The special status of "unhewn rocks" and glacial erratics

 The Trollasten dolmen in Skåne, Southern Sweden.  Big stones, glacially transported, and 

put there by a troll.........

Now here is an interesting question:  In the Neolithic, were glacial erratics more highly prized than monoliths of quarried rock?

This is relevant because, over the past decade or so, there has been a deliberate and coordinated campaign involving senior archaeologists and geologists designed to spread the belief that pillars of rock hewn from specially selected rock outcrops (such as Rhosyfelin and Carn Goedog) were highly prized if not sacred. Indeed, so the hypothesis insists, these "targetted" monoliths or orthostats were so special that they were transported for hundreds of kilometres across land and sea all the way to Stonehenge, involving logistical exercises on a scale out of all proportion when set against anything before or since.  Thousands of men were involved, so goes the story, over many decades.........

The trouble with that bluestone quarrying and transport narrative, of course, is that it is unsupported by any evidence.  Speculations and assumptions proliferate, but there is nothing solid on the ground which is capable of supporting the preferred story.  The evidence of Neolithic quarrying at Rhosyfelin, Carn Goedog and Carn Meini does not withstand scrutiny, as my colleagues and I have demonstrated in the peer-reviewed literature. There is no sign of the preferential use of foliated rhyolite or spotted dolerite in prehistoric structures either in west Wales or on Salisbury Plain.  "Preselite" -- a term used loosely for spotted dolerite -- does not seem to have been particularly valued for tool making or for any ceremonial purpose.  The sophisticated "quarrying techniques" supposedly used in the "special" Pembrokeshire quarrying locations are unsupported by any evidence from the Neolithic or the Bronze Age anywhere in the British Isles.  No cultural or technological links with Stonehenge can be demonstrated at megalithic sites anywhere in West Wales. 

So the quarrying and man-hauling narrative is entirely unconvincing, and should be abandoned forthwith.   What can we put in its place?

Well, the simple idea that large boulders, pillars and slabs lying around in the landscape were valued in some way simply because of what they were -- not because of where they might have come from.

Let's dig a bit deeper.  First, the Gorsedd Circle at -- or immediately adjacent to -- the designated and demarcated site of the 2026 Llantwd National Eisteddfod. In a couple of recent posts I have been trying to uncover the truth about it.  But the genuine stone circle at Croft consists 15 orthostats made -- as far as I can see -- of dolerite.  These stones are clearly glacial erratics, picked up from within the local area.   So they are "unhewn" and authentic stones, chosen and installed as a gentle dig against the use of fibreglass "imitation stones" used in the "official" stone circle on the Eisteddfod Maes. 

The preferential use of "unhewn" stone for ceremonial or ritual use goes back a long way.  I don't often quote from the Bible on this blog, but here goes:

"And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." (Exodus 20:25)

"And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build the altar of the Lord your God of uncut stones..." (Deuteronomy 27:5–6) 

"Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel on Mount Ebal...........an altar of unhewn stones, on which no iron tool has been used" (Joshua 8:30–31)

I'm not suggesting that Neolithic tribesmen were motivated by the same belief system as the Old Testament prophets and kings, but it is well known that Iolo Morgannwg, the inventor of many of the National Eisteddfod rituals and traditions, was attracted by the idea that anything carved, squared, or polished by modern industry was artificial. Unhewn stones—boulders collected in their natural state from the local landscape—symbolised honesty, ancient permanence, and a direct connection to nature. Iolo's emphasis on the use of "unhewn stone" stems from a mixture of his Romantic-era imagination, pseudo-archaeology, and a clever appropriation of biblical law. He correctly assumed that his invented Druidic rituals involving "unhewn stone" would appeal to a highly religious, nonconformist 18th-century Welsh public. Iron was of course associated with weapons, violence and warfare.  By declaring that the Gorsedd stones must be natural and untouched by iron tools, Iolo framed the Druids not as pagans, but as primordial, holy men practicing a pure, uncorrupted form of patriarchal religion.

Ironically, before becoming a romantic antiquarian and master forger, Morgannwg's actual trade was working as a professional stonemason and stonecutter.

During the 1700s, antiquarians like John Aubrey and William Stukeley popularized the theory that megalithic monuments were built by Celtic Druids. Iolo visited the massive, natural stone circles at Avebury in Wiltshire. Unlike the heavily shaped trilithons of Stonehenge, Avebury's stones are famously rough, wild, and unhewn. This deeply shaped Iolo’s vision of what an authentic "Druidic" ritual space should look like.

By the late 1880's, The Eisteddfod had formalised Iolo’s romantic vision, decreeing that a permanent circle of 12 massive, unhewn local stones must be erected in the hosting community a year before the festival.  Here is a list of all the Gorsedd circles and their locations:

https://sublimewales.wordpress.com/attractions/18th-and-19th-century-stone-circles/gorsedd-circles/list-of-gorsedd-circles/

Up to 2004, when a Welsh town hosted the National Eisteddfod, local organizers were instructed to go out into the surrounding fields and gather natural, surface-weathered glacial erratics to construct the circle. Rather than quarrying fresh pillars, they specifically targeted stones shaped entirely by natural processes. 

The point of all this is to show that in at least one ancient culture, natural boulders found in the landscape were accorded greater respect than quarried stone. It is perfectly possible that in glaciated British terrains erratic boulders -- often very impressive features in themselves -- were viewed as special or mysterious. Because glacial erratics contrast sharply with the local bedrock and sit isolated in landscapes, prehistoric and historical cultures across North America, Europe, and Asia routinely incorporated them into their spiritual systems. 

As pointed out by Lionel Jackson and myself, the Foothills Erratics Train (which includes the iconic Okotoks "Big Rock" in Alberta, is deeply revered by the Blackfoot (Siksikaitsitapi) nation. They left red ochre pictographs on it and still pass down the famous legend of Napi (the Trickster) and his mobile rock. 

Other sacred erratics across glaciated North America include:

The Skystone (Washington, USA): Located in Bonney Lake, this andesite erratic features distinct depressions and alignments. It is traditionally used by the Puyallup tribe for ancestral astronomical tracking and spiritual observations.
Medicine Rocks / Prayer Boulders: Across the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas), solitary granite erratics on the limestone prairies were treated as Inyan (the primordial rock spirit in Lakota/Dakota cosmology). Native peoples left offerings of tobacco, painted them with vermillion, and sought visions near them.
Turtle Mounds and Effigy Alignments (New England): Indigenous communities frequently selected specific glacial erratics—propped up or stabilized intentionally on smaller stones—to serve as structural centers for ceremonial stone landscapes and effigy markers. 

In glaciated northern Europe, the spiritual co-opting of erratics spans from the Stone Age to Christian-era folklore.  During the Neolithic, prehistoric peoples across Denmark, northern Germany (for example the island of Rügen), and Poland harvested heavy erratics to build their megalithic tombs, passage graves, and dolmens. The stones were treated as permanent spiritual thresholds separating the worlds of the living and the dead.   In Northern Poland and the Baltic region, large erratics like the Devil’s Rock in Bisztynek were revered as pagan altars. Natural depressions in the stones were interpreted as the footprints of gods, devils, or witches. Because they were considered sacred or cursed, local populations heavily resisted breaking them down for building materials, creating an early form of folk conservation.
 In Swedish and Norwegian folklore, erratic boulders scattered across fields were explicitly called jättekast (giant-throws). They were believed to be weapons hurled by Frost Giants targeting Christian church bells, imbuing the stones with a dark, supernatural aura. 

 Carn Arthur, a spectacular perched block in Preseli

Similarly, in west Wales large erratic stones in prominent positions (often used in megalithic settings) were named after gods, giants. angels, saints, monsters and heroes.  So we have Carreg Coetan Arthur, Coetan Arthur, Bedd Arthur, Bedd yr Afanc, Carreg Samson, Carn Ingli, Cerrig Marchogion, Caerfyrddin, Bryn Myrddin, Tyddewi, Carnedd Meibion Owen, Llanrhian.  And many more.

And so to Geoffrey Kellaway and the blau stones.  As reported a number of times on this blog, Kellaway argued in "Nature" in 1971 (and in other papers)  that the bluestones were never described as BLUE stones by the early visitors to Stonehenge, but that in the Middle Ages (ie around the time of Geoffrey of Monmouth and later) they might have been referred to in Ango-Saxon as BLAU stones — with the word “blau” meaning striking, different, or of unusual or striking appearance.  This would make sense, since the stones are not actually blue at all — no matter what people might pretend, they are not that different in colour from the sarsens. But it’s intriguing to think that from an early stage people might have recognized them as simply DIFFERENT or exotic.

There is of course a tendency for people to see different, unusual, or striking stones in the landscape and and to wonder where they came from or why they are here rather than there.  I think it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that when the Neolithic people living on Salisbury Plain wanted to put up the early stone settings at Stonehenge, they gathered up as many stones as they could find, showing particular interest in any stones that were "different" from the common sarsens which were widely distributed across the landscape. Maybe -- like the Neolithic tribes elsewhere in NW Europe -- they even invested these "different" stones with magical or sacred significance -- with those special qualities entirely unrelated to source of origin or distance carried. I agree with many others who have suggested that the builders of Stonehenge did not have a clue where the bluestones had come from.

Kellaway argued that the stones were collected up on Salisbury Plain simply because they were there and because they looked different and interesting. Like Briggs, be preferred the 

"utilitarian" explanation.   I think we might go further than that, and argue, on the basis of the info contained in this post, that the erratics might well have been invested with significance.  If there was any stone-related reverence around in Neolithic times, it is much more likely to have been directed at scattered glacial erratics than to useless and broken bits of foliated rhyolite quarried at a faraway place called Rhosyfelin..........

https://brian-mountainman.blogspot.com/2024/06/nothing-new-under-sun.html