The Lost Circle at Waun Mawn: a commentary

I'm aware that my initial review of the recent "Antiquity" article on the "Lost Circle of Waun Mawn" was rather undercooked, so I have been through the article again and have elaborated on some of the points made. (One can do such things during a lockdown when there is a monsoonal gale going on just outside my window......)  I am no more impressed by the article on this second reading than I was on the first -- and in many ways I am now even more surprised by its manifold shortcomings.

Here is a link to Researchgate:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349439694_The_Lost_Circle_at_Waun_Mawn_a_commentary

... and also on Academia:

https://www.academia.edu/45153660/The_Lost_Circle_at_Waun_Mawn_a_commentary

It's interesting that there is some feedback from Prof Tim Darvill on the new work:

“They’ve got a ragbag of stones and I’m rather sceptical of it being a stone circle,” says Tim Darvill at Bournemouth University, UK, who has carried out many studies of Stonehenge.

Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2267537-stonehenge-was-built-with-bits-of-an-older-welsh-stone-age-monument/#ixzz6mvvKCPmC

On another site:

"There’s reason to be skeptical about the new study", says archaeologist Timothy Darvill of Bournemouth University in Poole, England. “Whether the discoveries at Waun Mawn are really the remains of a stone circle needs further work, including more extensive excavations to sample a wider area,” he says.

There are several problems with the new report, says Darvill. Known stone circles typically consist of evenly spaced stones, whereas the four stones discovered at Waun Mawn are irregularly spaced. Most large stone circles in western England and Wales have clearly defined entrances, but it’s not clear that the proposed entryway at Waun Mawn served that purpose. And some earthen sockets at the Welsh site might have been created by farmers clearing fields.

I don't often agree with Tim but on this we are as one........