How Waun Mawn stone circle was designed and built, and when the Bluestones arrived at Stonehenge: a response to Darvill

Abstract

In response to Timothy Darvill's article, ‘Mythical rings?’ (this issue), which argues for an alternative interpretation of Waun Mawn circle and its relationship with Stonehenge, Parker Pearson and colleagues report new evidence from the Welsh site and elaborate on aspects of their original argument. The discovery of a hearth at the centre of the circle, as well as further features around its circumference, reinforces the authors’ original interpretation. The authors explore the evidence for the construction sequence, which was abandoned before the completion of the monument. Contesting Darvill's argument that the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge originally held posts, the authors reassert their interpretation of this circle of cut features as Bluestone settings.

Beyond the bluestones: links between distant monuments in Late Neolithic Britain and Ireland

“…There are quarries in south-west Wales where excavation shows that monoliths of similar lithology to the Stonehenge bluestones were extracted during the Neolithic and later periods, but radiocarbon dating suggests that not all of the stone was taken to Wessex. Some must have been used elsewhere, yet so far these raw materials have not been identified in monuments outside the immediate source area (Darvill & Wainwright 2003;Parker Pearson et al 2019). This presents another challenge.…”

“…These issues regarding changing patterns of movement and regional connections are particularly relevant to a discussion in this journal of the relationship between Stonehenge in Wessex and a recently investigated monument at Waun Mawn in south-west Wales (Parker Pearson et al . 2021, 2022; Darvill 2022). The discussion raises some important questions.…”

“…If they were introduced from another structure, where was it originally located—in Wales, beside the River Avon or at both places in turn (Darvill 2022; Parker Pearson et al . 2022)?…”

The Stonehenge bluestones did not come from Waun Mawn in West Wales

“…However, magnetometer and earth resistance studies failed to identify any sub-surface features that might be former stone sockets. On this basis the research team initially dismissed Waun Mawn as a candidate site for a bluestone circle (Parker Pearson et al, 2019b). Nevertheless, the archaeologists speculated that somewhere there must be a feature associated with reverence for the ancestors, and formerly built of bluestones, waiting to be discovered.…”

“…They soon claimed in the media that they had found what appeared to be a 'giant stone circle' (Figure 5). Initially the only written description of this research which was available for scrutiny was carried in an online interim report issued by the local Bluestone Brewery (Parker Pearson et al, 2019b), and the 2021 Antiquity article by Parker Pearson and his team contains no new detailed field observations. There was no fieldwork in 2019 or 2020, but then there was considerable media coverage (including a heavily promoted TV documentary) of the 'astonishing discoveries' at Waun Mawn, in which Parker Pearson et al (2021a) elaborated a narrative of Stonehenge bluestones initially set into a 'giant stone circle' at Waun Mawn and then, 500 years later, taken away and transported to Stonehenge as tributes or embodiments of the spirits of the ancestors.…”