The Welsh origins of Stonehenge - Excavation Update - Michael Parker Pearson
"the four megaliths found at Waun Mawn do indeed appear to be part of a larger stone circle dismantled in antiquity."
FULL REPORT from the Rust Family Foundation: Archaeology Grants Program at http://www.rfamfound1.org/proj23find.html
Highlights:
In 2017 the specific goals were:
1. To establish whether a group of circular enclosures at Pensarn were remains of a complex of Neolithic henges that might have formed a regional centre of power linked to the quarrying of the bluestones.
2. To establish whether an arc of standing stones (Waun Mawn) formed the remains of a dismantled Neolithic stone circle where the bluestones were first erected before being moved to Stonehenge..
Conclusions:
Investigations into the stones of Stonehenge in 2017 moved from study of the bluestone quarries to exploration of the prehistoric landscape in which Stonehenge’s bluestone sources were located.
The main discovery was that four standing stones in an arc at Waun Mawn, above a source of the River Nevern, are the likely remains of a prehistoric stone circle, most of which was dismantled and removed in prehistory (fig.6). Its 80m-long arc suggests a former diameter of c.115m, which would make it the largest stone circle in Britain except for the outer ring of Avebury. Although excavations in 2017 failed to obtain a date for the stone circle’s erection or dismantling, its stone sockets were emptied and the stones removed before the onset of peat growth. We are currently awaiting radiocarbon dates from the base of the peat, though it is likely to have started forming in the Bronze Age.
Further research is planned for 2018 to confirm that Waun Mawn is a giant stone circle and, if so, when its standing stones were erected and dismantled. Using geological analysis, we aim to establish if the megaliths that once stood here can be matched with bluestones at Stonehenge.
More at
http://www.sarsen.org/2018/05/the-welsh-origins-of-stonehenge.html
and
http://www.rfamfound1.org/proj23find.html
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