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Monday 29 May 2023

Carreg Samson

 



Thanks to Alun Roach for posting these pics on Facebook.  Carreg Samson is a rather splendid cromlech near the north Pembrokeshire coast -- in the most spectacular of settings.  It is supposed to have been created in the Neolithic, about 5,500 years ago.  There are six uprights and a capstone.  As we can see, the stones used in the construction are varied -- all erratics, and all used (as usual) more or less where found.  The burial chamber was constructed in a pit -- thought by the archaeologists to be the excavation pit from which the capstone was lifted. So this cromlech was built exactly where a potential capstone was found; the uprights might then have been imported from a short distance away.

That's a rather utilitarian conclusion relating to the cromlech's location -- unlike other suggestions which are a good deal more romantic and imaginative..... 

Here is a photo from Alan Hughes, showing the capstone in close-up.

The geology has not been well described -- but at least  three of the stones are made of Ordovician dolerite, and the capstone, like one of the uprights, is made of what appears to be a rough volcanic agglomerate or ignimbrite, probably derived from one of the local igneous outcrops.  This might be the rock referred to by BGS as a pyroclastic "crystal tuff" belonging to the Llanrian Volcanic Formation.

Grid ref:  SM 848335




3 comments:

Tony Hinchliffe said...

What do you say about the pond in the corner of the field? Source of an erratic? Also,the ordnance survey map says there's a well very nearby.....

BRIAN JOHN said...

According to the records there are several shallow pits not far away that might be extraction pits. These may be the sources of the supporting stones......

Tony Hinchliffe said...

Somewhere I read about a possible erratic in the centre of Trefin, the village that is close to Carreg Samson. Haven't been there for a while, largely because the covid pandemic intervened.....