Glaciation And Building Construction

You can tell a lot about the movement of glaciers over an area during the ice ages, the most recent of which ended about 12,000 years ago, just by observing the traditional construction in the area.

In some areas, there are many loose stones to be found in fields and just under the ground. Whenever farmers plow (plough) their fields, or other digging is done, such stones are uncovered and are used for building walls, chimneys and, entire structures.

Such loose stones are found when an advancing glacier, at the beginning of an ice age, chips stone off a mountain or escarpment of some type, carries it along, and then leaves it at the end of the ice age when the ice melts. These loose stones are very often rounded, which is the result of flowing water from the melting of the glacial ice and from any temporary lakes that may have formed.

In one ice age after another, this process is repeated until there is enough loose stone to build entire towns from. This does not, of course, include flat stones which are taken from stone quarries. That stone is from the underlying rock strata and has nothing to do with glaciation.

Even if an area is covered by ice during the ice ages, this mass deposit of loose stone will not take place unless the moving ice first passes through mountains, or other exposed stone, that it can chip away at. Much loose stone is found all across Britain because the ice passed through such mountains as those of Scotland and the Pennines. This concept enables us to track glacial movement simply by looking at the type of typical traditional architecture in a given area.

Norway is mountainous and far to the north, so that it would certainly be involved with glaciation. Yet, traditional Norwegian architecture is focused much more on wood than stone. This confirms what I wrote in "New Discoveries In Europe Concerning Glaciers", on the glacial blog.

Ice moving from the northwest bounced off the Norwegian Mountains. The mountains themselves would have produced glaciers, which moved southeastward toward the border with Sweden. But this ice did not come across much rock to chip away at and carry with it. If the main glacial movement had gone right through the Norwegian Mountains, it would have chipped off a considerable amount of loose stone, and this would be seen today in the traditional architecture of the region. Further south, in northern Europe, there is also less rounded stone to be seen in the traditional architecture than there is in Britain, and this also fits this scenario.

Ireland had it's landscape just as swept by glacial ice as Britain. The reason that loose, rounded stone is less to be found in it's architecture can easily be seen on a map. The movement of ice toward Ireland from the northwest did not pass by exposed stone, as the ice that crossed Britain did.

Very large boulders can also be moved by glacial ice. Near Niagara Falls, on Goat Island, there is such a boulder. The stone of which the boulder is composed does not match that of any stone in the area. But in northern Ontario, there is a native stone that matches that of the boulder. It was moved to it's present location, far to the south, by the ice age glacial movement.