctive units enabling unequivocal field correlation: a lower stratified unit (dominantly pyroclastic surge with fall component) and an upper massive to weakly stratified unit (pyroclastic flow). At many sites in south Auckland, Waiuku tephra retains basal “surge-like” beds (<1.4 m thickness). This provides clear evidence for primary emplacement and is an exceptional feature considering the c. 200 km this PDC has travelled from its TVZ source area. However, at many other Auckland sites, Waiuku tephra displays transitional sedimentary characteristics indicating lateral transformation from hot, gas-supported flow/surge into water-supported mass flow and hyperconcentrated flow (HCF) deposits.The older PDC deposit is dated at 1.21 ± 0.09 Ma, is enveloped by tephras that are ITPFT-dated at 1.14 ± 0.06 Ma (above) and 1.21 ± 0.06 Ma (below), respectively, and occurs below a short normal polarity interval (Cobb Mountain Subchron) at c. 1.19 Ma. This PDC deposit, correlated with Ongatiti Ignimbrite sourced from the Mangakino Volcanic Centre of TVZ, has laterally transformed from a gas-supported, fine-grained pyroclastic flow deposit at Oruarangi, Port Waikato, into a water-supported volcaniclastic mass flow deposit farther north at Glenbrook Beach. The occurrence of Ongatiti Ignimbrite in Auckland significantly extends its northward distribution.Large numbers of post- and pre-Ongatiti rhyolitic tephra layers, ranging in age from c. 1.31 to 0.53 Ma, are also recognised in the region, with some up to 0.5 m in compacted fallout thickness. Although some tephras can be attributed to known TVZ eruptions (e.g., Ahuroa/Unit D), many have yet to be identified in proximal source areas and remain uncorrelated. However, some can be reliably correlated to tephra layers occurring in marine to nearshore sequences of Wanganui Basin and deep-sea cores retrieved east of North Island. The identification of previously unrecognised mid-Pleistocene TVZ-sourced tephra deposits in the Auckland region, and their correlation to the offshore marine record, represent an advance in the construction of a higher resolution history for the TVZ where, close to eruptive source, the record is fragmentary and obscured by deep burial, or erosion, or both.

The article focuses on the Sixteen Louhan jade carvings by Chinese artist Guanxiu. It says that the figures of louhan described are legendary figures that are related to historical Buddha. The author remarks that the artist conceived each of the 16 louhan as a grotesque. According to him, the facial features of Rahula, the 11th Louhan, portray him as a foreigner and when examined with other louhan in the series, like Chuda Panthaka, his bodily and facial exaggeration seems less of a caricature.

Sclerochronology is to shells what dendrochronology is to trees, i.e., growth structures within some shells (in this case the bivalve mollusc Arctica islandica L., the Ocean Quahoc) resemble, in form and content, those growth structures in trees, which grow with an annual periodicity. By utilising laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), allied with stable isotope analysis to sample the growth structures within shells, environmental conditions (e.g., ambient temperature, salinity, seasonality and productivity) prevalent at the time of shell genesis may be ascertained. A limiting factor in the retrieval of any data from biogenic carbonates such as these is the size of the repeated growth structures from which to extract information. In the case of Arctica, these can be as low as tens of µm. Micro-drilling techniques, such as those commonly used in isotope analyses, are constrained by the size of the drill bit used to collect the sample. LA-ICP-MS, with its ultra-high spatial resolution (10–20 µm ablation pits) and precision, delivers highly constrained analysis allowing accurate multi-element sampling of seasonal growth bands within shells. It may be feasible to use the elements strontium, magnesium and barium as records of inter-annual environmental conditions, thus removing the need to carry out stable isotope analyses in some instances, particularly where the size of the material to be sampled demands the high resolution of LA-ICP-MS.

•Portable XRF analysis was applied to provenancing the Stonehenge bluestones.•In situ analysis was undertaken on Stone 62 at Stonehenge and on key Preseli outcrops.•The source of Stone 62 is attributed to the Garn Ddu Fach Preseli outcrop.•A robust analytical strategy was developed and implemented to take into account a range of factors possibly expected to influence the analyses.

This article looks at the history of some Chinese furniture of the Ming and early Qing periods. The author highlights the Bauhaus aesthetic of Chinese furniture and its legacy as being the catalyst for the popularity of Chinese wood furniture in the West. He cites the inclusion of several Chinese folding chairs within a London Aesthetic interior. the author describes the form and design of the furniture.

The article examines a collection of photographs of Beijing, China at the Oriental Museum in Durham, England. The collection, taken in the early 1870s, consists of 66 black and white albumen prints on paper made by means of wet collodion or wet plate process from original glass negatives. Forty-five of them were identified as being by the Scottish photographer John Thomson. Prior to the acquisition by the museum in 1956, the collection was owned by British historian Walter Percival Yetts.