The Craig Rhosyfelin dig

Since you asked .... here are some pics of the dig at Craig Rhosyfelin. As you will see, we are looking at a craggy outcrop of rhyolite on the flank of a gorge cut by glacial meltwater and now occupied by a relatively small stream (Afon Brynberian).  Adjacent to the jointed and sloping surface of the rhyolite, there is a big bank of blocky scree -- this is obvious from the photos.  Many of the angular blocks have been left in situ by the diggers.  Some of the blocks have rounded-off edges, suggesting to me that there has been meltwater erosion at some stage, with a stream maybe flowing over and through the scree bank. This would not be surprising, since the dig site is at the point where a little tributary valley comes down into the main valley.  The big block, which is causing so much excitement, is incorporated into this scree and lying on top of it.  There is another big block beneath a tree stump which the diggers have left in place.  On top of the scree there is an accumulation of slope deposits rich in organic material  -- no doubt the dig team will send some of that for radiocarbon dating.

On the rock face, there is another large slab of rock which is still in place -- but it would not take much in the way of pressure from roots -- and maybe frost shattering - to prize it off and send it crashing down.  No human involvement needed.  This is the slab:

So what can we say about the history of the site?  Well, the gorge may be very old, but it will certainly have carried meltwater torrents during the ice wastage phase of the Devensian glaciation.  That means that on the floor of the valley there will be abundant fluvio-glacial deposits containing rounded and sub-rounded pebbles of all shapes and sizes. (In the dig, the archaeologists have not got down deep enough to find these fluvio-glacial materials -- sands and gravels -- but I would put a few quid on the fact that they are there all right.)  When the ice retreated from this area around 20,000 years ago, there were a further 10,000 years or so of periglacial conditions during which rocky outcrops all over West Wales were subjected to frost shattering processes, with steep slopes partly covered by accumulations of scree.  There would also have been considerable snowmelt from snow-patches, in deep valleys such as the Afon Brynberian gorge.  Then the climate ameliorated in the Holocene -- after the final cold snap of the Younger Dryas.  The slope deposits shown in these photos have accumulated over that period -- there are some quite clear layers, and it will be interesting to see how these are interpreted with reference to Holocene climate changes during the Mesolithic and Neolithic -- and more recently as well.   So that's my bit of geomorphology, in which I have considerable confidence.

The upshot of all of this is that I don't see the slightest sign of any quarry here -- but I am always open to whatever evidence the archaeologists might wish to bring forward in support of their thesis.

I would have been only too happy to look at the dig in the presence of the archaeologists, and to help them in their interpretations, but two Email offers to MPP that we might meet for a chat were ignored, and I would have been only too happy to make a site visit in their company.  The Dyfed Archaeology team also know my views well, and if I had been asked, I would have been only too keen to help.  Then last night I arranged to meet the dig leaders at the site at 9 am -- and found, when I got there, that they were nowhere to be seen.  A few friends and I pottered about a bit, and took some photos, and Felix did some sort of ritual, in his bare feet.  Then when it started to rain we wandered off, patience exhausted.

Not sure what the etiquette is relating to photos of other people's digs, but in the circumstances I have no qualms.  After all, I helped to pay for it.  Anyway, so many people have visited the dig over the past two weeks that there are probably hundreds of photos of it on the web already.....