Carn Goedog and the Drovers' route

 

I found this image on Facebook -- thanks to Hugh Thomas of Preseli 360.  It shows the whole of the tumbledown tor of Carn Goedog in extraordinary detail, as described in my Researchgate article:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332739336_Carn_Goedog_and_the_question_of_the_bluestone_megalith_quarry

For the moment, I want to draw attention to the sub-parallel trackways on the southern flank of the tor, which show up remarkably well. These are in the upper part of the photo.  As I have pointed out before on this blog, these trackways make use of segments of ice-marginal channels which may date from the ice wastage phase of the last glaciation, but their powerful imprint on the landscape is down to many centuries os use by human beings and their flocks and herds, travelling over the col on the Preseli ridge which is off the photo, to the right. This was undoubtedly the main route used by the drovers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when they were crossing the mountains, on their way from South Pembrokeshire and onwards to Cardigan and the Ceredigion coast -- and ultimately towards the growing industrial areas of the Midlands and Lancashire.  But the route is much more ancient -- it is an offshoot of the "Golden Road" used during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

The south-facing flank of the tor was a perfect camping location for the travellers, and this is confirmed by the wide spread of radiocarbon dates obtained from organic materials during the dig by the MPP team in 2014-15.  Hearths and scattered remains in "occupation layers" reveal intermittent occupation of the site by travellers right through the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and modern periods, and there are traces of settlements at the foot of the north-facing flank of Carn Goedog and across the surrounding landscape. There are no confirmed traces of occupation on the tor of Carn Goedog itself.

None of the radiocarbon evidence should surprise us, and similar evidence would no doubt be forthcoming if archaeological investigations should be done around Carn Alw, Carn Meini,  Carn Breseb and many other tors.  None of this has anything to do with quarrying, which remains a fantastical hypothesis unsupported by any hard evidence.

There are traces of modern quarrying of course at Cnwc yr Hydd and in Cwm Cerwyn, but the only location in North Pembrokeshire where there is good evidence of prehistoric quarrying is Foel Drygarn, at the eastern end of the Preseli ridge.  At that site the prehistoric quarrymen were extracting rock rubble, not bluestone monoliths.