From a previous post:
The archaeologists all say the same thing -- that Neolithic Wales was singularly disinterested in stone circles -- in striking contrast to the Lake District, the Southwest Peninsula and Scotland. Cromlechs (dolmens), standing stones and other stone settings are easy to find in Wales, but decent stone circles (as distinct from ring cairns and small settings of upright stones around burial sites) can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Darvill and Wainwright, in Pembs County History Vol 1, claim that there were about 80 stone circles in Wales, accounting for six per cent of the British total, but I am not sure where they get that figure from -- I guess it is based on lots of assumptions about stone circles that are no longer present, or where somebody or other back in the good old days has speculated in the literature.......
In Pembrokeshire, although Darvill and Wainwright map six stone circles, there is only one that deserves recognition, and that is Gors Fawr near Mynachlogddu. As everybody says, it's rather charming but not particularly impressive; and no attempt was made by the builders to use pillar-shaped stones. Bedd Arthur, up on the Preseli ridge, is a strange stone setting, oval shaped and with a cluster of small stones leaning inwards......
In this context, the idea that there was a "giant stone circle" at Waun Mawn seems more than a little preposterous. And the idea that there was some communication between North Preseli and Stonehenge with regard to the "magic diameter" of 110 m seems even more absurd. If there was a stone setting of any sort at Waun Mawn it must have been crude and unfinished -- and a part of an assemblage of megalithic structures in the Tafarn-y-bwlch - Brynberian - Foel Eryr area. At a rough count, there are at least 20 prehistoric structures using blocks of stone (all erratics) in the vicinity -- all ignored by Mike Parker Pearson and his team.
The impression gained from the prehistoric remains is that North Pembrokeshire did have a "megalithic culture" with links to Ireland and other parts of Wales, but that it was relatively unsophisticated. It follows that there were probably not huge manpower resources available, and probably no awareness at all of anything further east than Carmarthen, let alone as far away as Stonehenge....
As we have seen, the evidence for a vast stone circle at Waun Mawn is extremely flimsy, and the evidence for Parker Pearson's exotic narrative of quarrying and bluestone transport looks ever more ridiculous.
If the local Pembrokeshire population had spent centuries mastering the logistics of long-distance megalith transport, stone masonry, and precise structural engineering, their later local monuments should reflect that accumulated knowledge. Gors Fawr should be a masterclass in stone-working.
Instead, it looks exactly like what a small, local group of farmers would build on a weekend using whatever rough stones were available while clearing their fields. It demonstrates zero cultural memory of advanced masonry or grand engineering.
The archaeologists all say the same thing -- that Neolithic Wales was singularly disinterested in stone circles -- in striking contrast to the Lake District, the Southwest Peninsula and Scotland. Cromlechs (dolmens), standing stones and other stone settings are easy to find in Wales, but decent stone circles (as distinct from ring cairns and small settings of upright stones around burial sites) can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Darvill and Wainwright, in Pembs County History Vol 1, claim that there were about 80 stone circles in Wales, accounting for six per cent of the British total, but I am not sure where they get that figure from -- I guess it is based on lots of assumptions about stone circles that are no longer present, or where somebody or other back in the good old days has speculated in the literature.......
In Pembrokeshire, although Darvill and Wainwright map six stone circles, there is only one that deserves recognition, and that is Gors Fawr near Mynachlogddu. As everybody says, it's rather charming but not particularly impressive; and no attempt was made by the builders to use pillar-shaped stones. Bedd Arthur, up on the Preseli ridge, is a strange stone setting, oval shaped and with a cluster of small stones leaning inwards......
In this context, the idea that there was a "giant stone circle" at Waun Mawn seems more than a little preposterous. And the idea that there was some communication between North Preseli and Stonehenge with regard to the "magic diameter" of 110 m seems even more absurd. If there was a stone setting of any sort at Waun Mawn it must have been crude and unfinished -- and a part of an assemblage of megalithic structures in the Tafarn-y-bwlch - Brynberian - Foel Eryr area. At a rough count, there are at least 20 prehistoric structures using blocks of stone (all erratics) in the vicinity -- all ignored by Mike Parker Pearson and his team.
The impression gained from the prehistoric remains is that North Pembrokeshire did have a "megalithic culture" with links to Ireland and other parts of Wales, but that it was relatively unsophisticated. It follows that there were probably not huge manpower resources available, and probably no awareness at all of anything further east than Carmarthen, let alone as far away as Stonehenge....
As we have seen, the evidence for a vast stone circle at Waun Mawn is extremely flimsy, and the evidence for Parker Pearson's exotic narrative of quarrying and bluestone transport looks ever more ridiculous.
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The small stone circle at Gors Fawr. Diameter c 22m. Sixteen stones, some spotted dolerite and some not. Most are less than 1.5m high.
Gors Fawr is now of great importance to the dabate about the quarrying of "natural and readily available pillars" from rocky outcrops at Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog. Parker Pearson and others have claimed repeatedly that the easy availability of elongated orthostats was the prime reason for the selection of stones from these sites as "ancestor stones" worthy of transporting all the way to Stonehenge. So the assumption has to be that tall elongated pillars were prized above all else, and that the Neolithic Preseli Tribe had the skills and the manpower resources to remove them from their places of origin and to transport them over a vast distance. This is not what Gors Fawr tells us.
This little circle tells us that in the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age the locals ignored -- for whatever reason -- the abundant tall and massive pillare that were lying around in their landscape and built their stone circle instead out of small and easily moved boulders. They did erect a few tall single standing stones (as at Bedd Morris, Gelli Fawr and Waun Mawn) and a few stone settings (as at Bedd Arthur, Parc y Meirw and Meini Gwyr or Glandy Cross), but as far as we can see these were all erected at the places where the stones were found.
Ironically, some of the more massive pillar-shaped rocks ignored by the builders of Gors Fawr were used in recent years by the builders of the Cystic Fibrosis stone setting and the Waldo Williams Memorial on the roadside near Mynachlogddu.
If the local Pembrokeshire population had spent centuries mastering the logistics of long-distance megalith transport, stone masonry, and precise structural engineering, their later local monuments should reflect that accumulated knowledge. Gors Fawr should be a masterclass in stone-working.
Instead, it looks exactly like what a small, local group of farmers would build on a weekend using whatever rough stones were available while clearing their fields. It demonstrates zero cultural memory of advanced masonry or grand engineering.
So -- a thousand years after the supposed transport of a mottley bluestone assemblage from Preseli to Stonehenge, we see signs of very limited manpower availability and technical skill in the key megalithic structures of West Wales. This is confirmed when we look at the BronzeAge / Iron Age quarry on Foel Drygarn:
To explain this within the Parker Pearson narrative we would have to assume a dramatic regression in technical ability and aspirations between 5,000 yrs BP and 4,000 yrs BP. So did the Stonehenge bluestone transport gangs move, lock stock and barrel, from Preseli to Salisbury Plain, taking their technical skills with them? Such a dramatic exodus has been suggested -- in all seriousness -- by Parker Pearson -- but it has been discounted by the recent pollen analysis work on environmental change, who found no major hiatus or disruption in the record:
From whichever direction we look at it, the quarrying and bluestone transport narrative developed by Parker Pearson et all lies in smouldering ruins.
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PS. Sadly, there was some damage last year on the Gors Fawr site. Looks as if some idiot had it in mind to steal one of the stones, and then gave up on the idea.......
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