The return of the Phantom Quarrymen

 

The recently stripped area on the flank of Carn Ddu Fach, following the latest bluestone quarry search.  Serious research, or frivolous desecration within a protected landscape?

I'm picking up on various social media comments and messages from mountain walkers that while some of the MPP team were digging September holes into the ground near the hamlet of Crosswell, the phantom quarrymen were also hard at work up in the rarified atmosphere of Mynydd Preseli, hunting for Neolithic quarries. 

Richard Bevins was at Rhosyfelin earlier in the year, doing some TV filming and  maybe collecting more samples, but otherwise there seem to have been no new excavations there.

There are rumours of work going on at Cerrig Marchogion and maybe other sites including Cerrig Lladron, but the main focus this year seems to have been Carn Ddu Fach, not far from Carn Alw and Foel Drygarn.  These sites are all flagged up as being of interest in earlier publications -- referred to initially as "possible" sources for bluestone monoliths after very modest rock sampling programmes and Xray studies in the field.  

Bevins, R. E., Pearce, N. J. G., & Ixer, R. A. (2021). Revisiting the provenance of the Stonehenge bluestones: Refining the provenance of the Group 2 non-spotted dolerites using rare earth element geochemistry. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 38, Article 103083. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103083

Richard E.Bevins, Nick J.G.Pearce, Mike Parker Pearson, Rob A.Ixer
Identification of the source of dolerites used at the Waun Mawn stone circle in the Mynydd Preseli, west Wales and implications for the proposed link with Stonehenge
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Volume 45, October 2022, 103556

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X2200219X

Now, however, see see the usual distortion of the field and laboratory findings so that "possible" sources within areas of many thousands of square metres are transformed into "probable" sources associated with particular outcrops such as Cerrig Marchogion, Cerrig Lladron and Carn Ddu Fach.

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-unhealthy-obsession-with-bluestone.html

The geological work has become very messy because of the "stone 62" fiasco (remember the pentagonal footprint?) and the pantomime surrounding the imaginary "Lost Circle" at Waun Mawn.  But apparently the MPP team members are unapologetic about all of that, and are as obsessed as ever with finding bluestone monolith quarries..........

So to Carn Ddu Fach, which might (no stronger than that) be an approximate source for one of the Stonehenge unspotted dolerite bluestones.  Walkers up in the mountains report quite a mess up there, with the grassy turf stripped off the edges of the dolerite outcrops and then crudely replaced.  There are also yellow metal pins hammered into the turf.

Is this the "void" which the diggers assume to have been a stone extraction point?

According to reports of the latest MPP talk at the Bluestone Brewery, the learned professor claims that the diggers found a "void" from which a bluestone monolith had been taken, and also at least one "wedge" used in the quarrying process. He referred to a "stone extraction point" that appears no more convincing than the one that supposedly exists at Rhosyfelin.   Oh dear --- here we go again...........  Visitors to the site say that the void is a completely natural one not dissimilar to the voids, holes and gaps found all over these Preseli tors; and they say they can see not the slightest trace of quarrying activities.  

(It needs to be said that there ARE prehistoric quarrying sites on Preseli, and that they are characterised by distinct pits or stone extraction hollows, piles of waste rubble and transport trackways.  These features are NOT present at Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog or Carn Ddu Fach...........)

Finally there are whispers of further "surprises" at Waun Mawn -- so maybe the gang members have not completely given up on that site and its fantastical narrative.  Watch this space.

A visitor who took some photos at the Carn Ddu Fach site wonders whether this small stone just above the centre of the photo (between the recumbent block and the bedrock outcrop) is interpreted by the quarrymen as a "quarrying wedge" rather like those they claim to have found at Carn Goedog.