Abstract

A wide range of rock sources were exploited in south-west Wales from the ninth millennium BC onwards, initially based on material available on local beaches but from the fifth millennium BC increasingly focused on specific outcrops, including those defined as Groups VIII, XIII, and XXIII. Attention is directed to the products as well as the sources, arguing that it was the meanings that attached both to particular kinds of stone, and the ways stone was used, that were important to prehistoric people. It is suggested that traditional Western polarized distinctions between animate and inanimate are inappropriate, and that in prehistoric times stone was considered to be ‘alive’ and active in maintaining the well-being of individuals and the community.