Researchers Say Stonehenge Quarries Confirmed in Wales

I'll be quite frank, I don't really know much about Stonehenge, but I found this article quite interesting. I always thought the stones were carved and then moved, but, the team involved in this research suggests that the stones were actually naturally formed, and simply separated from their original location (and then moved).

LONDON, ENGLAND—The bluestones at Stonehenge came from outcrops of natural pillars at Carn Geodog and Craig Rhos-y-felin in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, according to research conducted by a team of scientists from several institutions in the United Kingdom. “They only had to insert wooden wedges into the cracks between the pillars and then let the Welsh rain do the rest by swelling the wood to ease each pillar off the rock face,” Josh Pollard, University of Southampton, said in a press release. Dates have been obtained from burnt hazelnuts and charcoal from the quarry-workers’ campfires. “We have dates of around 3400 B.C. for Craig Rhos-y-felin and 3200 B.C. for Carn Goedog, which is intriguing because the bluestones didn’t get put up at Stonehenge until around 2900 B.C. It could have taken those Neolithic stone-draggers nearly 500 years to get them to Stonehenge, but that’s pretty improbable in my view. It’s more likely that the stones were first used in a local monument, somewhere near the quarries, that was then dismantled and dragged off to Wiltshire,” explained project director Parker Pearson of University College London. The team has a likely spot in mind for this earlier monument. “The results are very promising—we may find something big in 2016,” added Kate Welham of Bournemouth University.

Link

More information at the press release, here.

Thanks for that article. That picture looks interesting. If people were buried alongside the stones at Stonehenge, is is possible they were buried against the stones here. It looks a very picturesque place, the sort of place you would have a summer fair (maybe those tents in the picture have influenced my view).

I lived in Wales for a bit about 10 years back. The old man on the farm I worked told me this exact thing.

Tried a google search and couldn't find any mention of it, but 10 or so years ago someone claimed to find more standing stones on the southern coast sea floor, as if they used a barge to transport these stones.