The glorification of the absurd

 

Here we go again -- the Council for British Archaeology is doing its bit for the glorification of the absurd.  As expected, here comes the latest puff for the "Lost Circle" of Waun Mawn, and for the amazing "discoveries" of the MPP team.  It would appear that in British archaeology there is nobody left who is capable of knowledgeably scrutinising anything;  whatever appears in print, no matter how outrageous, is simply accepted as being true.  Thoroughly depressing.

The article from the MPP team:
Antiquity , Volume 95 , Issue 379 , February 2021 , pp. 85 - 103
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.239

Abstract:
The discovery of a dismantled stone circle—close to Stonehenge's bluestone quarries in west Wales—raises the possibility that a 900-year-old legend about Stonehenge being built from an earlier stone circle contains a grain of truth. Radiocarbon and OSL dating of Waun Mawn indicate construction c. 3000 BC, shortly before the initial construction of Stonehenge. The identical diameters of Waun Mawn and the enclosing ditch of Stonehenge, and their orientations on the midsummer solstice sunrise, suggest that at least part of the Waun Mawn circle was brought from west Wales to Salisbury Plain. This interpretation complements recent isotope work that supports a hypothesis of migration of both people and animals from Wales to Stonehenge.

...and here is my take on things:

Waun Mawn and the search for "Proto- Stonehenge"
November 2020
Project:
Interpretation of West Wales megalithic structures

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345177590_Waun_Mawn_and_the_search_for_Proto-_Stonehenge

ABSTRACT

This paper examines Waun Mawn in its regional context, on the northern flank of Mynydd Preseli in Pembrokeshire. The geology is typical for the area, with outcrops of Ordovician mudstones and meta-mudstones and igneous rocks belonging to the Fishguard Volcanic Group. The landscape has been intensively glaciated on more than one occasion, and glacial and periglacial deposits are widespread. There is an extensive litter of erratic boulders (mostly of dolerite) scattered across the hillside. Many of these boulders have been used in prehistoric stone settings around Waun Mawn, Tafarn y Bwlch and Banc Llywdlos. Included in these stone settings are single and double standing stones, ring cairns, passage and gallery graves, and what appear to be collapsed cromlechs. Parker Pearson (2017, 2019) has claimed that Waun Mawn carries traces of a dismantled "giant stone circle" which provided bluestone monoliths for Stonehenge. The evidence cited in two publications is examined, and does not withstand scrutiny. From examinations of the shallow excavations in 2017 and 2018, it is concluded that there might have been some small standing stones which were later removed or broken up, but it is not demonstrated that there ever was a small stone circle here, let alone a "giant" one. Furthermore, there have been no control studies in the neighbourhood that might demonstrate that the speculated feature has any significance. There is nothing at Waun Mawn to link this site in any way to Stonehenge, and it is concluded that the archaeologists have simply "discovered" what they wanted to find, and have created an elaborate and unnecessary bluestone narrative around it. No evidence has been brought forward in support of the claim that "this was one of the great religious and political centres of Neolithic Britain".

There is one glimmer of hope for mankind -- at the last count, there had been 2,890 reads of my Researchgate article.  Some people, out there, are taking it seriously..........