How much do we know about Stonehenge? Less than we think. And what has Stonehenge got to do with the Ice Age? More than we might think. This blog is mostly devoted to the problems of where the Stonehenge bluestones came from, and how they got from their source areas to the monument. Now and then I will muse on related Stonehenge topics which have an Ice Age dimension...
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Sunday, 30 April 2017
Carn Briw stone collection zone
This is a Bing image (annotated) showing the Carn Briw conical mound on the Carningli ridge, to the west of the Iron Age hillfort. This small feature -- essentially a pile of stones -- is assumed to be a Bronze Age burial site. Probably there is -- or was -- a small cist grave in the centre of the mound.
Where did the stones come from? Well, around the cairn itself there is a heavily pitted ground surface, and it is obvious that the stones used for mound construction have all come from the immediate neighbourhood. Some of the pits are very well defined, and they are up to 50 cms deep. On the image above I have drawn a line around the main extraction area. Hardly anything has come to the mound from more than 30m away. As ever, economy of effort was the guiding principle..... and as ever, there appears to have been no selection of stones according to size, colour or rock type.
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