The Truth about Craig Rhosyfelin

The famous Fertility Stone in the Rhosyfelin Family Planning Clinic.  It was a very popular facility, but may have been abandoned when a large crack developed as a result of energetic over-use in 5150 BP.  This date is confirmed by Bayesian analysis of 293 radiocarbon dates on hazel nuts collected by local squirrels.

 

I have to report that I have received guidance from the Gods, and that I now know the truth about that enigmatic and much-excavated place called Craig Rhosyfelin.  I have to apologise to those of a sensitive disposition who were upset by my frivolous suggestion, the other day, that Rhosyfelin is, and always was, a shrubbery.   It is no such thing.  In my heightened sense of awareness this morning following my consumption of toast and marmalade I realised that it was for many millennia A FAMILY PLANNING CLINIC.

It was very popular with Neolithic families who had too many children, or too few, and the most successful feature of the facility was the Fertility Stone, a large flat stone in a prominent position that had magical properties.  It was believed by those living in the neighbourhood that if you made love on the stone, a child was guaranteed.  Furthermore, if you made love on the stone at the time of the full moon, twins were sure to be born nine months later; and if you made love on the stone at the time of a lunar eclipse, triplets were the inevitable outcome.  This is all confirmed by strontium isotope studies of cattle teeth found at Stonehenge.

So powerful were the traditions associated with the Fertility Stone that the community (as you might expect) was a very happy one.  But the Rhosyfelin tribe was very isolated, and there was too much inbreeding, as with the Viking colony in Southern Greenland.  So over several generations the population declined and weakened, and eventually died out, leaving a barren landscape in which there were no human beings for a thousand years, as shown in expert studies by assorted eminent archaeologists.

So there we are then.  All sorted.  A learned paper is in preparation for the journal "Antiquity".  Further speculation will be a waste of everybody's time.

The Fertility Stone at Rhosyfelin -- not very comfortable but renowned for its magical powers.