Foel Drygarn -- the prehistoric quarry they chose not to see

The Foel Drygarn prehistoric quarry complex, showing the four areas from which thousands of tonnes of stone (mostly small angular slabs) have been removed for construction projects

 Hidden in plain sight?  So prominent that it was mistaken for something else?  Whatever the reason might have been, I don't think there is any mention, anywhere in the flood of articles about the "monolith quarries" at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog, of the Foel Drygarn quarrying complex which extends over   15,000sq m (300m x 50m) on the flank of the Foel Drygarn hill summit. According to my calculations, over 14,000 tonnes of stone have been shifted:

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2023/03/the-foel-drygarn-quarries-what-is.html

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-prehistoric-quarries-at-foel-drygarn.html

Parker Pearson, Ixer, Bevins and the others must have known about it, since it is specifically  mentioned in reports by Coflein / Archwilio in and around 1968.  The word "quarries" is used in two places in the published map of the site, following work by Hogg and others.  And it is so obvious that you can't miss it, if you wander about near the hill summit today -- mercifully free of covering vegetation and available for easy inspection in all its detail.  I have described it in a number of posts on this blog.  Nobody has questioned or denied the accuracy of what I have described.

So Parker Pearson et al knew about the quarry and chose to ignore it.  Why?  Well, it was only too obviously very inconvenient indeed, since it did nothing to confirm their fantsastical "monolith extraction" narrative.

If they had had any respect for the due processes of scientific investigation, the first thing that they would have done, when the idea of quarrying came into the frame, was to ask "what do we know already about prehistoric stone quarrying in the upland terrain of Mynydd Preseli?".   They would have visited and investigated the site. looking for any lessons that might be learned.  But of course that would not have served their purpose..........

If they had looked at Foel Drygarn, their papers on Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog and Waun Mawn would have looked very different, and indeed might not have been written at all.

So what does Foel Drygarn tell us about stone quarrying in Mynydd Preseli around 1,500 - 2,000 years after the date of the supposed stone extraction from the "bluestone monolith quarries"?    We would expect the Foel Drygarn quarrying operation to have been more sophisticated,  since the quarrymen would have had access to metal tools and maybe metal wedges too.  But we find traces of quarrying work that was in essence very simple indeed. As far as we can see, the quarrymen took no slabs of rock from exposed rock faces -- they were only interested in taking small slabs from accumulations of scree.  They concentrated on slabs and small blocks up to c 30 kg in weight, capable of being handled by two men.  They were not interested in large boulders, and indeed left them behind as they cleared out smaller fragments from the scree slopes.  The "lag concentrations" are obvious in places towards the eastern end of the quarrying complex.  They left abundant traces of their stone extraction work -- interconnected pits and hollows, conical mounds of debris, ridges left between adjacent pits, abundant trackways, clean rock faces, and accumulations of unwanted boulders.  

Accumulation of boulders in a rough arc against one of the eastern dolerite crags.  At first I thought this was an arcuate enclosure similar to those at Carn Edward and elsewhere -- but now I think the boulder litter covers too large an area, and that we are looking at the "lag boulder assortment" left behind after the collection of smaller (useful) blockfield debris.  

The lessons for "quarrying studies" in West Wales?  Well, the quarrymen left clear and incontrovertible evidence of their activities.  Such evidence of landscape scarring  is conspicuously missing from Carn Meini, Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog.  Secondly,  there is no evidence at Foel Drygarn of any external influence on the quarrymen -- they were obtaining the local raw materials needed for their own local projects, and saw no need to bring in any stones from outside the immediate locality.  This is entirely in tune with the scenario at all the other megalithic settings in West Wales -- none of them used imported stone from elsewhere.  In other words, there is no need to speculate about sacred or high value stone derived from special places.  As for the "engineering features" like loading platforms, sliding rails, loading bays, ramps, stone wedges, rock face extraction recesses, hammer stones and revetments, they are entirely absent from Foel Drygarn. (They are also, in my opinion, entirely missing from the supposed Neolithic quarry sites as well.  This is argued by me and my colleages John Downes and Dyfed Elis Gruffydd.)

To summarise:

1.  Genuine prehistoric stone quarries leave reconizeable scars in the landscape that cannot be explained by reference to natural processes.

2.  Prehistoric quarrymen prioritized "minimum effort" rather than being driven by some sacred or ritual motivation to do heroic and exceptional things.  They were opportunists and pragmatists.

3. In the case of Foel Drygarn the quarrymen took loose and accessible surface materials -- rocks and smaller debris -- in preference to trying to extract slabs and pillars from exposed rock faces.  Blockfield debris, scree and glacial litter could be easily exploited and c 14,000 tonnes were moved.

In other words, the evidence from the Bronze Age and Iron Age quarrying operations at Foel Drygarn porovides no support whatever for the fantastical Neolithic bluestone extraction narrative invented by Parker Pearson and his colleagues.  

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Reference:

Archive Collection: A.H.A. Hogg Foel Drygarn / Moel Trigarn Survey Plans (1968) RCAHMW document. 

Not digitised, as far as I can make out.........

Here are rather poor copies of two of the maps:

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