Hello folks,

Just thought i might add a little info to the gazetteer on Carreg Pumsaint (I think the second P should be dropped but I'm only dysgu Cymraeg so don't take that as definate.).

I've not heard it suggested that the stone could be bronze age before. The local myth is that the five saints were on a pilgrimmage to St Davids (Ty Ddewi) when they were caught in a terrible hailstorm. Tradition has it that flakes of quartz in the area are surviving hailstones. These young men took shelter against the stone and on account of their extreme holiness, left the impression of their shoulders, heads and elbows on the rock.

The archaeologists that I've spoken to suggest it was the anvil stone for a Rokman or medieval trip hammer used to crush the quartz as part of the gold extraction process at the gold mine at whose entrance the stone stands. The gold mine at Dolaucothi has long been known to have been worked by the Romans but recent evidence suggests (inconclusively) that gold extraction there may go back as far as the Bronze age.

Underground mining definately can be traced back as far as the late Neolithic in Britain (eg at Great Orme Head and Grimes Graves) and Gold artifacts have been found with some of the earliest Bronze and Copper artifacts eg at Bush Barrow.

I would therefore be fairly confidant in stating that I beleive Dolaucothi was being mined for gold in the Bronze age.