New research undermines Welsh bluestone quarry theory

Dr Brian John (pictured) does not accept the idea that there was a Neolithic quarry at Craig Rhosyfelin.

 
NEW research has thrown serious doubt on claims that the Preseli Hills are home to a Neolithic bluestone quarry.

Archaeologists have conducted annual digs near the village of Brynberian and promoted the idea that some of the bluestones at Stonehenge were quarried in Pembrokeshire before being carried all the way to Wiltshire some 5,000 years ago.

In 2012 Professor Mike Parker Preason put forward his theory that some of the fragments of rock in the soil layers in and around Stonehenge could be matched closely to a blue rhyolite rock at Rhosyfelin.

Geologist John Downes and geomorphologists Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and Brian John have examined the Rhosyfelin site very carefully and come to the conclusion that there are no traces of a Neolithic quarry. Instead, they interpret the rocky debris as entirely natural accumulations over a long period of time.

In their new article they also describe a number of different landforms and sediments which can be related to the events of the Ice Age, and in particular to the last glaciation of this area which occurred around 20,000 years ago. They accept that there might have been a prehistoric camp site in the sheltered valley at the foot of the Rhosyfelin rocky crag, but suggest it was used by hunters rather than by quarrymen.[...] Tivyside Advertiser / Link 2