Thought it best to add to an old thread rather than start a new one - hope this is the preferred way.
I have seen a lot of ancient sites which have had varying impacts on me as I observed the amazing achievents of these ancient civilisations - never before have a stood in front of an ancient monument laughing out loud. I had seen photos and thought "That doesn't look right" but seeing it for real was something else. I thought Knossos was as bad as it got in respect of "restoring" (aka Disneyfying)these things; until I saw the abomination of Newgrange. Unesco should withdraw its world heritage status until there is a commitment to do something about it. The learned Prof must have had one too many jars of the black stuff the night he came up with the concept of neolithic megalithic pebble-dash. As he watched his building contractors pouring their concrete around the steel reinforcement there must have been a little voice in his head going "Noooooo!" - but if there was, he chose to ignore it. Not only did he do pebble-dash he actually, because of the distribution differences in the ratio between the quartz and rolled granite, came up with the concept of "gradient filled" pebble-dash; outstandingly deranged by anyone's standards.
Nowhere near as deranged is the suggestion that the quartz/granite at Knowth was actually a floor paving/decoration. For me this is still unconvincing given the intelligence of these neolithic peoples - why would they pave something with seriously sharp stones when they are walking round with, at best, rudimentary animal skin protection on their feet.
It seems obvious to me that the actual original arrangement was that the quartz was embedded in the earth surface of the mound itself as a sort of large tapering "lozenge" around the doorway/window and that the water-rolled granite was used as the perimeter lining of the quartz area separating it from the earth of the mound itself. This is why the granite to quartz ratio gets larger at the extremes; there is a lot more perimeter compared to the area at the end of the "lozenge" than in the middle. It really isn't that neolithic peoples were into gradient filled pebble-dash.........
The only thing I can't quite establish, but I suspect those with access to the full size/number/distribution data could establish with some ease, is whether the granite also formed the perimeter on the lower edge where the "lozenge" met the retaining stones. I suspect it did but I cannot prove it conclusively from estimating the numbers/size data based on the photos.
This ridiculous pebble-dashed wall detracted from the wonders within - as did the guide's comments in respect of the famous triple whorl; "Oh sure I like to imagine St Patrick seeing this and saying - Oh! they had a trinity too".......
You couldn't make it up.