The special status of "unhewn rocks" and glacial erratics

 The Trollasten dolmen in Skåne, Southern Sweden.  Big stones, glacially transported, and 

put there by a troll.........

Now here is an interesting question:  In the Neolithic, were glacial erratics more highly prized than monoliths of quarried rock?

This is relevant because, over the past decade or so, there has been a deliberate and coordinated campaign involving senior archaeologists and geologists designed to spread the belief that pillars of rock hewn from specially selected rock outcrops (such as Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog) were highly prized if not sacred. Indeed, so the hypothesis insists, these "targetted" monoliths or orthostats were so special that they were transported for hundreds of kilometres across land and sea all the way to Stonehenge, involving logistical exercises on a scale out of all proportion when set against anything before or since.  Thousands of men were involved, so goes the story, over many decades.........

The trouble with that bluestone quarrying and transport narrative, of course, is that it is unsupported by any evidence.  Speculations and assumptions proliferate, but there is nothing solid on the ground which is capable of supporting the preferred story.  The evidence of Neolithic quarrying at Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog and Carn Meini does not withstand scrutiny, as my colleagues and I have demonstrated in the peer-reviewed literature. There is no sign of the preferential use of foliated rhyolite or spotted dolerite in prehistoric structures either in west Wales or on Salisbury Plain.  "Preselite" -- a term used loosely for spotted dolerite -- does not seem to have been particularly valued for tool making or for any ceremonial purpose.  The sophisticated "quarrying techniques" supposedly used in the "special" Pembrokeshire quarrying locations are unsupported by any evidence from the Neolithic or the Bronze Age anywhere in the British Isles.  No cultural or technological links with Stonehenge can be demonstrated at megalithic sites anywhere in West Wales. 

So the quarrying and man-hauling narrative is entirely unconvincing, and should be abandoned forthwith.   What can we put in its place?

Well, the simple idea that large boulders, pillars and slabs lying around in the landscape were valued in some way simply because of what they were -- not because of where they might have come from.

Let's dig a bit deeper.  First, the Gorsedd Circle at -- or immediately adjacent to -- the designated and demarcated site of the 2026 Llantwd National Eisteddfod. In a couple of recent posts I have been trying to uncover the truth about it.  But the genuine stone circle at Croft consists 15 orthostats made -- as far as I can see -- of dolerite.  These stones are clearly glacial erratics, picked up from within the local area.   So they are "unhewn" and authentic stones, chosen and installed as a gentle dig against the use of fibreglass "imitation stones" used in the "official" stone circle on the Eisteddfod Maes. 

The preferential use of "unhewn" stone for ceremonial or ritual use goes back a long way.  I don't often quote from the Bible on this blog, but here goes:

"And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." (Exodus 20:25)

"And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build the altar of the Lord your God of uncut stones..." (Deuteronomy 27:5–6) 

"Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel on Mount Ebal...........an altar of unhewn stones, on which no iron tool has been used" (Joshua 8:30–31)

I'm not suggesting that Neolithic tribesmen were motivated by the same belief system as the Old Testament prophets and kings, but it is well known that Iolo Morgannwg, the inventor of many of the National Eisteddfod rituals and traditions, was attracted by the idea that anything carved, squared, or polished by modern industry was artificial. Unhewn stones—boulders collected in their natural state from the local landscape—symbolised honesty, ancient permanence, and a direct connection to nature. Iolo's emphasis on the use of "unhewn stone" stems from a mixture of his Romantic-era imagination, pseudo-archaeology, and a clever appropriation of biblical law. He correctly assumed that his invented Druidic rituals involving "unhewn stone" would appeal to a highly religious, nonconformist 18th-century Welsh public. Iron was of course associated with weapons, violence and warfare.  By declaring that the Gorsedd stones must be natural and untouched by iron tools, Iolo framed the Druids not as pagans, but as primordial, holy men practicing a pure, uncorrupted form of patriarchal religion.

Ironically, before becoming a romantic antiquarian and master forger, Morgannwg's actual trade was working as a professional stonemason and stonecutter.

During the 1700s, antiquarians like John Aubrey and William Stukeley popularized the theory that megalithic monuments were built by Celtic Druids. Iolo visited the massive, natural stone circles at Avebury in Wiltshire. Unlike the heavily shaped trilithons of Stonehenge, Avebury's stones are famously rough, wild, and unhewn. This deeply shaped Iolo’s vision of what an authentic "Druidic" ritual space should look like.

By the late 1880's, The Eisteddfod had formalised Iolo’s romantic vision, decreeing that a permanent circle of 12 massive, unhewn local stones must be erected in the hosting community a year before the festival.  Here is a list of all the Gorsedd circles and their locations:

https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/18th-and-19th-century-stone-circles/gorsedd-circles/list-of-gorsedd-circles/

Up to 2004, when a Welsh town hosted the National Eisteddfod, local organizers were instructed to go out into the surrounding fields and gather natural, surface-weathered glacial erratics to construct the circle. Rather than quarrying fresh pillars, they specifically targeted stones shaped entirely by natural processes. 

The point of all this is to show that in at least one ancient culture, natural boulders found in the landscape were accorded greater respect than quarried stone. It is perfectly possible that in glaciated British terrains erratic boulders -- often very impressive features in themselves -- were viewed as special or mysterious. Because glacial erratics contrast sharply with the local bedrock and sit isolated in landscapes, prehistoric and historical cultures across North America, Europe, and Asia routinely incorporated them into their spiritual systems. 

As pointed out by Lionel Jackson and myself, the Foothills Erratics Train (which includes the iconic Okotoks "Big Rock" in Alberta, is deeply revered by the Blackfoot (Siksikaitsitapi) nation. They left red ochre pictographs on it and still pass down the famous legend of Napi (the Trickster) and his mobile rock. 

Other sacred erratics across glaciated North America include:

The Skystone (Washington, USA): Located in Bonney Lake, this andesite erratic features distinct depressions and alignments. It is traditionally used by the Puyallup tribe for ancestral astronomical tracking and spiritual observations.
Medicine Rocks / Prayer Boulders: Across the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas), solitary granite erratics on the limestone prairies were treated as Inyan (the primordial rock spirit in Lakota/Dakota cosmology). Native peoples left offerings of tobacco, painted them with vermillion, and sought visions near them.
Turtle Mounds and Effigy Alignments (New England): Indigenous communities frequently selected specific glacial erratics—propped up or stabilized intentionally on smaller stones—to serve as structural centers for ceremonial stone landscapes and effigy markers. 

In glaciated northern Europe, the spiritual co-opting of erratics spans from the Stone Age to Christian-era folklore.  During the Neolithic, prehistoric peoples across Denmark, northern Germany (for example the island of Rügen), and Poland harvested heavy erratics to build their megalithic tombs, passage graves, and dolmens. The stones were treated as permanent spiritual thresholds separating the worlds of the living and the dead.   In Northern Poland and the Baltic region, large erratics like the Devil’s Rock in Bisztynek were revered as pagan altars. Natural depressions in the stones were interpreted as the footprints of gods, devils, or witches. Because they were considered sacred or cursed, local populations heavily resisted breaking them down for building materials, creating an early form of folk conservation.
 In Swedish and Norwegian folklore, erratic boulders scattered across fields were explicitly called jättekast (giant-throws). They were believed to be weapons hurled by Frost Giants targeting Christian church bells, imbuing the stones with a dark, supernatural aura. 

 Carn Arthur, a spectacular perched block in Preseli

Similarly, in west Wales large erratic stones in prominent positions (often used in megalithic settings) were named after gods, giants. angels, saints, monsters and heroes.  So we have Carreg Coetan Arthur, Coetan Arthur, Bedd Arthur, Bedd yr Afanc, Carreg Samson, Carn Ingli, Cerrig Marchogion, Caerfyrddin, Bryn Myrddin, Tyddewi, Carnedd Meibion Owen, Llanrhian.  And many more.

And so to Geoffrey Kellaway and the blau stones.  As reported a number of times on this blog, Kellaway argued in "Nature" in 1971 (and in other papers)  that the bluestones were never described as BLUE stones by the early visitors to Stonehenge, but that in the Middle Ages (ie around the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth and later) they might have been referred to in Ango-Saxon as BLAU stones — with the word “blau” meaning striking, different, or of unusual or striking appearance.  This would make sense, since the stones are not actually blue at all — no matter what people might pretend, they are not that different in colour from the sarsens. But it’s intriguing to think that from an early stage people might have recognized them as simply DIFFERENT or exotic.

There is of course a tendency for people to see different, unusual, or striking stones in the landscape and and to wonder where they came from or why they are here rather than there.  I think it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that when the Neolithic people living on Salisbury Plain wanted to put up the early stone settings at Stonehenge, they gathered up as many stones as they could find, showing particular interest in any stones that were "different" from the common sarsens which were widely distributed across the landscape. Maybe -- like the Neolithic tribes elsewhere in NW Europe -- they even invested these "different" stones with magical or sacred significance -- with those special qualities entirely unrelated to source of origin or distance carried. I agree with many others who have suggested that the builders of Stonehenge did not have a clue where the bluestones had come from.

Kellaway argued that the stones were collected up on Salisbury Plain simply because they were there and because they looked different and interesting. Like Briggs, be preferred the 

"utilitarian" explanation.   I think we might go further than that, and argue, on the basis of the info contained in this post, that the erratics might well have been invested with significance.  If there was any stone-related reverence around in Neolithic times, it is much more likely to have been directed at scattered glacial erratics than to useless and broken bits of foliated rhyolite quarried at a faraway place called Rhosyfelin..........

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/06/nothing-new-under-sun.html

More on the Unofficial Gorsedd Circle at Croft

This is the caption on the two attractive tubs by the roadside:

The 'Gleision' (Green) Gardens Project – a Pembrokeshire initiative involving Adam working in the garden alongside the communities of Cilgerran, Eglwyswrw, and Cemaes. 

Do you want to come to Llantwd for the festival? Yes, right. Good. (Ceri Wyn Jones)

https://www.narberth-and-whitland-today.co.uk/news/community-news/gerddi-gleision-leaves-colourful-legacy-for-pembrokeshire-communities-929527

https://mentrauiaith.cymru/en/press-release-two-successful-menter-iaith-sir-benfro-projects-to-welcome-the-national-eisteddfod-to-north-pembrokeshire/

So Menter Iaith Sir Benfro installed the colourful tubs, but who put up the stones?  The gardener Adam yn yr Ardd was very involved in the planning and execution of a wide project across parts of Pembrokeshire.  Here the project involved colourful plants, but elsewhere vibrant and colourful street art transformed assorted otherwise drab buildings, as in Newport:

But all of this very commendable activity still tells us nothing about the originators of the Croft Gorsedd Circle.  I'm told that the stones were put in position around the beginning of July, and this seems to be confirmed in some photos of the site in which the grass is bright green and where we can see disturbed ground around the stones.  There is no public access to the stones - between the stones and the road there is a substantial fence where the hedge used to be. The stones are on private land, and at the top of the slight slope there is a temporary fence that marks the edge of the eisteddfod site.  The official eisteddfod site also included the land on the other side of the minor road to Glanrhyd.  So the stone circle site feels like a sort of eisteddfod annexe........

The mystery of the Croft Gorsedd Circle

 

Now it gets even more confusing.  There is yet another "Gorsedd Circle",  outside the eisteddfod site and located on the Croft Crossroads.  The above photo was published on Facebook -- sorry I don't know who the photographer was........

This circle appears to have been made of authentic bluestone erratics collected in the local area.  The eisteddfod official web site determinedly makes no mention of this circle, and so it is an "unofficial" feature of the landscape.  You don't need planning permission to pick up a glacial erratic from one place and stick it in the ground somewhere else.  Presumably that applies to 12 stones as well as to one.   And presumably the circle is not a "structure" as understood in planning law -- we might prefer to call it "an arrangement"................

On the other hand the planning situation might be rather more complicated.........

Detective work is under way.  Before long, I hope to be in a position to tell the story of how this very erratic stone circle came to be where it is.

Here are some other pics from Facebook.

PS.  I asked myself the question "Could this stone circle have been erected behind a hedge, and then revealed to the outside world by simply grubbing out the hedge?"  Well, the answer is "Yes" -- this is the image from Google Streetview, from Nov 2024.  The reference points are the two electricity poles......  very interesting!

Bing Satellite image, showing the location and the roadside hedge

The Gorsedd stone circle at the Llantwd National Eisteddfod

 Had a grand day out at the Welsh National Eisteddfod in Llantwd, near Cardigan, on Friday.  Here is Inger perched next to one of the standing stones in the Gorsedd Circle -- in the maes or large open area where assorted ceremonials are conducted.

The Gorsedd Circle is a profound disappointment!  I am greatly saddened.  I had expected something grandly spectacular, but what we found was a rather feeble circle of 12 stones, each one just over a metre tall, all made of fibreglass and some sort of modern resin -- and all given a garish blue colour.  Well, the Eisteddfod was branded as "Eisteddfod y Garreg Las"  -- the bluestone eisteddfod.  On doing a bit of research, I discovered that the pseudo "stones" are used every year at the eisteddfod, in the centre of whatever location might have been chosen.  

The artificial stones are expected to have a life of about 50 years, and they were first used in 2004.  This was done initially to reduce the cost of installation (and removal, if the stones are put up on farmland) but of course it is argued that it would not be a good idea to plunder the natural stone resources of protected areas such as Mynydd Preseli........ and that is fair enough.  So there are no modern bluestone quarries, much to the disappointment of the bluestone quarry hunters...... and if it comes to that, no pieces of terrain from which bluestone erratics have been collected up and carted away by the eisteddfod faithful.

To make matters more confusing, there is actually a modern stone circle associated with the Llantwd Eisteddfod, but that is in Narberth, many miles away in mid-Pembrokeshire.  That was built in 2025, for the proclamation of the eisteddfod -- which has to be done, according to an invented tradition, at least a year and a day prior to the esteddfod itself.

And to make matters even more confusing, there is a Gorsedd Circle in Cardigan, close to the Netpool, which comes up accidentally on Google searches -- but that circle relates to the Cardigan eisteddfod of 1976 -- and it has nothing at all to do with 2026.

By the way, the stones are supposed to be "unhewn" -- ie unquarried, but collected up in their natural state from the litter of erratic rocks occuring in the landscape. Where did that rule come from?  Was there maybe a geomorphologist in some early Eisteddfodd Gorsedd of Bards who insisted on respect for natural processes?

The symbolism of the Gorsedd Circle?  Well, there are supposed to be 11 equally spaced stones in the circle, and one additional outlier or inlier creating an alignment  to the midsummer solstice.  In the centre of the circle there has to be a larger recumbent stone referred to as the Altar Stone.  It can be seen near the right hand edge of the photo, with handy handrail.  As far as I can gather, the practice of sacrificing virgins was given up some years ago, out of deference to local sensibilities.

Progress on the Meaden Cobble

The Meaden Cobble (below) alongside one of the quarried blocks from the Whatley Quarry.  Note the colour difference and the different angularity of edges.

Thanks to Paula and Martin, and thanks to the staff at the Whatley "super quarry", we now have some quarried rock samples to compare with the hand-sized sample found by Terence Meaden near West Kennet. The rock types in the quarry are quite variable:

Organic Dark Beds: The main body of the Black Rock Limestone exposed in the lower benches of the quarry is a deep, dark grey to near-black. This rich pigmentation is caused by a high concentration of organic material from ancient marine plants and algae, mixed with fine terrigenous muds. 

Extensive Top Dolomitisation: Unlike the cleaner, purely blue-black beds found elsewhere, the top of the Black Rock Limestone sequence at Whatley has undergone extensive dolomitisation. Magnesium-rich fluids altered the original limestone, resulting in highly weathered, earthy, brownish-black and buff-coloured zones.

The Angular Unconformity: Directly over the top of this dark, weathered Carboniferous sequence sits a flat, horizontally bedded layer of pale, sandy-buff Jurassic oolitic limestone. This forms a clear unconformity,  highlighting the dramatic boundary between the older, dark, muddy, steeply dipping limestone and the younger Mesozoic rocks. 

We have four dark-coloured samples of quarried rock, and all four of them have a bluish-black colour.  This looks slightly different from the brownish-black colour of the Meaden Cobble.  Because of the well preserved brachiopod imprint in the Meaden Cobble, it might have come from the muddy lower facies of the Black Rock Limestone.  This could have come from low in the Whatley Quarry sequence, or elsewhere in the Nunney valley area.  Other possibilities include Burrington Combe, Three Cliffs Bay and Caswell Bay in the Gower, and the "Zaphrentis" phase rocks around Linney Head. Freshwater West and elsewhere on the South Pembrokeshire Cliffs.

The Meaden Cobble (c 10 cm long) alongside another quarried block.  

The quarried block in this photo approximates more closely in colour to the Meaden Cobble

Crinoid fossils in one of the quarried blocks.

Because of the widespread nature of the Black Rock Limestone outcrops, I don't think we are going to get much closer to a good provenence, at least not for the time being. "Somewhere to the south-west or west" is maybe the best we can do.........

But having been looking again at the characteristics of the cobble, I am struck by the similarities with the infamous Newall Boulder.  There is a rough wedge or bullet shape, with a number of clear facets, a weathered surface patina and multiple sub-angular edges which are very different from those of the freshly quarried rocks from the Whatley Quarry. There are no angular or sharp edges -- wear is apparent everywhere on the surface of the stone.   As readers of this blog will know, I interpreted the surface characteristics of the Newall Boulder as demonstrating glacial transport, and I am convinced of that here too, in the case of the Meaden Cobble.    So -- another glacial erratic in an unexpected context.

If this cobble arrived in the vicinity of West Kennet in recent times as part of a load of roadstone, it would have sharp edges and very different surface characteristics.  As Terence has suggested, it might have moved downslope towards the footpath bit by bit, over many generations of ploughing, harrowing, planting and harvesting.  There are in fact many obvious scratch marks on the cobble surface, but only in one or two small instances have the scratch marks broken across the sub-angular facet edges.

So I am rather convinced, as in the case of the Newall Boulder, that this is a small glacial erratic.  It is not a fluvially transported cobble, or a piece of periglacial debris.  It is not a piece of crushed roadstone or a fragment directly derived from a quarry.  Neither is it a "knock-off" from an imported monolith or standing stone. Neither is it a "joint block" which owes nothing to the processes that operated during entrainment and transport from its source.

Once again the fanciful idea that "there are no glacial erratics on Salisbury Plain and adjoining areas" is directly contradicted by the evidence.

=====================

See also this exchange which demonstrates all to clearly just how desperate the Parker Pearson team is to promote its fantastical bluestone transport narrative, come hell or high water:

Brian S John, 2026. The Newall boulder at Stonehenge: correcting the "corrections". Researchgate pre-publication document, 13 pp.
DOI:
10.13140/RG.2.2.10844.86401

The Newall boulder at Stonehenge: correcting the "corrections". Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/399619799_The_Newall_boulder_at_Stonehenge_correcting_the_corrections[accessed Jan 10 2026].

.....................in response to this disgraceful ad hominem attack on my competence and integrity:

Richard E. Bevins, Nick J.G. Pearce, Rob A. Ixer, James Scourse, Tim Daw, Mike Parker Pearson, Mike Pitts, David Field, Duncan Pirrie, Ian Saunders, Matthew Power. 2025. The enigmatic ‘Newall boulder’ excavated at Stonehenge in 1924: New data and correcting the record, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 66, 105303.

Foel Drygarn -- the prehistoric quarry they chose not to see

The Foel Drygarn prehistoric quarry complex, showing the four areas from which thousands of tonnes of stone (mostly small angular slabs) have been removed for construction projects

 Hidden in plain sight?  So prominent that it was mistaken for something else?  Whatever the reason might have been, I don't think there is any mention, anywhere in the flood of articles about the "monolith quarries" at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog, of the Foel Drygarn quarrying complex which extends over   15,000sq m (300m x 50m) on the flank of the Foel Drygarn hill summit. According to my calculations, over 14,000 tonnes of stone have been shifted:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-foel-drygarn-quarries-what-is.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-prehistoric-quarries-at-foel-drygarn.html

Parker Pearson, Ixer, Bevins and the others must have known about it, since it is specifically  mentioned in reports by Coflein / Archwilio in and around 1968.  The word "quarries" is used in two places in the published map of the site, following work by Hogg and others.  And it is so obvious that you can't miss it, if you wander about near the hill summit today -- mercifully free of covering vegetation and available for easy inspection in all its detail.  I have described it in a number of posts on this blog.  Nobody has questioned or denied the accuracy of what I have described.

So Parker Pearson et al knew about the quarry and chose to ignore it.  Why?  Well, it was only too obviously very inconvenient indeed, since it did nothing to confirm their fantsastical "monolith extraction" narrative.

If they had had any respect for the due processes of scientific investigation, the first thing that they would have done, when the idea of quarrying came into the frame, was to ask "what do we know already about prehistoric stone quarrying in the upland terrain of Mynydd Preseli?".   They would have visited and investigated the site. looking for any lessons that might be learned.  But of course that would not have served their purpose..........

If they had looked at Foel Drygarn, their papers on Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog and Waun Mawn would have looked very different, and indeed might not have been written at all.

So what does Foel Drygarn tell us about stone quarrying in Mynydd Preseli around 1,500 - 2,000 years after the date of the supposed stone extraction from the "bluestone monolith quarries"?    We would expect the Foel Drygarn quarrying operation to have been more sophisticated,  since the quarrymen would have had access to metal tools and maybe metal wedges too.  But we find traces of quarrying work that was in essence very simple indeed. As far as we can see, the quarrymen took no slabs of rock from exposed rock faces -- they were only interested in taking small slabs from accumulations of scree.  They concentrated on slabs and small blocks up to c 30 kg in weight, capable of being handled by two men.  They were not interested in large boulders, and indeed left them behind as they cleared out smaller fragments from the scree slopes.  The "lag concentrations" are obvious in places towards the eastern end of the quarrying complex.  They left abundant traces of their stone extraction work -- interconnected pits and hollows, conical mounds of debris, ridges left between adjacent pits, abundant trackways, clean rock faces, and accumulations of unwanted boulders.  

Accumulation of boulders in a rough arc against one of the eastern dolerite crags.  At first I thought this was an arcuate enclosure similar to those at Carn Edward and elsewhere -- but now I think the boulder litter covers too large an area, and that we are looking at the "lag boulder assortment" left behind after the collection of smaller (useful) blockfield debris.  

The lessons for "quarrying studies" in West Wales?  Well, the quarrymen left clear and incontrovertible evidence of their activities.  Such evidence of landscape scarring  is conspicuously missing from Carn Meini, Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog.  Secondly,  there is no evidence at Foel Drygarn of any external influence on the quarrymen -- they were obtaining the local raw materials needed for their own local projects, and saw no need to bring in any stones from outside the immediate locality.  This is entirely in tune with the scenario at all the other megalithic settings in West Wales -- none of them used imported stone from elsewhere.  In other words, there is no need to speculate about sacred or high value stone derived from special places.  As for the "engineering features" like loading platforms, sliding rails, loading bays, ramps, stone wedges, rock face extraction recesses, hammer stones and revetments, they are entirely absent from Foel Drygarn. (They are also, in my opinion, entirely missing from the supposed Neolithic quarry sites as well.  This is argued by me and my colleages John Downes and Dyfed Elis Gruffydd.)

To summarise:

1.  Genuine prehistoric stone quarries leave reconizeable scars in the landscape that cannot be explained by reference to natural processes.

2.  Prehistoric quarrymen prioritized "minimum effort" rather than being driven by some sacred or ritual motivation to do heroic and exceptional things.  They were opportunists and pragmatists.

3. In the case of Foel Drygarn the quarrymen took loose and accessible surface materials -- rocks and smaller debris -- in preference to trying to extract slabs and pillars from exposed rock faces.  Blockfield debris, scree and glacial litter could be easily exploited and c 14,000 tonnes were moved.

In other words, the evidence from the Bronze Age and Iron Age quarrying operations at Foel Drygarn porovides no support whatever for the fantastical Neolithic bluestone extraction narrative invented by Parker Pearson and his colleagues.  

==========

Reference:

Archive Collection: A.H.A. Hogg Foel Drygarn / Moel Trigarn Survey Plans (1968) RCAHMW document. 

Not digitised, as far as I can make out.........

Here are rather poor copies of two of the maps:

.

Prehistoric quarries in Pembrokeshire: three fantasies and one real but ignored

 

In the Foel Drygarn prehistoric quarry stone has been taken from at least four scree and blockfield locations associated with several different rock types.

In many posts on this blog I have referred to the disputes concerning the "monolith quarries" at three places:  Carn Meini (Carn Menyn), Craig Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog.  The first of these was accepted as real by many archaeologists for the best part of a century, having been promoted in the writings of HH Thomas, Richard Atkinson and others and then "adopted" by Darvill and Wainwright in association with their "healing stones" hypothesis.  It took a knock when Bevins and Ixer suggested that most of the spotted dolerites at Stonehenge had probably not come from there at all, but from Carn Goedog.  Together with Parker Pearson, the two geologists have been instrumental since 2010 in suggesting that the petrology of bluestone monoliths  and debitage at Stonehenge points to two major sources -- Carn Goedog for most spotted dolerites, and Rhosyfelin for the foliated rhyolites that occur in collections of fragments found in Stonehenge digs. (There are no Rhosyfelin standing stones.)   They decided that there must have been quarries at those two sites, and of course, confirmed their ruling hypothesis by finding them, much to their own satisfaction.

As I have pointed out on multiple occasions on this blog, the evidence of actual prehistoric quarrying at those three sites does not withstand scrutiny.  The "evidence" is so flimsy as to be laughable, and the conclusion has to be that the three sites display multiple features that are entirely consistent with the operation of natural processes over the course of many thousands of years of oscillating climate. That having been said, I would accept that the rock outcrops at Rhosyfelin might have been used by hunting parties over thousands of years for the provision of sharp-edged disposable cuttiong tools suitable for skinning animals and carving meat.  Also, I would accept that the two spotted dolerite "quarrying" sites have been used by local farmers within the past 300 years for the provision of stone gateposts -- as indeed have other Preseli tors.  And the deacons of the local nonconformist chapels have also taken many cartloads of dolerite blocks for the provision of "posh" facades on their chapels. (This was documented by my late friend Dyfed Elis Gruffydd in Welsh language publications.) The stones were NOT taken because they were supposed to be "sacred" or spiritually siognificant......

So let's get serious.  There are three candidates for REAL prehistoric stone quarries in Mynydd Preseli, excluding abundant small pits and hollows all over the upland landscape that might well mark the positions of large stones used in local prehistoric stone settings.  The locations are Bwlch Ungwr, Cnwc yr Hydd and Foel Drygarn.  The small feature at Bwlch Ungwr, discovered by Hugh 360, is worthy of further investigation.  I have mentioned in on this blog already.   Much more impressive is the quarry pit on the summit of Cnwc yr Hydd, near Waun Mawn, and the string of linked pits on the slope below.  I have given these plenty of space on this blog, for example here:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-geology-of-waun-mawn.html

The Cnwc yr Hydd quarries are prominent features in the landscape, but in all the publications by Parker Pearson and his colleagues about Waun Mawn, they are completely ignored -- in spite of being located within a few hundred metres of their infamous "lost circle" of standing stones. Exposures show that these quarries have been used for the provision of slabs of meta-mudstone or foliated rhyolite suitable for domestic and farm buildings and stone walls. Transport of the slabs downhill in open countryside was very easy. My guess is that the quarries are all modern -- exploited within the past 300 years. There is nothing to suggest prehistoric use.

This leaves us with just one demonstrably prehistoric quarry -- at Foel Drygarn, close to the summit of the hill. In this case there is nothing to demonstrate modern use, and indeed it would not make much sense for local farmers to collect rubble from here, given its abundance across the countryside lower down.......

The quarrying activities have been quite extensive here -- there were at least four distinct areas of exploitation. These are shown in my various publications on this blog, for example:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2017/04/foeldrygarn-prehistoric-quarries.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-prehistoric-quarries-at-foel-drygarn.html

The quarries are probably not Neolithic, since the main activities on this site were apparently concentrated in the Bronze Age (with the construction of three massive burial mounds) and in the Iron Age (with the construction of the fortified "village").  

Nonetheless, there are some significant features of the Foel Drygarn quarrying complex:

1.  The presence of suitable rock resources was a prime determinant in the location of the human features on the site -- namely three burial mounds, fortified embankments and a tribal village with maybe a few hundred inhabitants.  This supports what Stephen Briggs has concluded from his studies of other prehistoric features elsewhere in Wales.

2.  The targetted rock resources were  small and manageable slabs of broken rhyolite, dolerite and meta mudstone.  The quarrymen were NOT interested in megaliths or monoliths.

3.  The slabs were almost all capable of being carried by one man or by two men working together.

4.  The exploited rock resources were not rock faces but scree slopes and blockfields created by prolonged  periglacial activity during the Quaternary.

5.  All the collected rock slabs and blocks were collected within 60m or so of their places of use.  Many were carried uphill for about 20m -- this effort was clearly preferable to the effort of carring in other rocks from external sources.  In cost / benefit terms, the effort was worthwhile.

6.  There are abundant and distinct physical traces of the quarrying activity -- extraction pits, waste mounds and ridges, and haulage trackways.  In places so much scree has been removed that the rock face beneath has been exposed. There are no traces of tools, because none were needed.

7.  I have estimated that c 14,000 tonnes of rock debris has been moved on the summit of Foel Drygarn. Some will have come from the immediate proximity of building or defensive work within the confines of the Iron Age village, but most must have come from the quarries.

8.  Adjacent to one or two of the dolerite outcrops there are litters of large boulders and slabs (of bluestone monolith size!) that have simply been left behind while the quarrymen have carried away all of the smaller clasts for use in the burial mounds or fortified embankments. 

So what are the lessons for those who insist that 80 Stonehenge bluestones were quarried from the living rock with the use of wedges and hammer stones, and transported all the way to Salisbury Plain thousands of years before Foel Drygarn was occupied and exploited?

There is a wonderful irony here.  The one place where there is hard evidence of prehistoric stone quarrying  is completely ignored by mainstream orthodoxy because it doesn't serve the Stonehenge origin story. At Foel Drygarn we see genuine, empirical evidence of prehistoric stone working in the Preseli region -- with the Bronze Age and later exploitation of local stone for highly practical, manageable architectural features. This system fits standard technological expectations perfectly: 

Local Scope: The slabs were extracted to build immediate, regional structures like the defensive walls of hillforts (such as Carn Alw or Carningli) or the burial cairns dotting the hills (such as Carn Briw or Foel Feddau).

Proportionate Scale: The stones were sized to be manageable by a local community working within the physical constraints of their immediate neighborhood.  Common sense prevailed.

Visible Infrastructure: Unlike the alleged Stonehenge quarries, this practical exploitation leaves behind clear, unambiguous traces of extraction and use that do not require speculative ancient psychology to explain.

By completely sidelining this genuine prehistoric quarrying tradition, mainstream archaeologists expose their own confirmation bias. They ignore a real, visible, and logical stone-working evidence right under their noses while spending millions of pounds trying to prove that natural, frost-shattered rock faces at Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin are high-tech Neolithic megalith production lines.

This selective blindness confirms that the promoters of the orthodox narrative are not interested in the actual, messy, practical reality of prehistoric stone use in Wales. They requires a pristine, monumental, long-distance fantasy to keep the "sacred transport" myth alive..............  How sad is that?

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The Coflein record for Foel Drygarn is extraordinarily bland and lacking in rigour:

https://coflein.gov.uk/en/sites/94948/images

It completely fails to recognize the stone quarries near the summit, and does not even wonder where all the stone used in the Bronze Age and Iron Age features actually came from.