Carn Meini / Carn Menyn -- where some of the bluestones might have come from

 

I've been doing a few water colours recently, and this one is an impression of Carn Meini, seen from near the Waldo Williams memorial stone.  The skyline arrangement of crags is rather impressive -- and of course this " dominance" of the landscape was one of the reasons why Herbert Thomas, Atkinson and more recently Darvill and Wainwright argued that Carn Meini must have been s "special place" for our ancestors -- and therefore worthy of providing "special stones" destined for Stonehenge.

That theory took a bit of a knock when Bevins and Ixer suggested that none of the spotted dolerites at Stonehenge came from here -- their location of preference was Carn Goedog, on the northern flank of the upland ridge.  I'm not sure that a Carn Meini source for some rock fragments has been entirely ruled out, since there are great petrological variations within the many Carn Meini outcrops.  And of course Darvill and Wainwright persisted with their belief that this site was more important to the Neolithic tribesmen than Carn Goedog......... no matter what the geologists might have said in their papers.......