Waun Mawn -- a Neolithic power base?

 

I have mentioned this thesis before, in connection with the spotted dolerite erratics at Llan:

REASSESSMENT OF THE NEOLITHIC CHAMBERED TOMBS OF SOUTH-WEST WALES (CARMARTHENSHIRE AND PEMBROKESHIRE)
by Christopher Thompson Barker
https://theses.gla.ac.uk/78041/

University of Glasgow, 1989

I have been looking at it again, and have been struck by the fact that nowhere is there any mention of stones being "fetched" from far away in order to be used in a burial chamber.  Always the builders used whatever stones were to hand, and again the conclusion must be that (a) no particular stone types were deemed to be more special than any others; and (b) that practical considerations dominated, with burial chambers probably built where the suitable stones were located.  This contradicts a great deal of what we read in the literature about sightings, alignments, sacred views and landscape mimicry.  it was all very simple, with economy of effort one of the key considerations.

There is absolutely no reason to think that Stonehenge was any different, although it was obviously much more ambitious and labour-intensive than these small features in the west Wales landscape.

Another interesting thing to come out of this thesis is that it confirms the findings of other researchers of the West Wales Neolithic relating to the density or frequency of features on the ground.  Because Barker has plotted existing, destroyed and partial (or questionable) chambered tombs, the location map is a reasonable guide to the scale or density of Neolithic cultural features in the landscape.

This gives us another pointer on the assertion by Parker Pearson and his colleagues that the Waun Mawn area on Mynydd Preseli was "one of the great religious and political centres of Neolithic Britain" with links to Stonehenge.  The assertion is just not supported by the evidence.  Pen Caer and the Dewisland Peninsula might have a much stronger claim to be great religious and political centres -- because those areas have a far greater density of Neolithic features.  But even that would be going well over the top.......

Much as I love the landscape of the Waun Mawn area, and much as I enjoy flagging up the diversity and frequency of its prehistoric features, one has to admit that they are not so special as to be deserving of the Parker Pearson purple prose......... and as for the link with Stonehenge, we can forget that too.

and political centres of Neolithic Britain