The stones they left behind........

One of the interesting features of the endless hunt for "bluestone monolith quarries" is the obsession with the ones they left behind.  Here we have a little gallery. The top two photos are from the Carn Meini "quarry" -- one showing the supposed monolith with a craftily fashioned "lip" designed to stabilise it in a socket (!!), and one showing the supposed bluestone monolith which was abandoned after breaking in transit.  Nice stories, but now that the Carn Meini quarry idea has been given short shrift by Bevins, Ixer and Pearce,  maybe best forgotten......

The third photo shows the massive Rhosyfelin "monolith" in the "rhyolite monolith quarry" much beloved on Prof MPP and his team.  It remains to be seen how long that particular idea will survive for.

The bottom photo shows some of the stone "litter" on the flanks of Carn Goedog.  In his Moylgrove lecture this autumn, Prof MPP showed a slide of one elongated outcrop of spotted dolerite on the upslope side of the tor, in the hollow between the main outcrops and the hillslope leading to the summit.  He speculated that it looked like a very long stone that had been quarried and then abandoned.  No doubt next year they'll dig it up....... and so the search goes on. 

Strange what ruling hypotheses do to you.......