Waun Mawn facts for kids
Standing stone and prostrate stone
near Cnwc yr Hŷdd, Waun Mawn in October 2012 |
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 Location in Pembrokeshire
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| Location | Near Tafarn y Bwlch, Brynberian, Pembrokeshire, Wales |
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| Coordinates | 51°58′18″N 4°47′28″W / 51.9716°N 4.7912°W |
| Type | Stone circle site |
| History | |
| Periods | Neolithic |
| Site notes | |
| Archaeologists | Mike Parker Pearson |
Waun Mawn (Welsh for "peat moorland") is the Neolithic site in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, Wales. It has been described as the remains of a stone row, and also as a stone circle, with the diameter of 110 m (360 ft), which is the third largest diameter for a British stone circle.
There are four remaining stones, one standing and three prostrate. Nearby are the "Troed y Rhiw" standing stones and to the west of the main group is another solitary standing stone, the 'Waun Mawn Stone', measuring some 2.3 m (7 ft 7 in) high.
The site is located around 1 mile (1.6 km) to the south-west of Brynberian.
Recent findings
During 2017 and 2018, excavations by the UCL team of archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson led to a proposal that the site had originally housed a 110 m (360 ft) diameter stone circle of the same size as the ditch at Stonehenge. The archaeologists also stated that the circle had a hole from one stone of a distinctive pentagonal shape, very closely matching the one pentagonal stone at Stonehenge (stonehole 91 at Waun Mawn and stone 62 at Stonehenge). Both circles appear, according to some researchers, to be oriented towards the midsummer solstice.
Having dated the sediments within the mentioned stone holes, Parker Pearson concluded that the circle of stones was built c. 3400–3200 BC and then, before 2120 BC, was disassembled, dragged across land and reassembled at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, some 140 mi (230 km) distant. Parker Pearson's proposals have been published in the journal Antiquity. This postulated migration of the stones was likened by the researchers to the story told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, in his 12th-century History of the Kings of Britain, of Merlin taking the stones of the Giant's Dance circle in Ireland to Stonehenge.
The site and its connection with Stonehenge was the subject of the BBC Two programme, Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed, with Parker Pearson and Professor Alice Roberts. Broadcast was on 12 February 2021, and reported in New Scientist on 20 February 2021.
Timothy Darvill, Professor of Archaeology in the Faculty of Science and Technology Bournemouth University in England, in his article Mythical rings? Waun Mawn and Stonehenge Stage 1 objects to the theory of Waun Mawn's circled structure, claiming that "suggestions that stone circles featured at both sites and that one supplied the other with stones do not stand up to close scrutiny, although both are important sites in their own right". Rather than that, Waun Mawn was "one or more stone rows, stone pairs, and standing stones, much like other small-scale ceremonial sites in west Wales".
Work in 2021 led Pearson and his colleagues to conclude that only 30% of the proposed stone circle at Waun Mawn had been completed, with 12 stones erected and 8 removed in antiquity, far fewer than the 80 bluestones believed by some to have stood at Stonehenge.
In the course of further investigations conducted by Professor Pearson and his team, no link between Waun Mawn and Stonehenge was established. Two geological articles were published in 2022. The first paper states that Stone 62 at Stonehenge can be sourced to a small crag in the Preselis (Garn Ddu Fach), and suggests that the sources of the other stones at Waun Mawn need to be established. In the subsequent paper, the researchers establish that all stones still at Waun Mawn come from Cerrig Lladron, and as there are no Lladron stones yet identified at Stonehenge, it seems unlikley that they were taken from Waun Mawn to Stonehenge.
