Waun Mawn 2021 -- the dig is done (1)

Little and Large -- the two most prominent stones at the "entrance" to the Gernos Fach embanked circle.

They had good weather on the excavations this year -- and by the look of it got quite a bit done, in spite of the rumoured shortage of diggers.  I never managed to take a walk on the moor while the dig was in progress,  since I have been getting post-vaccine dizzy spells.  But today I felt better, and ambled up there to take a look.

I gather that in the Project Design plan, three areas were due to be excavated:

1. Possible embanked enclosure  c 40m north of Waun Mawn stone circle.  

2.  Gernos Fach embanked circle, well known to me and several others but claimed to have been "discovered" by a member of the MPP team earlier this year.

3.  The Waun Mawn "lost circle" circumference and centre, complementing digs in 2017 and 2018.

This is what is observable following the departure of the excavators:

1. Possible embanked enclosure

I have drawn attention to these recumbent stones in a number of posts on this blog, although the MPP team appears not to have noticed them previously.  As admitted by the excavating team, "This may well be an entirely natural feature but its proximity to the stone circle makes it a priority for investigation in 2021."  They speculate that there may be an "embankment with slabs", and there is indeed a very slight rise in the ground surface -- but the surface is full of undulations, and I see nothing unusual or potentially man-made about it.  There are three stones exposed -- two rather irregular unspotted dolerite boulders and one sharp-edged slab.  They are not aligned or on the circumference of any arc or circle.  What we see may be just the tips of much larger boulders or rock outcrops. The diggers planned to examine the contexts of each stone, and this is what they have done, with three excavations -- two quite tightly around the two eastern stones and a third excavation about 12m x 2m in extent, from the westernmost stone and running towards the supposed circumference of the "lost circle."  The total area excavated is about 56 sq m.  My assumption here is that they found nothing of any interest.

The largest of the three unspotted dolerite recumbent boulders.  This may simply be the tip of a much larger erratic block, or maybe even a rock outcrop.  

2.  Gernos Fach embanked circle.

There have been three substantial excavations on this site, as planned.  The circular embankment or ridge is very visible, and the diggers have stripped off the turf in one patch 3m x 3m at the centre, one patch c 10m x 8m on the northern segment, and a much more extensive area about 18m x 8m on the western edge, around the assumed "entrance passage".  Several stones have been exposed that were not previously visible, and it remains to be seen whether they were previously standing stones which have now fallen over.  Three new stones are exposed on the north side of the "entrance passage."    The big leaning stone on the north edge of the "entrance passage" is shown to be very large indeed, and I suspect that it may be as large as the other standing stones which are already well known on Waun Mawn.  It could be between 3m and 4m long and up to 1m wide.  It's a rough piece of local unspotted dolerite with clear signs of glacial abrasion and a thick weathering crust.  Most of the rock fragments here are of local dolerite, with one smaller fragments of quartz, also locally derived.  I didn't see any rhyolite, meta-mudstone or ash -- but I would not be surprised if some should be found in the excavations. I saw no traces of any spotted dolerite.  The total area excavated is about 233 sq m.

There are rumours of a "paved area" or of slabs set flat on the ground in the area of the circle entrance -- but no doubt this will figure in future announcements of the excavation results.  No doubt there will be organic remains from here, and I expect the C14 dates, when they arrive, to show that this is a Bronze Age feature.  And of course it will have nothing whatsoever to do with Stonehenge...........

There are scores of other features in the Waun Mawn - Tafarn y Bwlch - Banc Llwydlos area which are equally deserving of investigation, and I hope the MPP team will turn their attentions to some of those in future years.

The cluster of stones around the entrance to the embanked circle.  The ground surface has been lowered, exposing more of the "leaning monolith" that once must have been a very impressive standing stone.

Small quartz fragments found during the dig.  There are a number of very substantial quartz outcrops in the vicinity.

I have no concerns about these two excavation sites in that the digs proceeded as planned.  However, the digs associated with the Waun Mawn "lost circle" are another matter entirely, and a vast area has been excavated this year -- which is wildly at odds with what was planned and with the "excavation map" submitted to the authorities.  I'll devote another blog post to the increasingly desperate "lost circle" evidence hunt........