Another of this region's triangular stones, this solitary menhir stands on a public footpath with a clear line of sight to the site of Ffynnon Druidion cromlech and the significant outcrops of Carn Gelli and Garn Wnda.
No sea view here, but here's the same horizon of Mynydd Dinas and Mynydd Preseli that is common to the majority of megalithic sites in the area. For this part of the world, the megaliths are all about Mynydd Preseli.
Here, as at most of the Pen Caer/Strumble Head sites, the design of the three outcrops on Mynydd Dinas is repeated to the right as the three peaks of Mynydd Preseli.
This menhir stands on a level plateau (as with the Ffynnon Druidion standing stone), with the hills cosily close in to the West and South and a feeling of expanse to the North and East.
A tumulus stands adjacent only a few metres away to the south, showing the prolonged importance of this landscape to the ancients.
Whilst the recent archaeology describes a pair of stones, the OS map of 1843 calls it 'Circle', with later editions saying 'Standing Stone' and 'Circle'.
Whilst this initially suggests a stone circle to the enthusiastic and optimistic megalithomaniac, I think it actually refers to the adjacent tumulus. They are so close as to appear to be a single monument, especially to earlier cartographers with their lesser knowledge of prehistoric chronology. The same area denoted as 'Standing Stone' and 'Circle' is now 'Standing Stone' and 'Tumulus'; it must just be that the stone was omitted from the 1843 map.
The site was apparently featured in Archaeologia Cambrensis 1974 (p.13-42), and also the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments (p.378 of Pembroke), but I've not seen either of these documents so I've no idea if they definitively clear the matter up.
The National Monument Record (available through Coflein) gives the following description of this stone:
A standing stone c.2.7m high. Excavation, 1962-68(?), indicated that the stone had been one of a pair, 10m apart, with a stony area, c.15m by 15m, containing a BA cremation, to the N. This BA ritual complex overlies a possible Neolithic settlement (Dat Prn2019). RC dating indicates that some features of the site may be recent.
In the book Saints and Stones (ISBN 1-84323-124-7) Davies and Eastham describe the stone as, "standing 2.7 metres high in gorse". They also allude to a second stone hole to the north east, revealed by excavation in the 1960s.
A cobbled pavement was discovered to have been laid discontinuously around and to the east of the paired stones. Under the cobbles in a layer of grey silt, fragments of cremated bone and pottery were found, and below them, the remains of seven sub-rectangular and elliptical huts. Their construction, and finds associated with them, suggest seasonal occupation at some point between the late Neolithic and late Bronze Age.
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Posted by Kammer
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