Craig Rhos-y-felin is a rocky outcrop on the north side of the Preseli Mountains in

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

, which is designated as a RIGS site on the basis of its geological and geomorphological interest. It is accepted by some in the archaeological community that it is the site of a quarry, used together with one at Carn Goedog, for gathering stones used at

Stonehenge Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around high, wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connectin ...

, most notably as the source of some of the foliated rhyolite found in the Stonehenge "debitage". This is disputed by others, who believe that all of the features at the site, apart from evidence of intermittent occupation over a long period, are of natural origin. Some believe that the site was used as a quarry in both the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

s, around 4000 to 5000 years ago, and the rock's shape, like a pillar, allowed the stones to be quarried with relative ease compared to stones taken from other places. Others argue that if prehistoric men had wanted to obtain monoliths for use as standing stones, all they had to do was collect them from the abundant glacial erratics littering the landscape. Craig Rhos-y-felin was first claimed to be the site of a quarry in 2011. The cited evidence was disputed in two journal articles published in 2015 by Brian John, Dyfed Elis-Gruffydd and John Downes.

References

Rock formations of Wales {{wales-stub