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The Excavation of Ty-isaf Long Cairn Brecknockshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

W. F. Grimes
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Extract

Ty-isaf long cairn is one of a group of 13 long cairns in the Black Mountains of Brecknockshire. The existence of the group was first recognised by Mr O. G. S. Crawford, who published them in his Long Barrows of the Cotswolds. Several—in particular Ty Illtyd, Gwernvale and the two fine examples at Fostill near Llanelieu—were already well-known; but Ty-isaf, with a number of others, was first launched on an archaeological career by Mr Crawford in 1925.

Crawford's preoccupation being with the Cotswold long cairns he did not attempt to consider every aspect of the Brecknockshire cairns. This I subsequently tried to do in Archaeologia Cambrensis for 1936. But it had long been clear that the complete excavation of at least one of the monuments was badly needed to augment what we already knew— which was little enough—from chance digging and from visible features.

The Brecknockshire Society therefore deserves the thanks of archaeologists in general for undertaking this excavation, and congratulations for the success which has attended their efforts. Gratitude is especially due to the Society's President Sir John Lloyd, by whom with Mr R. G. Sandeman most of the preliminary arrangements were carried out. Other members of the Society helped in various ways. Mr Sandeman himself was present throughout the whole course of the work, and Mr Jestyn Williams was responsible for some of the surveying upon which the plan (fig. 2) is based.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , July 1939 , pp. 119 - 142
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1939

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References

page 119 note 1 It is no. 10 on the Ordnance Survey Map of S. Wales showing the distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths (Overlap with Sheet 8); and no. 47 in my ‘Megalithic Monuments of Wales’, Proc. Prehist. Soc., 1936, 106–139Google Scholar.

page 121 note 1 Dr North, who kindly visited the site, states that its immediate neighbourhood is ‘covered with a very considerable depth of boulder clay of local origin,’ and adds that drainageof the tongue of land on which the cairn stands may have been helped by the activities of the two streams. The water-holding capacity of the sub-soil was only too well demonstrated during rain while the excavation was in progress.

page 121 note 2 Remains of birch and oak have been observed in peat on the Gader, to the east of this site, at a height of 2000 ft. They have been thought to be of Neolithic date because of their supposed association with an adze of Wiltshire chert of Neolithic type (Wheeler, , Prehistoric and Roman Wales, 58, 61)Google Scholar. In the interests of accuracy, however, it must be pointed out that the adze was found on the rock floor of a channel already cut in the peat. Its relation to the latter is quite uncertain, and it has therefore no value as a dating medium.

page 124 note 1 The bulge of the wall may have been caused by stresses set up by the pitched cairn construction used here to protect the outer rotunda wall. It was confined to the portion of wall reveting that part of the cairn in which pitched construction was employed.

page 127 note 1 Two individuals were represented according to Mr Cowley's report.

page 128 note 1 It will be observed that there is no sign at present that the walls on the west side of the cairn were linked with the rotunda. It is possible that their broken ends may have continued in some way to bridge the gap which now exists, but the absence of evidence from this site and of analogies on others makes any conclusion impossible. I can only say that the present state of the western cairn walls is as likely to be due to modern destruction as to their having been destroyed, altered or left incomplete in ancient times.

page 130 note 1 Arch. Camb. 1933, 185 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 130 note 2 ibid., 1935, 189 ff.

page 133 note 1 Arch. Camb., 1933, 185 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 133 note 2 Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot., LXIX, 531Google Scholar.

page 133 note 3 As, for instance, at the allée couverte of Champ-Grosset, Guessoy, Côtes du Nord, now in St. Brieuc Museum. I owe this information to Mr. Stuart Piggott.

page 133 note 4 Nat. Mus. Wales, Prehistoric Guide, No. 384.

page 133 note 5 On fig. 6, 3 the curious creases and lines below the rim are the result of such surface treatment. They are not apparently intended for ornament.

page 133 note 6 Arch. Camb., 1915, 255 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 135 note 1 Arch. Camb., 1937, 175–6Google Scholar.

page 135 note 2 Proc. Prehist. Soc. 1937, 189 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 136 note 1 The ‘chronology’ having a purely typological basis.

page 141 note 1 These and other numbers referred to belong to Accession No. 39.190, Dept. of Zoology, National Museum of Wales.