Preseli Hills (Wales)

 The Preseli Hills are located in northern Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales. They are best known as a quarry, providing the bluestones for the Stonehenge Circle and Inner Horseshoe (a prehistoric megalithic structure in Wiltshire, southern England). The Preseli Hills area itself encompasses a number of archaeological sites and represents an intact prehistoric landscape.

IPembrokeshirer  Coast National Park, where the area in question is located, there are Mesolithic remains dating back over 9,000 years, including Neolithic axeworks and funerary elements, as well as Neolithic and Bronze Age rituals (burial chambers, mounds, earth circles (henges), and stone circles). There are also ancient settlements and fortifications on hills and roads.

Pentre Ifan - the largest and best-preserved dalmen in Wales

The Preseli Hills, located 395 kilometers northeast of Stonehenge, have been considered a possible source of the bluestone (so named because of the color it takes on when wet) since the mid-19th century. The bluestone is composed primarily of mottled dolerite, but also includes rhyolite and volcanic ash.

Hypothetical transport to Wiltshire:

dragging stones from the Preseli Hills to the sea at Milford Haven (probably on sleds or wooden logs);

transport on giant rafts along the south coast of Wales;

further transport along the River Avon to where Bristol now stands;

moving overland to the vicinity of present-day Warminster;

transport on the River Wylye to Salisbury;

up the River Avon to West Amesbury near Stonehenge.

The expedition was undoubtedly quite dangerous, as each block weighs four tons.

Some researchers refuse to believe that the rocks were transported by humans.

Aubery Burl believes that the blue-gray stones reached Salisbury Plain via glacier. Recently, in the February 2006 issue of The Oxford Journal of Archaeology, a team from the Open University, after analyzing and comparing prehistoric axes made of the same material from England and Wales, also supported this hypothesis. They also theorized that the rocks at Stonehenge came from a variety of sources, both within the Preseli Hills and beyond.

It is certainly possible that geological factors determined the stones' presence at Stonehenge, but several factors also suggest a human-mediated influence.

Carn Menyn in the Preseli Hills, the site of the stones used to build Stonehenge.

The first factor, known as the Boscombe Bowmen, was found in a single grave near Stonehenge and dates to the Early Bronze Age (around 2300 BC).

The Boscombe Bowmen (three children, one teenager, and three men) owe their name to the flint arrowheads found in the grave.

The British Geological Survey conducted a study of strontium isotopes in the Bowmen's teeth, which showed they came from a highly radioactive rock (south Wales) but moved to southern Britain in childhood.

Assuming they were alive at the time the bluestones were transported, we can assume (as many researchers have) that they accompanied the nearly 400-kilometer expedition to Salisbury Plain.

In 2005, Professors Timothy Darvill and Geoff Wainwright of Bournemouth University led work that identified the original location of the quarry from which the Stonehenge stones originated: Carn Menyn (Butter Rock) in the remote Preseli Hills. Geochemical analyses revealed that bluestone from this site was used in the construction of Stonehenge. Many prehistoric sites have been discovered near Carn Menyn, one of which is Bedd Arthur (Arthur's Tomb), an oval or horseshoe-shaped stone circle. The monument may be the remains of a circle, and this has led to speculation that the horseshoe shape may have influenced the shape of Stonehenge's inner circle.

In "A Tour through England and Wales," Daniel Defoe mentions a very important but lost circle in this area. The author describes seeing " near Kily-meah Iwyd (Ilwyd), on a great mountain, a circle of mighty stones, very similar to Stonehenge in Wiltshire ."

Bedd Arthur is one of numerous prehistoric monuments in or around the Preseli Hills associated with the legendary King Arthur.

Other stones are known as Cerrig Meibion ​​Arthur (Stones of Arthur's Sons), which, according to legend, mark the place where Arthur's sons perished; a natural outcrop called Cerrig Marchogion (Stones of the Knights [of King Arthur]); a chambered tomb known as Carreg Fyrddin (Merlin's Stone) on the outskirts of Carmarthen.

The last monument I mentioned is said to mark the spot where Merlin hid his treasure. An Arthurian magician said that one day a raven would drink human blood from this stone.

In 1876, a Newchurch vicar described the death of a man searching for treasure under Merlin's stone. The man was crushed to death by a megalith that had fallen on him—it took five horses to bring the stone into place. Godfrey of Monmouth's

Historia Regunum Britanniae records a famous legend in which Merlin magically transports the colossal structure known as the Giant's Dance from Ireland to Salisbury Plain, to become Stonehenge.

Could the legend be a distorted memory of the journey made by the blue stones from Wales?

Assuming that if the Stonehenge stones were transported all the way from the Preseli Hills, there must be something special or even sacred about them—the journey or the place of origin.

If the Carn Menyn area was a particularly significant area, or the stones originated from a previous megalithic structure, then it is possible that Stonehenge "inherited" some of its sacredness. If we look closely, we'll find examples of taking a fragment of an already revered site and furnishing it with a new one. An example is the previously mentioned ritual remains in the depression of the first Stonehenge circle.

[Image: 300px-Stonehenge2007_07_30.jpg]

In the Preseli Hills, the most impressive is Pentre Ifan (Ivan's Settlement), the largest and best-preserved dolmen (a megalithic tomb consisting of upright megaliths with a single large block of rock placed on top of them). It is located less than three miles east of the Newport seafront.

Pentre Ifan dates back to 3500 BC, and its summit block, over five meters long and weighing sixteen tons, is precisely placed nearly eight feet above the ground on three upright megaliths. WY Evans-Wentz,

author of The Faith-Faith in Celtic Countries (1911), mentions a local legend about Tlwyth Teg , or Welsh elves, seen around Pentre Ifan. One early 20th-century witness described them as "tiny children dressed like soldiers in uniforms and red caps."

Pentre Ifan is described as being used for mass burials and as having been formerly covered by a 36-meter-long trapezoidal mound of earth.

Similarities exist between Pentre Ifan and the courtyard tombs of Ireland, the earliest type of stone tomb in the country, built primarily between 4000 and 3500 BC. Irish chamber tombs with squares are so named because of the open square in front of the entrance, which is also found at Pentre Ifan; the space was likely used for typical funeral rituals just before burial. Excavations conducted in 1935 at the Creevykeel tomb in County Sligo, Ireland, revealed that at least part of its function was funerary. Finds included four cremation burials, Neolithic vessels, flint arrowheads, polished stone axes, and other artifacts, including a chalk ball. Excavations in 1936-37 and 1958-59 at Pentre Ifan uncovered a "ritual" pit with traces of burning and an irregular row of small stone holes, but the number of artifacts recovered was very limited. This is as strange as the fact that the structure is oriented north to south, and the steeply sloping top stone, tilted towards the Afon Valley to the north, mirrors the slope of Carn Ingli (Angel Mountain).

Carn Ingli is actually an extinct volcano, a sacred hill named after the 6th-century Welsh Saint Brynach, who conversed with angels during a vision in a cave at the summit. High places are almost always considered sacred, perhaps because they are inaccessible to everyday life and require time and effort to reach. Carn Ingli is one such place. An Iron Age settlement (800 BC - 50 AD) was located on the hilltop and undoubtedly held significant significance for the Neolithic inhabitants of the Nevern Valley area in the Preseli Hills. A

particularly interesting observation can be made when visiting one of the Neolithic monuments. One monument is invisible from the other, yet all are so arranged in the landscape that each offers a clear view of Carn Ingli, rising high in the distance. The sacred hill was therefore a central part of the ritual landscape of the Preseli Hills.

Researchers George Children and George Nash believe that the various types of megalithic structures among the Preseli Hills held distinct and distinct meanings for the Neolithic inhabitants of the area. They believe chamber tombs symbolize death or the final resting place of the corpse, and the Gors Fawr stone circle at the foot of the Preseli Hills, not far from Pentre Ifan, may symbolize the beginning of this death—the enclosed space provided a place where death could be observed. They also believe that the groups of standing stones mark the route taken by the deceased from the stone circle to the grave. As a result, the remains ritually traveled from one monument to another before reaching their final resting place.

It's important to remember that the megaliths in Pentre Ifan tombs, as part of their structure, were not exposed as they are today. In the past, they were covered by a mound and likely appeared as organic parts of the natural surroundings.

"For the Neolithic inhabitants of the Preseli Hills and many other sites in Britain and Ireland, the construction of megalithic structures defined their identity within the landscape, and their use in ancestral rituals added drama to their historical presence in the chosen area."