My thoughts on the Just Stop Oil publicity stunt at Stonehenge, as someone who worked there, an archaeologist and a pagan: I'm massively annoyed.
Not at JSO actually. At the hypocrisy I'm seeing everywhere.
I'm angry at the politicians who haven't said a word about the A303 tunnel that is going to do irreparable damage to the site and the archaeology. (don't get me wrong, I know a lot of the archaeologists who will be on the project, I have every faith in them, but it is a commercial venture, limited by time, budget and frankly just the techniques available to us now). It's going to be really bad for the environment.
I'm also annoyed at the online pagan community. I've seen so many neo pagans/wiccans with the most surface level "they've made an enemy of their closest allies" take. Well, we can see that you don't actually care about the environment if that's all it takes to turn you away from this. Closing a road would have created environmental damage from all the cars hanging around for hours! Also, where have they been in the campaign against the A303?
Or the fact that Salisbury Plain is being eaten up by new build housing estates that don't support the needs of the residents and stresses local services. Because Stonehenge is just the most famous archaeological monument on the Plain but there are tens, if not hundreds of sites that are being lost. I have literally worked on one- a Bronze Age barrow cemetery with several ring ditches, a potential Neolithic god-pole like structure, Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlement evidence. All destroyed by a new build estate that cannot be supported by local infrastructure, literally in terms of the roads.
They're also the sort of people who complain about the cost of Stonehenge. There is a very good reason that it's so expensive- it basically funds a significant chunk of Historic England (which is far more than just the monuments and sites you can visit). Many of HE's sites are free and they still need to be maintained, which is incredibly expensive. And they're the sort of people to culturally appropriate from other cultures, rather than looking to the archaeology they're fake outraged by.
The paint was made out of cornflour, so not actually a huge conservation issue (I mean, it would definitely better to have not happened but honestly probably the least worst option). The damage done by smog and other air pollution is significantly worse.
People should be angry that this is what people are being forced to do to have their voices heard.
