One of Britain’s biggest and oldest stone circles has been found in Wales – and could be the original building blocks of Stonehenge.
Archaeologists uncovered the remains of the Waun Mawn site in Pembrokeshire’s Preseli Hills.
They believe the stones could have been dismantled and rebuilt 150 miles (240 km) away on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.
The discovery was made during filming for BBC Two’s Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed.
The Welsh circle, believed to be the third biggest in Britain, has a diameter of 360ft (110m), the same as the ditch that encloses Stonehenge, and both are aligned on the midsummer solstice sunrise.
And one of the bluestones at Stonehenge has an unusual cross-section which matches one of the holes left at Waun Mawn, suggesting the monolith began its life as part of the stone circle in the Preseli Hills before being moved.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-56029203
And was Kammer the first to recognise this?
themodernantiquarian.com/site/3992/waun_mawn_row_circle.html
Well, no....he actually plumps for a stone row!
Fascinating programme; at last an entirely credible explanation for the presence of the bluestones at Stonehenge although am I wrong in remembering that Parker Pearson had previously thought that they (or at least some of them) had been previously erected at another site not far from Stonehenge, right by the river?
Well spotted. Notice that the Manchester account on the subject has been taken down, and it is just recorded in a wiki......
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluestonehenge
Tomatoman; I see Kammer made a fleeting visit on the forum, it is good to see old faces are still around.
IRONSTONE - are you thinking of Durrington Walls? No bluestones there.
Nope. There was definitely a programme a few years back showing Parker Pearson doing a dig somewhere right down by the river and apparently discovering the markings of a circle which he claimed was probably comprised of bluestones later removed and reinstalled in the Aubrey Holes at Stonehenge. It may also have contained stuff about Durrington Walls as well but I distinctly recall the bit about the bluestones.
Probably this?....
manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/blue-stonehenge-discovered/
That's it; so has this just been 'forgotten' or are we to believe that some of the stones from the dismantled Welsh circle were first used at Bluestonehenge before being uprooted again and put in the Aubrey Holes? Funny how the latest programme made no mention of this earlier theory.