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Friday 12 October 2018

Waun Mawn and the great spotted dolerite hunt


The diggers have gone -- but in the aftermath there are plenty of stones which can be examined


This is from the 2017 Report and funding application from MPP, on behalf of the project called
"The Welsh origins of Stonehenge" [RFF-2017-23]
Principal Investigator: Michael Parker Pearson
Professor, University College London, Institute of Archaeology


"The main discovery was that four standing stones in an arc at Waun Mawn, above a source of the River Nevern, are the likely remains of a prehistoric stone circle, most of which was dismantled and removed in prehistory (fig.6). Its 80m-long arc suggests a former diameter of c.115m, which would make it the largest stone circle in Britain except for the outer ring of Avebury. Although excavations in 2017 failed to obtain a date for the stone circle’s erection or dismantling, its stone sockets were emptied and the stones removed before the onset of peat growth. We are currently awaiting radiocarbon dates from the base of the peat, though it is likely to have started forming in the Bronze Age."

This was of course a considerable over-egging of the pudding as far as the significance of the 2017 work was concerned, but when applying for research grants a man has to do what a man has to do.........

As we have mentioned before, one of the main assumptions built into the "proto-Stonehenge" hypothesis is the supposed link between Waun Mawn and the "monolith quarries" at Carn Goedog and Rhosyfelin.  The map showing the links has been widely used.  In his lectures MPP has taken it for granted that multiple monoliths were transferred from the quarries to Waun Mawn and used there in a vast stone circle which existed for c 400 years before being dismantled and moved, lock, stock and barrel, to Stonehenge. Further, it is widely assumed that around 80 bluestone monoliths were used at Stonehenge -- and further assumed by MPP that some of them might have been used temporarily at "Bluestonehenge" as well. 

"Oh! what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!" 

Enough of poetry -- the main point, if one has scientific inclinations, is that it is incumbent upon MPP and his colleagues to prove that maybe 50 spotted dolerite monoliths and maybe 30 foliated rhyolite monoliths were present at one time at Waun Mawn.  They carry the burden of proof, and they have to deliver.

On two separate occasions I have hunted across the dig site (which I now think involved  c 2000 sq m of excavations), looking for chips, packing stones or even "forgotten monoliths"  made of either spotted dolerite or foliated rhyolite.   I cannot be 100% certain, because I cannot know what has been found by the diggers and sent off for geological identification -- but I have not found a trace of either rock type.  (Spotted dolerite is fairly easy to spot, in the field,  since the whitish crystal clusters are more resistant to weathering then the "matrix" of the rock, making them stand proud.  So the rock surface tends to be lumpy or knobbly..... unlike the smooth surface of stones made from unspotted dolerite.)  There are plenty of  unspotted dolerite boulders,  slabs,  and pillars all over the place, and many dolerite cobbles and smaller pebbles too -- but they are all local.  There are no rhyolite pillars or monoliths, standing or recumbent.  There are some rhyolite and volcanic ash cobbles and stones, but they do not seem to be identical to those outcropping at Rhosyfelin.  In this area the ice has come in from the west and north-west; so "erratic material" from either Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog would be a good indicator of human transport.  But there is nothing.

I'm not sure why this little pile of stones was left on the turf.  I assume that they have been gathered up and interpreted as "packing stones" from one of the supposed stone sockets?  They are made of dolerite, volcanic ash, rhyolite and meta-mudstone -- all quite local.

On this geological test alone, the proto-Stonehenge hypothesis is rejected.

One final thought.  Dave mentioned to me that one idea being bounced around is that bluestone monoliths might have been stored at Waun Mawn without actually being planted into the ground.  I love it!  I have this picture in my head of lovely rows of elongated bluestone monoliths on the open moorland, with 50 neatly arranged spotted dolerite monoliths over by here, and 30 foliated rhyolite monoliths over by there, with a  sales rep offering them (with free delivery, of course) to the highest bidder..........

Once these fantasies get a hold of you, there is no knowing where they will lead you.





12 comments:

Dave Maynard said...

Hm, I think I'd better make it plain that I have no connection with any thoughts being bounced around for this site. I've not seen the site under excavation nor heard any of the talks about it.

I was trying to guess what evidence for a stone circle might look like if it had been removed. What evidence should we expect to see? The thoughts about not planting the stones in the ground would apply to 'dumpy' shaped stones rather than pillars. These could be placed in a circle without having to be planted in a pit. If a group of 'dumpy' stones were collected here, organised in some appropriate order, without bedding pits and moved at a later date to somewhere else, it would take very subtle excavation skills to identify this.

What happens if this putative circle was composed of both dumpy and tall stones? The result may then be an incomplete set of pits that form parts of the arc of the circle and empty areas where the dumpy stones had been placed. Is that what the results of the excavation show?

Do recumbent stones sit in a pit? I don't know, possibly some are and some not.

Just more questions!

Dave

BRIAN JOHN said...

Sorry if I did not make it clear, Dave, this this is your idea and not somebody else's idea that you are reporting on! All the credit is yours!

BRIAN JOHN said...

Yes, dumpy stones just resting on the ground would probably not need pits of any sort, and they could just be tastefully arranged and taken away again when required at Stonehenge.......

Bingo! The perfect scenario. No trace of any stones or sockets anywhere -- that just proves that they were all here and that they were all taken away. Who needs evidence anyway?

BRIAN JOHN said...

Actually the idea of a sort of stone depot used for storing quarried monoliths prior to use is not new. Didn't Darvill and Wainwright suggest that that was the purpose of the "enclosure" adjacent to the place where the Carn Meini "quarry" was suppose to have been located?

Alex Gee said...

Another valuable area of precious national park trashed for no other reason than personal vanity and ego! This is well beyond a joke now! Does anyone know the email address for the NERC?

TonyH said...

There's bound to be an ANTHROPOMORPHIC Disney Cartoon, hot off the press in, say, around ten years time, featuring the loveable spotted dolerite monoliths, led by spotty "Don", versus the less loveable but oh! so easily identifiable foliated Rhosyfelin rhyolite pillars, whose leader is "Ross".

A sort of Neolithic West Side Story.


I can hear the 'kerching' of the Box Offices.Makes no difference how dumpy some of the actors are, it'll be a.....Runaway Success!! Coming to a stone circle near you!

BRIAN JOHN said...

Thinking of films -- it was rumoured that a film crew spent time up at the Waun Mawn dig this September. I have no other info...... National Geographic?

BRIAN JOHN said...

Alex -- yes, there sure was a lot of digging this year ----- the biggest pit was in the SW quadrant. I reckon that pit alone was about 600 sq m. I have a theory that they were hunting in that area because the were hoping to find an entrance or maybe a causeway aligned with the setting sun at the midwinter solstice. Just speculating.......

Phil Morgan said...

Dave is correct with regard to dumpy and recumbent stones; it came to me in a vision last night,(so it must be true), where the dumpies and the long skinny ones were laid alternately end to end in a circle. All the residents of the area would wait in great expectation, waiting for Old Uncle Sid to stop complaining for he complained constantly. When the day arrived that Sid had gone a whole hour without a grumble all the residents would stand on the stones, ladies on the dumpies and gents on the skinnies. They would then face inwards and hold hands waiting for the signal to start until on the sounding of a horn they would put their left legs in and their left legs out, in out, in out and shake it all about; they'd do the Okee Kokee, knees bend, arms stretch, and that's what it was all about.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Correction -- that big pit was not as big as I thought. It was around 200 sq m -- with quite a big area around it where work was going on and where turves and soil were stored during the dig. Now that the turves have been put back in approx the right places you can see the size of the dig more accurately.

BRIAN JOHN said...

With regard to elegant pillars versus stumpy and lumpy stones and boulders, we all know that the latter exist in stone settings all over the UK -- including Pembs. But the archaeologists are hoist with their own petard, because they are in a state of denial about that. The whole point about the supposed quarries at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog is that THEY WERE THE PLACES WHERE THE BEST ELONGATED PILLARS COULD BE FOUND. And for better or for worse, MPP has told the world that 80 or so of these wonderful and carefully selected pillars were parked up at Waun Mawn for 400 years before being carted off to Stonehenge. That means 80 or so DEEP SOCKETS, which clearly do not exist. As somebody said: "Mr President, we have a problem..........."

The whole mad narrative is falling to pieces.

BRIAN JOHN said...

Sorry if I still miss some comments -- Google / Blogger have still not sorted out the notifications process....... and people are still grumbling about it.