The use of local stone in prehistoric stone settings

Pentre Ifan, built of slabs of locally collected volcanic ash.  

Photo courtesy Hugh Thomas

Hugh Thomas, over on the Preseli360 Facebook page, has just published an interesting post which I am very happy to acknowledge and reproduce below. 

Nobody knows the stone settings of Preseli better than Hugh, and I agree with  him that there was apparently no interest at all, in the prehistoric poeriod, in collecting stones from far away and transporting them from A to B just so that you could build them into your friendly neighbourhood cromlech.

Stephen Briggs called this opportunistic, utilitarian and pragmatic.  He could not see in this area any evidence of monoliths of certain rock types being valued above any others, or deemed to be sacred or special.  Some monoliths (like dolerite, hard sandstone, volcanic ash or lava) were obviously better for building with than flaky rhyolite, shale or mudstone -- so they tended to be used if they were available.  

But long distance stone moving expeditions?  No thanks.  Our ancestors were too smart for that sort on nonsense..........

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QUOTE

Just a personal thought that has reoccurred to me a number of times over the years...
There are many spectacular quartz boulders to be found in Preseli, and there is certainly a concentration of them around the Bwlch Ungwr , Carn Breseb and Carn Alw area.

If in ancient times stones were being revered as being special and " being moved about" , then why pick stones that all on appearance alone all looked the same and that only modern geologists can largely REALLY tell apart ? To my artistic eyes the most spectacular stone setting would have been a white quartz stone circle and there were MORE THAN ENOUGH quartz boulders around to create that ...I can not imagine for one moment that our ancestors would not have been fascinated by the white gleaming quartz .

Just imagine a quartz circle gleaming in the sunlight or glowing under a full moon, it would have been stunning .

To me this gives weight to the cold fact that any stone setting found around Preseli is made up of stones that were found in the immediate area for convenience...

I have not yet been shown anything or seen anything in Preseli that tells me otherwise, but if the truth of it IS otherwise I am very open to be shown it, because it would be the truth and not just a romantic belief. But the facts supporting the movement of stones would have to be overwhelming and not just theories being shoehorned into this landscape as has been really all along. ..

Those championing theories of stone movement seem to actually rely on the curiousity of people not looking into things TOO closely from the point of view of practicality , because that is when all the problems begin and an unraveling of the theory means it takes further more colorful claims to hold it together, and begins to become impractical from the point of view of human nature. .

I am happy for anyone to show me otherwise , but as it stands , in 2024, despite all I have been shown or read just demonstrates people were here at that time and not transporting stones over great distances in Preseli , the stones left at Waun Mawn ARE from that area and so on .. Nothing has peaked my curiosity to question further ...Yet ..

I am grateful to those who help to keep a sense of practical balance on all of this ..