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

Preseli Mountains The Preseli Mountains (, ; or ), also known as the Preseli Hills, or just the Preselis, are a range of hills in western Wales, mostly within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and entirely within the county of Pembrokeshire. The range ...

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

, 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 Megalith, megalithic structure 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, to ...

, 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 or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

and

Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

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