Routledge Library Editions: Archaeology [1 ed.] 9781138799714, 9781315751948, 9781138813465, 9781315748139, 1138799718

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ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: ARCHAEOLOGY

Volume 24

PREHISTORIC AND EARLY WALES

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PREHISTORIC AND EARLY WALES

Edited by I. LL. FOSTER AND GLYN DANIEL

First published in 1965 This edition first published in 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1965 Routledge & Kegan Paul Limited All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-138-79971-4 (Set) eISBN: 978-1-315-75194-8 (Set) ISBN: 978-1-138-81346-5 (Volume 24) eISBN: 978-1-315-74813-9 (Volume 24) Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this book but points out that some imperfections from the original may be apparent. Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.

PREHISTORIC AND EARLY WALES

edited by

I. LL. FOSTER and

GLYN DANIEL

Routledge and Kegan Paul LO N D O N

First published 1965 by Routledge

4 W. F. Grimes (1949), 17-18. The pottery from Dyffryn is also of the same series; n. 1, p. 51. 5 W. J. Hemp (1936), 269 ff. 6 S. Piggott (1933).

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W . F. GRIM ES

sites, is characteristic of neolithic culture everywhere.1 There is no direct evidence for the practice of agriculture,2 but many sites have produced animal-remains which indicate domestication. Ox, sheep or goat and pig presumably belong to this category. (A stone spindle whorl at Gwaunysgor implies spinning.) Dog and horse have also been found in several places, the former domesticated, the latter presumably not. Inevitably, hunting and food-gathering continued side-by-side with more advanced techniques: Diserth, Gwaunysgor, and Clegyr Boia all produced remains of edible molluscs; and from Diserth came quantities of burnt stones of wild plum and cherry and burnt shells of hazel nuts.

Bone objects are rare. Ty-isaf and Tinkinswood have produced bone pins; Gwaunysgor perforated bones, perhaps part of a necklace. The most significant find of an ornamental object is that of the jet sliders with Peter­ borough pottery made in the south-east cave at Gop many years ago (page 57). Flint implements include leaf-shaped arrow-heads, both from tombs and from occupation sites and one or two petit-tranchet arrow-heads from tombs. It is well known that flint occurs in modern conditions in Wales only on the sea-beaches: axes of flint are therefore almost certainly impor­ tations, and those so far found in a definite context have come from south­ eastern long cairns.

Axes of igneous rock are naturally much more abundant in Wales. They form the final element in the equipment of many of the sites to which reference has been made,3 and it remains to consider the evidence of indus­ trial and trading activity which comes from the study of their petrological character. This work is being pursued as part of the national implement petrology survey,4 and any attempt to do more than to glance at the already published results would be out of place here. Of the Welsh sources, the longest recognized is the factory, or series of factories, which exploited the igneous rock outcrops in the hills behind the coastal town of Penmaen-mawr in north-east Caernarvonshire. The name Graig Lwyd, 1 M uch of this material will be found listed under the various sites in the Catalogue in W. F. Grimes (1951), nos. 156-90. 2 A possible grain-rubber was found at Gwaunysgor: T . A. Glenn (1935), 195. 3 See footnote 1 above. 4 The national implement petrology survey is being conducted on a regional basis under the aegis of the Council for British Archaeology. Regional reports are published in the by arrangement with the Editor. See A. Keiller and others (1941); J. F. S. Stone and F. S. Wallis (1947, 1951); F. W . Shotton and others (1951); F. W . Shotton (1959).

Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 60

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that of one of the outcrops, is applied to the series as a whole and the materials from the different sites, which are at present indistinguishable, are designated Group VII for petrological purposes.1 The site and its main features, its products and their methods of manu­ facture, have been described several times since the Graig Lwyd factory was first located by the late Hazzledine Warren in 1919- 21.2 Its axes are widely distributed, apart from an understandable concentration in north and north-east Wales.3A few are scattered through Wales, with one or two in the north of England, Scotland, and East Anglia, but the largest series occurs in Wessex, with intermediate groups in the west Midlands pro­ viding links with the place of origin. Traffic along the marches of Wales is indicated, parallel to, and no doubt connected with, the movements of settlement already hinted at in scattered tombs and occupation sites; but the presence of occasional Graig Lwyd axes along the south coast of England from Cornwall to Southampton Water points to coastal traffic also. Graig Lwyd seems to have produced almost nothing but straight­ forward axes. No cultural material has yet been found on the actual factory sites; nor are the associations clearly defined elsewhere in north Wales. It can only be said that Graig Lwyd axes have occurred in neolithic contexts which are sometimes mixed and sometimes of comparatively late date. Outside Wales the evidence is consistently in favour of a late neolithic date; but there is no sign that the outcrops were exploited after the arrival of the Beaker people.4 This was not the case with another famous igneous rock: the spotted dolerite or Preselite (Group XIII) from north Pembrokeshire, which is the most distinctive of the foreign or blue stones at Stonehenge.5 The presence of a boulder of Preselite in a Wiltshire long barrow (Bowl’s Barrow) has long shown that this rock was reaching Wessex in neolithic times and its occurrence in the long barrow may well relate to the transport of the blue stones from Pembrokeshire.6 Normal axes are also known from Wessex and 1 S. Piggott (1954), 289-93, W. F. Grimes (1951), 21-23, and particularly C. H. Houlder (1956). 2 S. Hazzledine Warren (19x9). 3 See Houlder’s distribution map: C. H. Houlder (1956), Fig. 11. 4 T . A. Glenn (1935), 210. 6J. F. S. Stone and F. S. Wallis (1951) with reference to H. H. Thomas’s original paper on the Stonehenge blue-stones in I l l (1923), 239. 6 The subject has been exhaustively treated by R . J. C. Atkinson (1956).

Ant. Joum.

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W . F. GRIM ES

from County Antrim.1 But perforated axe-hammers show that the spotted dolerite was still being worked into the Bronze Age and several are of the comparatively small type which is associated with the Beaker people.2 The actual workshops have not yet been found and may no longer be recog­ nizable, but the area from which the material came is definite enough. It may be that in due course another rock group will be assigned to a north Pembrokeshire origin. This, a rhyolitic tuff (Groups VIII and XI), presents a problem in that a single flake was found amongst the waste material of the Pike of Stickle axe-factory at Great Langdale in Westmor­ land.3 Petrologically, however, it shows closer affinities with rocks in the St. Davids-Ramsay Island area and the distribution pattern made by identified axes increasingly favours such a source. Two other sites, both comparatively recent discoveries, require men­ tion. The first, on Mynydd Rhiw in western Caernarvonshire, has been excavated by Mr. C. H. Houlder, who has been able to come to some con­ clusions as to the methods used in quarrying the seam of altered sedimen­ tary rock (hornfels) at a depth of some feet beneath the overlying drift. A complete account must await the excavator’s report, but present indica­ tions are that implements of the material (Group XXI) were not widely distributed. The site produced no pottery, but one of its features was the quantity of tools produced by the axe-makers for their own use and show­ ing pronounced signs of ancestry in the equipment of the hunter-fisher, food-gathering peoples from whom the Peterborough and other Secondary Neolithic people were descended.4 The second site is on the extreme eastern border of Wales at Cwm-mawr, near Corndon Hill in Mont­ gomeryshire.5 The rock used is a coarse igneous material known as picrite (Group XII), from an outcrop of limited extent, though the actual working area has yet to be found. Most of the products are at present concentrated in the West Midlands, with scattered examples in Wales (where more will 1 J. F. S. Stone and F. S. Wallis (1951), 128-9, with other references. But since this was written the Antrim axes have been re-identified as dolerite and green­ stone respectively (Evans (1962), 219).

et al.

* W. F. Grimes (1935), 269-70, 278. 8J. F. S. Stone and F. S. Wallis (1951), 123-4. Amongst recent finds is an axe of Group V I I I from Caldey Island, Pembrokeshire: A. D. Lacaille and W. F. Grimes, 153. 4 G. H. Houlder (i960) (interim report). The final report has since appeared. 8 F. W. Shotton and others (1951), 163-6.

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surely be identified) and in Wessex, with one specimen in East Anglia;1 but the interest of this site lies in the fact that it turned out only perforated axe-hammers and must therefore have been working when factories such as Graig Lwyd had ceased to function. This is confirmed by the EarlyMiddle Bronze Age associations of three of the English specimens.2 The picture of neolithic Wales presented in the foregoing pages remains incomplete in a number of significant respects. The people of the tombs were members of the comparatively slight, long-headed ‘Mediterranean’ race which was dominant in much of Europe at this time.3Only by analogy can it be said that in Wales they were cultivators, though evidence for their stock-rearing activities is abundant. The other important gap relates to absolute dating. There has been no opportunity as yet to apply the Carbon 14 technique to suitable organic material from a Welsh neolithic site, whether burial place or settlement. The need, here and elsewhere, for a solar chronology as a framework to replace the old divisions is obvious enough. The evidence, when it is forthcoming, is not likely to be widely divergent from that from other parts of Britain, for the sequence of events in Wales is consistent with that observed elsewhere. There is evidence that in some regions neolithic traditions in the matter of burial structures continued to play their part until quite a late date4; but it is also clear that in tombs of more than one type the sequence in the culture of the people who frequented them was a normal one. Beaker pottery found in secondary situations (where the facts could be closely observed) demonstrates that the tombs were being used by early metal age people—and by some later ones also.5 As Fox long ago pointed out* Wales is favourably placed to receive at an early stage influences transmitted by way of the western seaboard of Europe and the British Isles; and megalithic tombs in their earliest forms are of this cate­ gory. On the other hand, the completely normal Peterborough ware from both north and south Wales shows that even with colonizations from the east, across England, the time-lag was not so pronounced as to lead to any 1 F. W. Shotton and others (1951), 163. 2J. F. S. Stone and F. S. Wallis (1951), 127, with other references. 3 Sir A. Keith in J. Ward (1916), 268-94. 4 See, for instance, G. Fox (1926), n - 1 2 , and C. Fox and W. F. Grimes (1928), 155-8. 6 A . L. Scott (1933), 213 -15 (Pant-y-saer), W. F. Grimes (1939), 135-6 (Ty-isaf). 6 G. Fox (1926), 27-29.

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marked change in the characteristic features of the pottery. According to this, Peterborough people must have been reaching even the remoter parts of Wales before the effects of time could seriously modify the most sensi­ tive element in their material culture. As to sources and directions, there is a hint of northern bias in the jet sliders, presumably of Yorkshire origin, that were found in the Gop cave (p. 57) : this northern colouring manifests itself at other times and is a wellaccepted feature of north Wales, just as the south looks to the south of England. The axe trade, on the other hand, spread its products widely while still directing the bulk to Wessex, partly, no doubt, by the coastal routes, but mainly by way of the Midlands. There is no need here to recapitulate the colonization of the tomb-builders, which have already been dealt with at some length (pp. 55-6). The picture is one of small groups whose tombs are a distinctive part of their culture and at the present time the best pointers to origins and relationships; for the pottery from most of these sites is not abundant and too often lacks significant features. Finally, the fact should not be overlooked that in Wales as elsewhere the neolithic colonizers in effect inaugurated the processes of reclamation by which the land has been won over with increasing completeness to the control of man. It is not many years since the view was fairly generally held that early settlements were restricted to naturally unforested areas, such as the chalk downs of Wessex, areas of primary settlement from which in time less favourable land was gradually occupied. Systematic field-work demonstrated that such generalizations lose some of their validity when looked at in closer detail. It was obvious that a considerable majority of the chambered tombs were in situations which at the present day at least are suited to the growth of trees; and nowhere did the contrast between the generalization and the observed facts seem more marked than in the Black Mountains of Brecknockshire, where the majority, if not at all, of the cairns are sited below the modern tree-line.1 The problem twenty-five years ago was to know just what the natural conditions may have been, the particular need being to establish precisely the soil characters, as a basis from which conclusions might be drawn as to the ground conditions and the nature of the vegetation which would have confronted pioneer settlers. Progress in this direction was halted in 1939,2 1 W. F. Grimes (1936c), 262 ff. a Preliminary discussions, the aim of which was to obtain the co-operation of soil scientists in problems of archaeological environment, took place between the

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but Mr. Webley has recently applied the techniques of soil science to the subject with interesting and valuable results.1 Mr. Webley shows that on the evidence at present available the possibility can now be eliminated that the chambered cairn builders were involved in the difficulties of heavy woodland of the damp oakwood type. On the other hand, they must have had to wrestle with such obstacles as would have been presented by a more open type of forest, in which they moved freely; and if the distribution of their burial monuments is a guide to the distribution of their settlements it was the middle levels rather than the high ground that harboured their first clearings. This, no doubt, was the situation in other areas of Wales also; and the important point about it is that it establishes the contrast between the neolithic new-comers and their Mesolithic predecessors. Essentially the food-gatherers accepted the dictates of their environment; the neolithic people attacked it and created the bridge-heads from which, however erratically and hesitatingly, subsequent advances might be made.

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(1911), ‘The Megalithic Remains of Anglesey’, Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion, 1910-11, 3-91. c h i t t y , l . f ., see Shotton, F. W., etc . (1951). C l i f f o r d , e . m., and d a n ie l, G. e . (1940), ‘The Rodmarton and Avening Portholes’, PPS, VI (1940), 133-65. c r a w f o r d , o. G. s. (1920), ‘Account of Excavations at Hengwm, Merionethshire, August-September, 1919’, Arch. Camb., LXXV (1920), baynes, e. n e il

99- 133-

c ra w fo rd ,

o. G. s. (1925), The Long Barrows of the Cotswolds, Gloucester

(* 9 2 5 )-

(1937), ‘The Chambered Barrow in Parc le Breos Cwm, S. Wales’, PPS, III (1937), 71-86. d a n i e l , g . e . (1939), ‘The Transepted Gallery Graves of Western France’, PPS, V (1939), 143-65. d a n ie l, g. e.

late Professor G. W. Robinson of the University College of North Wales and the writer in 1939. The outbreak of war interrupted the correspondence, which was not resumed because of Professor Robinson’s death. For a first attempt to use a soil map as the basis for archaeological distributions see W. F. Grimes (1945). 1 D. Webley ( i 9 5 9 )-

65

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(1950), The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales, Cambridge (1950). d a n i e l , g . e . (1958), Morgannwg I (1958), 3-12, ‘The Cromlechs of Glamorgan’. d a n i e l , g . e ., see Clifford, E. M. (1950). d a n i e l , g . e ., see Powell, T. G. E. (1956). d a v ie s , e. (1929), The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Denbighshire, Cardiff (1929). d a v ie s , e . (1949), The Prehistoric and Roman Remains of Flintshire, Cardiff

d a n i e l , g . E.

( i 9 4 9 )-

_

(1946), ‘The Diffusion and Distribution Pattern of the Megalithic Monuments of the Irish Sea & North Channel Coastlands’, Ant. Journ., XXVI (1946), 38-60. d e v a l e r a , r . (i960), ‘The Court Cairns of Ireland’, PRIA, LX (i960), 9-140. EVENS, E. D., GRINSELL, L. V., PIGGOTT, S. and WALLIS, F. S. (1962), ‘Fourth Report of the Sub-Committee of the South-Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes’, PPS, XXVIII (1962), 209-660. f l e u r e , h . j . and R o b e r ts , e . s t a n t o n (1915), Arch. Camb., LXX (1915),

d a v ie s , m.

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j. l . (1957), ‘Megalithic Art in the Northwest of Britain: the Calderstones’, PPS, XXIII (1957), 20-39. f o x , c. (1937), ‘The Megalithic Monuments of Gower—their Relation­ ship to Topography’ (note), Arch. Camb., XCII (1937), 159-61. g l e n n , t . a . (1914), ‘The Exploration of the Neolithic Station near Gwaenysgor, Flints.’, Arch. Camb., LXIX (1914), 247-70. g l e n n , t . a . (1915), ‘Prehistoric & Roman Remains at Dyserth Castle’, Arch. Camb., LXX (1915), 47-86. g l e n n , t . a . (1935), ‘Distribution of the Graig Lwyd Axe and its Associa­ ted Cultures’, Arch. Camb., XC (1935), 189-214. G r if f ith s , w. e . (n.d.), ‘The Corsygedol Cromlech’, Journal of the Merioneth

f o r d e jo h n s t o n ,

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w. f . (1932), ‘Prehistoric Archaeology in Wales since 1925’, Proc.

P.S.E.A., VII (1932), 82-106.

(1935), ‘Notes on recent finds of Axe-Hammers in Wales’, Arch. Camb., XC (1935), 267-77. g rim e s, w . f . (1936a), ‘The Megalithic Monuments of Wales’, PPS, II (1936), 106-39. g rim e s, w . f . (1936b), ‘The Long Cairns of the Brecknockshire Black Mountains’, Arch. Camb., XCI (1936), 259-82. g rim e s, w . f .

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w. f . (1936c), Map of South Wales, Showing the Distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths, Southampton: Ordnance Survey, 1936.

g rim e s,

w. F. (1939), ‘The Excavation of Ty-isaf Long Cairn, Brecknock­ shire’, PPS, V (1939), 119-42. g rim e s, w. f . (1942), ‘The Neolithic Finds’ in O’Neil, B. H. St. J., ‘Excavations at Ffridd Faldwyn Camp, Montgomery; 1937-39’, Arch. Camb. XCVII (1942), 51-53. g rim e s, w . f . (1949), ‘Pentre-ifan Burial Chamber, Pembrokeshire’, Arch. Camb. C (1949), 3-23. g rim e s, w . f . (1951), The Prehistory of Wales (formerly Guide to the Collection illustrating the Prehistory of Wales, 1939), National Museum of Wales (1 9 5 0 h em p , w. j. (1923), ‘Maen Pebyll Long Cairn’, Arch. Camb. LXXVIII (1923), 143-4. h em p , w. j. (1927), ‘The Capel Garmon Chambered Long Cairn’, Arch. Camb., LXXXII (1927), 1-43. h em p , w. j. (1930), ‘The Chambered Cairn of Bryn Celli Ddu’, Arch., LXXX (1930), 179-214: cf. Arch. Camb., LXXXVI (1931), 216-62. hem p, w . j . (1935), ‘Arthur’s Stone, Dorstone, Herefordshire’, Arch. Camb., XC (1935), 288-92. h em p, w. j. (1936), ‘The Chambered Cairn known as Bryn yr Hen Bobl, near Plas Newydd, Anglesey’, Arch., LXXXV (1936), 253-92. hem p, w . j . (1951), ‘Merionethshire cairns and circles in Llandrillo & neighbouring parishes’, BBCS, XIV (1950-52), 155-65. h o u l d e r , c. h . [(1956)], ‘The Graig Lwyd Group of Axe Factories’, RCAM, Caernarvonshire, I (1956), xli-lvii. h o u l d e r , g. h . (i960), ‘A new Neolithic Axe-Factory in Caernarvonshire’, Antiquity, XXXIV (i960), 141-2. k e i l l e r , a ., p i g g o t t , s., and w a l l i s , f . s. (1941), ‘First Report . . . on the Petrological Identification of Stone Ages’, PPS, VII (1941), 50-72. M o rg a n , w. l l . (1894), ‘Discovery of a Megalithic Sepulchral Chamber on the Penmaen Burrows, Gower, Glamorgan’, Arch. Camb., XLIX (1894), 1-7. n o r t h , f . j . (1956), Sunken Cities, Cardiff, 1957. o r i o r d a i n (1954), ‘Lough Gur Excavations, Neolithic and Bronze Age Houses on Knockadoon’, PRIA, LVI (1954), 297-459. P h illip s , c. w. (1936), ‘An examination of the Ty Newydd Chambered Tomb, Llanfaelog, Anglesey’, Arch. Camb., XCI (1936), 93-99. p i g g o t t , s. (1933), ‘The Pottery from the Lligwy Burial Chamber, Anglesey’, Arch. Camb., LXXXVIII (1933), 68-72. g rim e s,

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s. (1954), The Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, Cambridge ( 1954)p o w e l l , t . g . e ., and d a n i e l , g . e . (1956), Barclodiady Gawres: the Excava­ tion of a Megalithic Tomb in Anglesey, 1952- 5 3 , Liverpool (1956). p o w e l l , t . g . e . (1951), ‘Excavations at Gwaenysgor (Flints), 1951’, Arch. Camb. (1949), 103-11. p o w e l l , t . g . e . (1963), ‘The Chambered Cairn at Dyffryn Ardudwy’, Antiquity, XXXVII (1963), 19-24. r i x , m. (1936), ‘Parc le Breos, Gower’ (note), Arch. Camb., XCI (1936), 321 - 3 s a v o r y , h . n . (1952), ‘The Excavation of a Neolithic Dwelling and a Bronze Age Cairn at Mount Pleasant Farm, Nottage (Glam)’, CNST, LXXXI (1950-52), 75- 92 s a v o r y , h . n . (1956a), ‘The Excavation of Pipton Long Cairn, Breck­ nockshire’, Arch. Camb., CV (1956), 7-48. s a v o r y , h . n . (1956b), ‘The Excavation of “Twlc-y-filiast” Cromlech, Llangynog, Carmarthenshire’, BBCS, XVI, iv (1956), 300-8. s c o t t , w. l . (1933), ‘The Chambered Tomb of Pant-y-Saer, Anglesey’, Arch. Camb. LXXXVII (1933), 68-72. s e a b y , w. A., see Shotton, F. W., etc. (1951). s h o t t o n , f . w., c h i t t y , l . f ., and s e a b y , w. a . (1951), ‘A New Centre of Stone Axe Dispersal on the Welsh Border’, PPS (1951), 159-67. s h o t t o n , f . w. (1959), ‘New Petrological Groups based on Axes from the West Midlands’, PPS, XXV (1959), 135-43s te e r s , j . a . (1948), The Coastline of England and Wales, Cambridge (1948). s to n e , j . f . s., and w a l l i s , f . s. (1947), ‘Second Report of the South Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes’, PPS, X III (1947), 47-55. s to n e , j . f . s., and w a l l i s , f . s. (1951), ‘Third Report of the South­ Western Group of Museums and Art Galleries on the Petrological Identification of Stone Axes’, PPS, XVII (1951), 99-158. w a l l i s , f . s., see Stone, J. F. S. (1947) and (1951). w a r d , j. (1915-16), ‘The St. Nicholas Chambered Tumulus, Glamorgan,’ Arch. Camb., LXX (1915), 253-320; LXXI (1916), 239-67, 268-94 (report on bones by Sir A. Keith). Reprinted as Nat. Mus. Wales publication (1916). w a r d , j. (1918), ‘Some Prehistoric Sepulchral Remains near Pendine, Carmarthenshire’, Arch. Camb., LXXIII (1918), 35-79. w a r r e n , s. h . (1919), ‘A Stone-Axe Factory at Graig Lwyd, Penmaenmawr’, JRAI, XLIX (1919), 342-65. p ig g o tt,

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s. h . (1921), ‘Excavations at the Stone-Axe Factory of Graig Lwyd, Penmaenmawr’, JRAI, LI (1921), 165-99. w a r r e n , s. h . (1922), ‘The Neolithic Stone Axes of Graig Lwyd, Penmaenmawr’. Arch. Camb., LXXII (1922), 1-32. w e b le y , d . (1956), ‘A Neolithic Potsherd from Vaynor (Brecknockshire)’ (note), BBCS, XVI (1956), 298-9. w e b le y , d . (1958), ‘A “Cairn Cemetery” and Secondary Neolithic Dwelling on Cefn Cilsanws, Vaynor (Breck)’, BBCS, XVIII, i (1958), 79-88. w e b le y , d . (1959), ‘The Neolithic Colonisation of the Breconshire Black Mountains. A note on the natural Background’, BBCS, XVIII, ii ( 1959), 290-4. w h e e l e r , r . e . m. (1925), Prehistoric and Roman Wales, Oxford (1925). W ilk in so n , G a r d n e r (1870), ‘Avenue & Carns about Arthur’s Stone in Gower’, Arch. Camb., XXV (1870), 23-45. w illia m s , a . (1940), ‘A Megalithic Tomb at Nicholaston, Gower, Glamorgan’, PPS, VI (1940), 178-81. w illia m s , a . (1953), ‘Clegyr Boia, St. Davids (Pemb.).: Excavations in 1943’, Arch. Camb., CII (1953), 20-48. w a rre n ,

P.E.W .-F

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CHAPTER FOUR

The Bronze Age

Introduction conception of the Highland Zone of Britain as a region of cultural backwardness and compromise has been made familiar to archaeolo­ gists by Sir Cyril Fox.1 But the study of Bronze Age Wales seems to the writer to reveal not so much a backwater as a frontier zone, a battleground for cultural elements derived respectively from the east and the west. We must bear in mind that during most of the Early and Middle Bronze Age the prevailing sub-Boreal climatic conditions, with their comparatively warm and dry summers, would have improved the pastures on the Welsh uplands and made them attractive to communities that lived mainly by stock-raising: and that, in fact, is what the numerous round cairns still to be found in these regions seem to imply. During the first half of the Bronze Age, at least, much of the Cambrian Massif was a primary settlement area, for groups approaching it from a number of different directions by sea and river routes. But the Cambrian Massif is too small an area, too centrifugal in the lay­ out of its mountain ranges, main river valleys, and coastal plains, and too readily accessible by sea routes from the south, west and north, and by river routes from the east, to have been able, in prehistoric times, to develop or maintain for long a uniform and distinctive material culture, in

T

he

1 C. F. Fox (1959a), pp. 40-42.

71

H. N. SAVORY

between the two much larger cultural provinces of lowland England and Ireland; for this reason its prehistory, like its history, differs from that of Scotland. One factor did, indeed, seclude Wales at times from the main regions of England: the forest belt of the west Midlands, which in the Boreal and sub-Boreal phases of damp climate and in early historical times must have been a more effective barrier than the mountains to the west of it.1 But even this barrier was penetrated by the valleys of the Severn and the Wye and their principal tributaries, and it is clear that at least in the favourable conditions of the Early and Middle Bronze Age north Wales was receiving settlers as well as cultural influences from southern England by this river route, even if it was at the same time kept out of touch with the important settlement area of the Peak District by the forests of the north-west Midlands. Readers of The Personality of Britain2 will be familiar with the role of the Highland Zone as a recipient of culture transmitted by the western sea routes of Europe. During the Bronze Age these sea routes no longer play the same leading part as in the Neolithic period, although they never quite lose their importance. But after the opening phase of the Bronze Age sub­ sidiary maritime routes, across the Irish Channel from Ireland or south­ west Scotland to Wales, tend to outweigh the old ones connecting the Bristol Channel area with Brittany and the Iberian peninsula, and the battle between Ireland and lowland England for cultural dominance of Wales, begun in megalithic times, enters into full swing, continuing until the end of the Bronze Age. It would be as well, however, to emphasize at this stage the limitations of the evidence upon which we have to base our judgement of the cultural groups and communities which occupied the stage in Wales throughout this time. Our knowledge of these depends upon finds in graves only a small proportion of which have been scientifically excavated and recorded, a mere handful of partially explored settlements, a large number of isolated finds of implements and a small number of hoards in which several types of implement are associated, all spread over thirteen or fourteen centuries. To add to the difficulty, this evidence is distributed unevenly in time: it is only at the beginning of the period that one has evidence from one or two dwellings and a few ceremonial sites to eke out that from burials and chance finds and provide a minimal basis for a recon­ struction of cultural groups. After the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age there are no excavated settlements and practically no ceremonial sites; and 1

ibid.,

58-59.

2

ibid.,

a 1-24.

72

THE BRONZE AGE

after the end of the Middle Bronze Age even burials with pottery and other grave goods now seem to be extremely rare, and we depend almost entirely upon chance finds of bronze implements. Yet the little evidence we have from settlements warns us that in Wales, as in southern Ireland and Wessex, different classes of pottery generally supposed to have been made by distinct communities may have been in use on the same site about the same time. Hence the necessity to discuss the Bronze Age of Wales in somewhat abstract terms.

The Neolithic-Bronze Age Transition and Early Bronze Age C

( .

1800-1400

B.C.)

It is at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age that we have the clearest picture of contrasted communities in Wales. For then we have evidence of several distinct groups of communal tomb-builders, one, in the south-east, derived partly from western France and the others representing branches of communities of which the main centres were in Ireland: all, however, ultimately of west European origin.1 Upon these had impinged, before the end of the Neolithic period, ‘Secondary Neolithic’ communities, making ‘Peterborough’ pottery, whose immediate background lay in the lowlands of England. As far as the evidence goes at present, the latter were few and scattered and possibly concerned chiefly with manufacture of stone imple­ ments in north-west and south-west Wales.2 But their presence shows that the main river valleys of the Marches were already being used as routes from southern England to the Welsh uplands, and more particularly north Wales, in the late Neolithic. The same routes were followed, about the same time or soon afterwards, by various groups of ‘Beaker’ makers, whose graves have been conventionally regarded as marking the beginning of the Bronze Age. The various classes of ‘Beaker’ pot found in Wales and other parts of Britain are the most frequent grave gift in a common type of burial which 1 Only a few scraps of ‘Rinyo-Clacton’ ware have so far been found in Wales, although the influence of this ware on a class of food-vessel found in south Wales and southern Ireland has been suspected (see p. 90 below). In view of its obvious west European derivation the practice of classing this ware as ‘Secondary Neo­ lithic’— as in S. Piggott (1954), 338-42— is perhaps unfortunate. s The distribution of ‘Secondary Neolithic’ flint types does, however, show a marked concentration in the central Marches: H. N. Savory (1963), 28-35.

73

H . N . SAVORY

represents a completely different tradition from the megalithic communal tombs of the Neolithic. This is a separate burial, usually of a single in­ humed individual in an earth-filled pit or a small neatly constructed cist, often covered by a circular mound. Such ‘separate graves’ are found in many parts of the great plain which extends from Russia through northern Germany to the Atlantic seaboard of France. The associated objects vary greatly from one part of this vast area to another, but vases decorated with cord impressions or incised herring-bone patterns, and perforated ‘axehammers’ or ‘battle-axes’ of stone are widely distributed. Broadly speaking these graves represent a north European predominately pastoral culture, partly of eastern derivation, influenced to a varying degree locally by con­ tact or fusion with a somewhat similar pastoral culture brought from south-western Europe by the makers of ‘Bell Beakers’, who brought with them a fondness for archery and the first tanged copper daggers and arrow-heads and simple gold ornaments found in western Europe. ‘Bell Beakers’, with their fine red ware, slack profiles and notched decoration of diagonally hatched bands, are found in a relatively pure form here and there in north-west Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Italy, Sicily, and Sar­ dinia, France, central Europe, the Low Countries and the British Isles; surely their makers were sailors, as well as shepherds, no less enterprising than the megalithic explorers of western Europe. But it was not originally the practice of the ‘Beaker Folk’1 to bury their dead under circular mounds: in the Iberian peninsula and France their pottery has been found with burials in megalithic or rock-cut communal tombs or in cists or pits with­ out mounds. It was over a wide zone extending from the Pyrenees to central and northern Europe and Britain that the cultural fusion between the ‘Beaker Folk’ and ‘Corded Ware Folk’ took place. Because of the uneven development of modern research in this vast area, we still lack a sufficiently solid foundation for study of the origins of the diverse ‘Beaker’ groups of the British Isles. In Britain itself the long-established view of the ‘Beaker Folk’ im­ migrants as the first metallurgists has been doubted in recent years, par­ ticularly as a result of the late Gordon Childe’s teaching.2 There has at the same time been a tendency to stress the north European ‘Corded Ware’ Die Glockenbecherleute

1 The most recent anthropological study, K . Gerhardt, Stuttgart (1953), confirms the old view of a distinct ‘Beaker’ physical type which spread from the Mediterranean lands northwards. 2 V . G. Childe (1947), 112.

in M ittel- und WestdeutscMand,

74

THE BRONZE AGE

element in the cultural groups represented by the various classes of ‘Beaker’ pottery found in Britain.1 But recent scientific work on the early metallurgy of copper in Ireland and Britain2 has tended to confirm the old view of the Beaker Folk as the principal agents in the introduction of metallurgy to the British Isles, and the recent discovery of Beaker pottery on a number of sites near cupriferous regions in south-western Ireland has weakened the old argument that as Beakers were virtually absent from Ireland the early metallurgy there must have been introduced by another, somewhat mysterious community. Now, it appears, there may well have been an important ‘Beaker’ movement, at an early stage, from the Bristol Channel area into southern Ireland. These recent discoveries in Ireland, and the growth of the ‘Beaker’ material in Wales, have also somewhat blurred the simplicity of the picture drawn by Fox3 of the Beaker immigra­ tions as a Lowland Zone phenomenon which only affected the Highland Zone partially and at a late stage. Wales, as the map shows (Fig. 8), has now produced a substantial amount of material which can be connected with ‘Beaker’ settlement, and the limited degree of exploration of likely areas such as the Marches and west Wales warns us that much more may remain to be discovered. Analysis of the types of Beaker found in Wales does not support the view that the area can be dismissed as one of secondary settlement, at a late stage.4 It is true that many Beakers found in Wales undoubtedly represent colonization by groups which originated near the eastern end of the English Channel, and principally around the Rhine estuary, and spread across the English lowlands into Wales. Even the few Welsh Beakers which, like that from Penderyn (Fig. 9.6), are assigned to the ‘B l’ class, which stands relatively close in form and decoration to continental ‘Bell Beakers’, are mostly late in their class and represent the right wing of a movement northwards from the southern English coast, in Dorset and Hampshire, and themselves probably reflect a secondary movement from the upper Thames valley into the Welsh Marches.5 But the recent discovery of a fine 1 J. G. D. Clark (1931), and V . G. Childe (1947), 91—97. 2 H. H. Coghlan and H. Case (1957), 100-3. 3 C. F. Fox (1959a), 32-33. 4 H. N. Savory (1955a), 217-27; W. E. Griffiths (1957), 57-85. 5 The Irish evidence suggests another more westerly ‘B i ’ movement, either wholly by sea or through the south Wales seaboard. The good quality ‘B T Beaker sherds from the Tinkinswood chambered long cairn may be evidence of this: H. N. Savory (1955a), 223 and 228.

75

H . N . SAVORY

'8 I* PRIMARY a DEBASED 'A' PRIMARY a DEBASED ‘C ' PRIMARY a DEBASED EARLY B.A. INHUMATIONS WITHOUT BEAKERS STONE AXE HAMMERS OF BEAKER TYPE DISC KNIVES GRAVES WITH BOAT SYMBOLISM

Fig. 8. The Beaker Period in Wales.

76

THE BRONZE AGE

example of the earliest stage of development of the short-necked ‘C’ Beaker in a cist at Brymbo (Denbs.) (Fig. 9.3)1 shows that colonists from the seaboard of the Low Countries or north-eastern France could rapidly spread across southern England to the Severn valley and thence to north Wales. For this Beaker, with its notched groups of diagonal hatched or trellised bands, stands close to the point of divergence of Rhenish ‘Zone Beakers’ and ‘C’ Beakers, and its closest analogies are scattered along the eastern seaboard of Britain from the Thames estuary to Aberdeenshire. Until this discovery, the degenerate character of most of the ‘C’ Beakers previously known from Wales, as illustrated by the example from Moel Hebog (Caems.) (Fig. 9.4), with its strong suggestion of a Nordic Corded Beaker, seemed to indicate secondary movement, at a late date, across England from the east coast, and even from south-west Scotland, into north Wales, with a relatively weak impact on south Wales. A large proportion of the Beaker pottery found so far in Wales, how­ ever, cannot be so easily assigned to groups derived from areas around the southern end of the North Sea. Abercromby’s ‘A’ class forms the largest group of Beakers in southern Britain and is well represented in Wales, but it is no longer possible to assign all the Welsh examples to a late, degenerate phase. The writer has drawn attention2 to the complete absence of genuine prototypes for the ‘A’ Beakers among the abundant and varied material from north-west Germany and the Low Countries, and suggested that the main primary centre of the class in Britain probably lay around the Bristol Channel.3 Making decoration rather than form the guide to their typo­ logical development, he has pointed out that nearly all the ‘A’ Beakers from south Wales belong to a surprisingly uniform group with a simple bar-chevron pattern on the neck and belly, and this is likely to be a primary form from which many more or less debased ‘A’ Beakers in southern and eastern England are probably derived (Fig. 9.1).

The suggestion that the ‘A’ Beakers of south Wales may represent a distinct immigration from the south by sea rather than overland from eastern England is not a new one4, but it has not so far won wide acceptance

1 H. N. Savory (1959a), 1 1 -17 . 2 H. N. Savory (1955a), 219-20. 3 A somewhat similar view has lately been put forward by ApSimon, who, however, regards Wessex rather than south Wales as the main primary centre of ‘A ’ Beakers: A . M . ApSimon (1958), 31-35 for an excellent distribution map of the bar-chevron ‘A ’ Beakers in the Bristol Channel area, see C X (1961),

53-

Arch. Camb.,

4 H. N. Savory (1955a), 218.

77

H . N . SAVORY

because of the lack of comparable Beakers in the West Country (apart from the well-known Beakers from the Wick Barrow, Stogursey (Som.)1 It is no doubt daring, but not as unsound as may appear at first sight, to suggest that the group, if it did not develop locally, was derived from the interior of western France. No one now doubts that the transepted gallery graves of the Bristol Channel area represent an immigration by sea from the Loire estuary; but these are even worse represented in Devon, Cornwall, and west Somerset than ‘A’ Beakers, and one can only suppose that the colo­ nists found no foothold between the Loire mouth and the Severn Sea. Bell Beakers are, indeed, well represented in the material from megalithic tombs on the seaboard of Brittany, and various sites farther south between the Loire and the Pyrenees. But the bulk of the ‘B l’ Beakers from Wales and south-west England do not compare closely with this French pottery, and they are mostly, after all, from separate graves, not from megalithic communal tombs. There are, however, hints that separate graves of late Neolithic date may once have existed in various areas in the intensely cul­ tivated interior of western France, and the numbers of perforated stone ‘axe-hammers’ and ‘batde-axes’ found in isolation2 as well as occasional sherds of Corded Beaker3 suggest that the Corded Ware element in the British ‘A’ Beakers, and their associated grave goods and ritual, could have been at least pardy derived from as far west on the Continent as this. Farther west, in southern Ireland, mainly around Lough Gur in Co. Limerick, there is now a hint of another Beaker province in which Beaker pottery occurs in megalithic tombs or as an element in the pottery found apparendy in the same horizon on setdement or ceremonial sites.4 Here the dominant form is a more or less degenerate ‘B l’ Beaker decorated mostly with notched, incised, or, occasionally, corded lines, but one fine example of a bar-chevron ‘A’ Beaker of south Wales affinity, from the great stone circle at Lough Gur, has been restored.5 This differs only from the stan­ dard examples from Merthyr Mawr Warren and Stogursey in having 1 H. St. G. Gray (1908), 25-29. 2 See especially 1951, 46 ff. 3 For example from the dolmens of Villedieu (Deux-Sevres), in Niort Museum and the dolmens of Artron and Arlait (Vienne) in the Museum of the Societe des Antiquaires de l’Ouest, Poitiers. For a ‘Bell Beaker’ with notched bar-chevron pattern from the lie de Re, see 1962, 450-2; for a more detailed review of the evidence from Western and Southern France, see H. N. Savory (1963), 45-62.

Bull. Soc. Prehist. Fr.,

Bull. Soc. Prehist. Fr.,

6

4 S. P. Riordain (1951), 55-58; (1954), 6 (1951), PI. X II.

ibid.

78

394- 9 ;

(I 9 5 5 )> 34-50.

THE BRONZE AGE

hatched triangles framed with three lines instead of one. It may be of sig­ nificance that the Beaker sherd from a cairn at Capel Cynon (Cards.) recently identified in the Ruddy Collection at the National Museum of Wales1 bears a hatched triangle framed in the Lough Gur manner. It must be emphasized, however, that the predominant pottery at Lough Gur is either ‘western Neolithic,’ or belongs to a special flat-based bucket-shaped class which seems to be related to the ‘SOM’ pottery of France and to have played a part in the origin of a distinctive West Wales type of Food-vessel (see below). The ‘Late Neolithic’ matrix in which the Lough Gur Beaker pottery occurs may thus form a province, including west Wales, which is ultimately of western French origin: it is noteworthy that the two stone circles in west Wales which have been excavated have, as will be seen (p. 86), special features in common with the Great Circle at Lough Gur. On the other hand, ‘A’ Beakers which seem to represent various stages of devolution of the south Wales group are found at Llan-non (Carms.) and Llanelltud (Mer.) and on several sites in Anglesey. No doubt these form the connecting link with the isolated bar-chevron ‘A’ Beaker from Ballymenach, Argyll.2In the interior of Wales other ‘A’ Beakers are found which seem to relate rather to the debased forms characteristic of East Anglia, with their finger-printed or stabbed ornament and coarse ware; one, indeed, from Cwm-du (Breckn.) (Fig. 9.2), was until recently the only example from Wales of the handled form characteristic of ‘A’ Beaker decadence in England, and has the sharply inbent rim characteristic of this phase in Derbyshire, East Anglia, and Wessex: Brecknockshire is indeed an area in which Beaker elements from Glamorgan, the Cotswolds area and further east converged, and typical of it is the hybrid ‘Bl’—‘A’ (or ‘C’) Beaker from Llanelieu (Fig. 9.5) recently rediscovered in the Banks Collec­ tion at Kington.3 It is in this area that both of the two Welsh examples of the type of large flint dagger characteristic of midland and eastern England were found, one of them apparently in association with the Llanelieu Beaker already mentioned.4 From all this seems to be emerging a somewhat complicated picture of small, semi-nomadic groups entering Wales at various dates from the west Carmarthen Antiquary III Arch. Camb., BAP,

1 (i960), 53-54. The discovery of the sherd is referred to in 6 Ser., V (1905), 69. 2 I, no. 185. 8 Originally published by R. W. Banks (1871), 327-30. 4 and W. F. Grimes (1951), Fig. 54, 1.

ibid.

79

2

CWM-DU (BRECKN.)

MERTHYR MAWR WARREN (GLAM .)

Ins

4 MOEL HEBOG (CAERNS.)

3 BRYMBO (DENBS)

•

6

5. _ LLANELIEU (BRECKN.) Note:

PENDERYN '(BRECKN.)

Fig. 9. Welsh Beakers. 1 is from Llanmadoc, from Merthyr Mawr.

not

THE BRONZE AGE

and the south as well as the east—no longer a simple picture of retarded westward movement across the Lowlands of England into the Highland Zone. But the fundamental unity of the Welsh Beaker culture is clearly shown by a study of its graves and their equipment, other than pottery. Nearly all the graves are separate ones, crouched inhumations in pits or well-made cists which are usually covered by round mounds, although there are a number of cases, like that of the recently discovered cist at Brymbo, where there seems to have been no trace of a covering mound. Such hidden cists, coming to light only by accident and therefore par­ ticularly liable to destruction without record, may in reality have formed a large proportion of the original total. In the comparatively small number of cases where the skeletons have been sufficiently well preserved for anthropological study, the characteristic broad-skulled ‘Bell Beaker’ type appears to predominate, rather than the type usual in ‘Corded Ware’ separate graves in northern Europe.1 This, together with the fact that burial in cists, and particularly burial in cists without cairns, is not so much characteristic, on the Continent, of the ‘Corded Ware’ cultures as of various late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age groups in Switzerland, France, and the Iberian Peninsula with which the Beaker Folk could have been in contact, should deter us from exaggerating the ‘Corded Ware’ element in the Beaker culture of Wales.2 A special element in the Welsh Beaker population seems to be consti­ tuted by a group of cist inhumations around Carmarthen Bay which were not accompanied by Beakers. Some may, in fact, have belonged to mem­ bers of the bar-chevron ‘A’ Beaker group which certainly established itself in this area, but others are distinguished by their size and two contained fully extended skeletons3—that at Corston Beacon (Pembs.) having with it a round-heeled bronze dagger. These burials probably belong to a late stage of the Beaker culture in Wales, when megalithic features were being incorporated in the building of cists (see p. 82). There can be no reasonable doubt that these burials belong to the Beaker phase, since, as we shall presently see, the Welsh Food-vessel culture represents a fresh immigra­ tion by people who practised cremation exclusively. 1 W. E. Griffiths (1957), 86-89 and H. N. Savory (1959a), 11-17. 2 Notably the Chamblandes Culture: V . G. Childe (1957), 290. 3 A round cairn on Allt Gunedda, Kidwelly (Carms.), sealed a large pit grave with covering slab and extended skeleton: (1851), 159-62. The ex­ tended burial at Corston Beacon was contained in a cist of megalithic structure: C. F. Fox (1928), 155-8.

Arch. Camb.

81

H . N. SAVORY

The virtual absence of identified Beaker settlements from Wales,1 which is in keeping with their extreme rarity in Britain generally and the failure of any ceremonial site comparable to Avebury or Lough Gur to present itself as yet, are obstacles to any estimate of the relations between the Beaker immigrants and the megalith-building communities that they found occupying the best lands in Wales. The Beaker secondary burials in megalithic chamber tombs at Tinkinswood (Glam.), Ty-isaf (Breckn.), Pant-y-saer (Angl.) and elsewhere2may indicate some degree of acceptance of a section of the Beaker Folk into neolithic communities, as in Brittany and elsewhere on the Continent; it has even been suspected that some Beaker groups may have been to some extent parasites of the megalithbuilding communitites, grazing their animals on land which had been cleared of trees by the former and abandoned by them after their fertility had been exhausted.3 It is at the same time clear that the main settlement areas of the megalith-builders along the south Wales seaboard and around the Black Mountains were also settled by the Beaker Folk, and that part at least of the new settlers spread up the main river valleys of the Marches, as their megalithic predecessors had done. Owing to the particularly heavy destruction of valley-bottom round cairns in the past, and the lack of modern exploration of the surviving sites, it is scarcely possible as yet to determine the extent to which the culture and economy of the megalithbuilders survived locally during the Early Bronze Age.4 But it is also certain that the Beaker Folk spread on to wide areas of upland in the interior of Wales which show little sign of Neolithic settlement: this is particularly obvious in Brecknock, where long cairns are confined to the neighbourhood of the best agricultural land, near the main river valleys in the south of the county, while round cairns, some of them proved to be Beaker date, are very plentiful on the high moorlands farther west and north, especially along the outcrop of the Carboniferous Limestone.5 In north Wales striking cases are the cairns on the summit of Moel Hebog and at Bwlchgwryd in Snowdonia,6 both of which yielded Beakers. It is likely that this shift of population was due to the warmer and drier climate of the 1 Coarse ‘A’ Beaker sherds were found on a hearth in a shell-mound at Spritsail Tor, Llanmadoc (Glam.): W . F. Grimes (1951), no. 684. 2 W .E. Griffiths (1957), 86-89. 3 V . G. Childe (1950), 106. 4 H. N. Savory (1954). 5 H. N. Savory (i955h), 9 5 ~9 7 8 I, 27, 88; B. Lowe (1912), 38.

BAP,

82

THE BRONZE AGE

Early Bronze Age, which would have improved upland pastures, as well as to the greater importance of pastoralism and especially sheep-rearing in the Beaker economy.1 In addition to the cist- and pit-burials which are normal for the Beaker Folk in Wales there are a few which suggest a definite ritual content, con­ nected with some belief about a voyage of the dead which would be natural to such intrepid voyagers. At the Sutton Barrow, Llandow (Glam.), Sir Cyril Fox found in 1940 a primary burial of a typical Beaker man, crouched in a large pit cut into the subsoil, with a Beaker of debased ‘B l’ type and barbed and tanged flint arrow-heads, and enclosed by a U-shaped heap of stones. His hint,2 that this peculiar structure was meant to suggest a boat, has been confirmed by recent discoveries in the Cadlan valley, Penderyn (Breckn.), where a disturbed primary Beaker burial in a cairn at Twynbrynglas lay in a boat-shaped enclosure of dry-stone walling, and another cairn, at Nant Maden, also being explored by Mr. D. Webley, covers a primary D-shaped structure which probably also perpetuates a tradition of boat symbolism;3 this idea seems to be associated more particularly with the late ‘B l’ Beaker-makers, who spread by the Wye valley from Gloucester­ shire on to the Brecknock uplands, and thence down to the Glamorgan sea­ board. The boat doubtless played a prominent part in the thoughts of people who had but recently arrived in Britain by sea and had explored its interior to a large extent by using its river system; at a somewhat later date a cremated burial with a Food-vessel of Irish affinity was placed in the uppermost of two sections of tree-trunk hollowed out to resemble dug-out canoes, found in the cairn on Disgwylfa Fawr, Ponterwyd (Cards.); and at a later date still, probably towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age, the unique coracle-shaped oak bowl from Caergwrle (Flints.)4 with its goldleaf inlay and applique decoration suggestive of apotropaic eyes, oars and waves, seems to indicate a continued significance of the boat in religious ceremonial (PI. 13). 1 V . G. Childe (1947), 98. 2 C. F. Fox (1943), 94. 3 Only the Tw yn brynglas excavation has so far been published; D. Webley (1960). A boat-shaped communal vault, constructed of dry-stone walling, in a round cairn at the Soldier’s Grave, Frocester, in the Cotswolds, also belongs to the Early Bronze Age; E. Clifford (1938), 214-17. Similar structures have been reported in Anglesey: E. N. Baynes (1909); 325-7, and X X II I (1957), 228-9. Two others were discovered at Clocaenog (Denbs.) in i960: X (1961), 7-22. 4 W. F. Grimes (1951), 84-85; also J. X . W. P. Corcoran, ‘The Caergwrle bowl’, Hamburg, 1958, 200-03.

PPS,

Bericht tiber den VInt. Kongr.fiir Vor- undFruhg., 83

TDHS,

H . N. SAVORY

The Beaker Folk brought with them into Britain a characteristic equip­ ment the diverse origins of which reflect the varying cultural contacts which their owners formed during their wanderings. Objects of copper or bronze are no more frequently associated with Beakers in Wales than in other parts of Britain. Most of the few recorded are round-heeled daggers, and are evidently to be assigned to a late phase in the Beaker period.1 Nevertheless, bronze daggers of Beaker type, whether directly associated with Beakers or not, have a fairly even distribution in Wales, and do not show the markedly western bias characteristic of the flat axes, halberds and other implements of Irish origin or affiliation at a somewhat later date. This seems to confirm the old view that the Beaker Folk drew on continental sources for their daggers rather than any hypothetical source already existing in Ireland, and recent analyses seem to point in the same direc­ tion.2 On the other hand, Case and Coghlan in their recent study3 sug­ gest that the Beaker Folk may have introduced the manufacture of the primitive broad-butted flat axe of copper into Ireland. This type is rare in Wales, though a good example is known from Merioneth.4 The type of flat bronze axe which is characteristic of Wales has a narrow butt and wellsplayed blade, and is sometimes decorated with tool-marks in the Irish manner, as in the example recently discovered at Llanharry (Glam.) (Pi. 10). Most significantly, a cluster of these implements occurs at the eastern end of the Presely (Preselau) Hills, and there is little doubt that these represent the beginning of the Irish bronze industry’s hold on the west Wales market, probably at the end of the Beaker period. Characteristic Beaker ornaments are excessively rare in Wales and until recently there was only one recorded example of a V-perforated button, made of jet, associated with a debased ‘A’ Beaker at Pentraeth (Angl.).5 This, like the round-heeled bronze dagger, is one of the types which the Beaker Folk assimilated in the course of their sojourn around the western and northern fringes of the Alps. The ubiquitous barbed and tanged flint arrow-heads were similarly introduced by the Beaker Folk from their inter­ mediate settlement areas in France, not from Germany. The beautiful flint daggers which are associated with the late phase of ‘A’ and ‘C’ Beakers on 1 H. N. Savory (1955a), 227. 2 H. H. Coghlan and H. Case (1957), 100-3. 3 4 W. F. Grimes (1951), no. 403. 6 H. Hughes (1908), 216-17. Tw o others recently found at Isgwennant, Llansilin (Denbs.), with an Beaker, are unpublished.

ibid.

‘A ’

84

THE BRONZE AGE

the eastern side of England1are extremely rare in Wales: the two examples known were both found in Brecknock and presumably represent the same late ‘A’ Beaker movement across the Midlands into the Marches as the handled Beaker from Cwm-du. Yet these daggers, too, with their imitation of early metal daggers, which is sometimes very marked, as in the case of the Ystradfellte dagger, can be traced back to the old Bell Beaker areas of southern France and Catalonia, and are regarded, when they appear in north-west Germany, as a ‘western’ intrusion.2 Other stone implements which evidently arrived in Wales by the same routes as the flint daggers are not of ‘Bell Beaker’ or ‘West European’ origin. To the two old discoveries of discoidal flint knives with polished edges, from Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire, has just been added a fine example found on the mountain north-west of Capel Gwynfe, Llangadog (Carm.). The early associations of this predominantly eastern English type are Secondary Neolithic as well as Beaker.3 The Capel Gwynfe example, like some other discoidal knives and ‘Secondary Neo­ lithic’ curving sickle blades, bears patches of ‘corn gloss’, caused by pro­ longed use as a harvesting implement, and may therefore be evidence for the agricultural activities of the Beaker Folk. But the smaller and simpler examples of the perforated ‘axe-hammers’ which are relatively common in the western parts of Wales (PI. 9 ) are probably also of Beaker date, even though Stone thought4 that their development in England was due mainly to Secondary Neolithic communities. There is a marked concentration of these axe-hammers at the eastern end of the Preselys (Fig. 8), where we have already noted a cluster of flat bron/e axes.5 The fact that some of these, and of similar implements in other parts of Wales and in Wessex, are made of spotted ophitic dolerite and other Pembrokeshire stones6 points to the continued activity of so far unidentified axe factories in the Presely area, trading by sea with the Early Bronze Age centres of Wiltshire. It is impossible to dissociate these finds from the remarkable fact, established long ago by Thomas,7 that the ‘blue stones’ and other exotic stones at 1 W. F. Grimes (1931),

34°-55-

2 K . W. Struve (1955), 40-41. 3J. G. D. Clark (1929). 4J. F. S. Stone (1950). 6 H. N. Savory (1951). 6J. F. S. Stone (1950). See also H. N. Savory (1963). 7 H. H. Thomas (1923), 239-60.

P.E.W .—G

85

H . N. SAVORY

Stonehenge were brought from as far afield as north Pembrokeshire, pre­ sumably as far as possible by water.1 No doubt the link between Wessex and Pembrokeshire was greatly strengthened by the Beaker Folk on their way to southern Ireland and it is natural to ask whether their activities in developing great ceremonial circles at Avebury and Stonehenge, and in particular in transferring the Pembrokeshire stones used for the construction of the second monument at the latter site2 have any reflection in the Early Bronze Age ceremonial sites of west Wales. As it happens, there are no stone circles anywhere in Wales which remotely approach those of Wessex in size and complexity, and few sites of any kind are known in west Wales.3 Only one of these, Meini Gwyr, Llandysilio East (Carm.), has been excavated, but the affinities of this, as might have been expected, are with a southern Irish stone circle, not with any Wessex ‘Henge’ monument. It proved to consist, in fact, of a wide, low bank, 100 ft. in diameter externally, fined internally with upright slabs and with a single entrance also fined with upright slabs;4 in other words, a small edition of the Great Circle at Lough Gur.5 Meini Gwyr, then, is probably part of the extension of Irish culture to west Wales at the end of the Early Bronze Age which we have already noticed. Excava­ tion by the writer in 1 9 6 1 of a round barrow at Letterston (Pembs.) showed that this had been built over an embanked stone circle rather like Meini Gwyr. Other Welsh stone circles are of a simpler type with a single small circle of small uprights which are normally freestanding, and sometimes other stones outside or inside the circle. Few have been excavated, but the two sites at Cameddau Hengwm (see p. 79) have been connected by excava­ tion with the makers of debased ‘A’ Beakers, who, we have seen, reached Wales from across the Midlands,6 while the Druids’ Circle on Penmaenmawr Mountain, which has an external bank and a single entrance, has recently been shown to belong to the Food-vessel culture of north Wales.7 Evidently they form part of the general spread of Secondary Neolithic culture to Wales at the end of the Early Bronze Age, which we shall be considering in a moment. ibid.

1 R . J. C. Atkinson (1956), 98-110 and (1959), 5&-63. a 3 W. F. Grimes (1936), 18-19 and in I. LI. Foster and L. Alcock (editors), (1963), 93-152. 4 I V (1938), 324-5. For Letterston see X X (1963), 309-25. S. P. 6 Riordain (1951), 37-48.

Culture and Environment PPS,

BBCS,

6

6 W. F. Grimes (1951), 5 4 ~5 5 7 X X V I (i960), 303-17.

PPS,

86

THE BRONZE AGE

It is possible that research on the very numerous meini hirion or stand­ ing stones of Wales might throw light on connexions between Wales and Wessex in the Beaker phase, since Beaker burials have been found at the foot of some standing stones in the latter area, notably at Avebury, and there is a marked concentration of large meini hirion in the area of Beaker settlement around Carmarthen Bay. But all that can be said for certain at present is that the practice of marking burials with standing stones was established in Wales by the end of the Bronze Age, since several Foodvessel burials were so marked,1 while other standing stones in Glamorgan were not associated with burials.2 From all this there emerges the impression that however important a part west Wales may have played in the first expansion of the Beaker culture into Ireland, and the first stage of its development of the great monument at Stonehenge, it did not share in the final achievement of the Wessex culture at the end of the Early Bronze Age, but sank before that into the role of a minor province, finked more closely with southern Ireland than with Wessex. It is striking that north Wales seems to show more influence from the fully developed Wessex culture than does west Wales (see p. 88). The reason for this must probably be sought partly in the greater ‘puli’ of southern Ireland, partly in the manner of the expansion of the ‘Secondary Neolithic’ cultures into Wales towards the end of the Early Bronze Age, at which we have already hinted. Thanks very largely to Professor R. J. C. Atkinson3 we have come to realize since 1945 that the burial rite and associated pottery of the Middle Bronze Age in southern Britain largely represents the uninterrupted evolution of the practice of certain ‘Secondary Neolithic’ communities there which already cremated their dead and used ‘Peterborough’ pottery before the beginning of the Bronze Age. These communities seem to have absorbed the Beaker Folk in most parts of the Lowlands, even if the richly equipped chieftain graves around Avebury and Stonehenge do belong to an upper class mainly of Beaker origin. But in Wales the process seems to have been somewhat different, because the original ‘Secondary Neolithic’ communities there were relatively weak and the hybrid ‘Urn’ culture which developed in the Lowlands towards the end of the Early Bronze Age spread to Wales mainly as a result of a fresh infiltration, from other parts of Britain, among the 1 W. F. Grimes (1951), nos. 607 and 683, and J. Ward (1919), 327-30. 2 W. F. Grimes (1951), 108; J. G. Rutter (1948), 48. 8 R . J. C. Atkinson (1951), 64-80.

87

H . N. SAVORY

existing separate-grave communities. It is true that ‘Secondary Neolithic’ elements were certainly already present in the late ‘A’ and ‘C’ Beaker group which entered Wales from the Midlands, as the occasional crema­ tions show.1 But, in the main, the cremated burials with ‘Food-vessels’, ‘Enlarged Food-vessels’, and ‘Overhanging Rim urns’ which are found, often with primary cremations, in round cairns throughout Wales, must represent fresh immigration from the east, setting in as a strong tide to counter the Irish cultural influences of the same period. During the fifteenth century B.C. two main groups of cremating people established themselves among the round cairn-builders of Wales: those who used accessory vases and urns in the ‘Food-vessel’ tradition, and those who developed their cinerary urns along ‘Peterborough’ lines. In both groups there was a tendency as time went on for a small vase used as a container for offerings to be replaced by a large urn used as a container for ashes. In Wales, vases and urns of the ‘Food-vessel’ tradition are far more common in the north than in the south. Analysis of the types represented2 reveals two main groups: a very numerous one with its background in Britain, and a smaller one of vessels showing a varying degree of affinity with Irish forms. The main group, characteristic of north Wales, shows an exclusive preference for Abercromby’s type 3 form, without shouldergrooves or stops (Fig. 10.1). It thus can have had little contact with the im­ portant Food-vessel group of Yorkshire and Derbyshire,3 in which types 1 and 2, with shoulder-grooves and stops, predominate and inhumation quite frequently occurs. The writer has accordingly argued that the early Wessex group of Food-vessels played a considerable part in shaping the Foodvessel tradition of north Wales, through the maintenance of ‘Secondary Neolithic’ and Beaker contacts up the Severn valley, at a time when heavy forest in the north-west Midlands kept intercourse between the Peak Dis­ trict and north Wales to a minimum. But he has also pointed out that many north Wales Food-vessels (see particularly Fig. 10.5) are closely matched in details of form and decoration by vessels found in Scotland and the Tyne area. Moreover, ApSimon has recently argued4 that Irish Food-vessels in particular owe a good deal to the evolved ‘C’ Beakers of north Britain, and it may well be that the cultural movement down the 1 W. E. Griffiths (1957), 86-89. 2 H. N. Savory (1957), 201-8. 3 M . Kitson Clark (1937), and T . G . M anby (1957). 4 A. M . ApSimon (1958), 29-31.

88

2 KERRY (M ONT.)

I PENTRAETH (ANG.)

4

3 MANORBIER (PEMB.)

LLANGWM (DENB.)

5 BRYNFORD (FLINT.) Fig. 10. Welsh Food-vessels.

H . N . SAVORY

Irish Channel from the western seaboard of Scotland to Ireland and north Wales which helped to shape the local Food-vessel culture began in the Beaker phase. The ‘Irish’ group of Welsh Food-vessels has, on the other hand, a western rather than a northern bias, as might be expected. But it includes one northern sub-group (represented by Fig. 1 0 .4 ) which may really embody an early stage in the evolution of a group which afterwards became dis­ tinctively Irish, another, south-western, group (represented by Fig. 1 0 .3 ) which seems genuinely to represent Irish influence, and a southern group of hooped, bucket-shaped urns which may have developed locally and in southern Ireland from ‘SOM’ and Rinyo-Clacton foundations. In south Wales, then, Food-vessels belong largely to the Irish sphere of influence, and only in Glamorgan are there one or two Food-vessels of British type 3 tradition. Clearly the place of Food-vessels as a grave-gift must have been taken in south-east Wales at the end of the Early Bronze Age by other classes of vessel; and though there is as yet little evidence from association or stratification to prove it, it is very likely that the various examples of Vase or Cinerary urn of‘Narrow Rim’ or ‘Collared Rim’ form which begin the ‘Overhanging Rim’ series in south Wales are largely contemporary with the Welsh Food-vessels. Connexions between Wessex and Wales as a whole in this period by the direct route across the Bristol Channel must be represented very largely by urns of this sort, which ultimately spread to all parts of Wales and to southern Scotland, at least partly by the Irish Channel route. In the Solway area some features of Food-vases with shoulder-grooves and stops seem to have been taken over by these urns and as a result appear in Wales for the first time.1 The mingling of these types, and the evolution of a uniform Overhanging Rim type, continues throughout the Middle Bronze Age.

The Middle Bronze Age (c. 1400-1000 B.C.) The Middle Bronze Age in Wales may perhaps be best defined as the period in which cremation has become universal and the diverse cultural elements which we have seen entering Wales during the Early Bronze Age are being merged into a new whole. The Overhanging Rim urn is the most representative archaeological type of this period, and is well distributed 1 W. F. Grimes (1951), no. 629; H . N. Savory,

90

Arch. Camb., 1940,245-7.

THE BRONZE AGE

over Wales in all its phases and styles of decoration: even in Pembrokeshire good examples of its earliest phase of development occur. This means a triumph for a cultural form which was evolved in the Lowland Zone of England, and clearly movement into Wales from the Lowlands by the oldestablished sea and river routes was comparatively easy in this period. In keeping with this, the Encrusted and Cordoned urns which are charac­ teristic of other parts of the Highland Zone in the later Bronze Age only have a sparse and marginal distribution in Wales.1 But it is important to note that though Wales thus came to share in the lower aspects of a uni­ form ‘British’ culture in the Middle Bronze Age, she did not participate to any great extent in the higher aspects of the culture which had its centre of gravity around Stonehenge at this time. Like northern England, Wales can show few richly equipped chieftain graves of the type that clusters on Salisbury Plain and gives rise to the con­ ception of a ‘Wessex’ culture. Only two graves have yielded examples of the faience beads, imported from Egypt in the fourteenth or thirteenth century B.C., which are so common in Wessex, and, characteristically, these are in north-east Wales,2 and associated with vases or urns of the Foodvessel class with special Irish or Scottish affinities. At Mold in the same area was found, long ago, on an extended skeleton under a round cairn, the celebrated ornament of sheet-gold, formerly described as a peytrel for a Late Bronze Age chariot pony, but now convincingly reconstructed by Mr. T. G. E. Powell as part of a ceremonial cape or tippet of Middle Bronze Age date.3 But even this unique object cannot be ascribed to the same craftsmen as the sheet-gold ornaments of the Wessex culture, and its repousse decoration of round or lenticular bosses is best paralleled on gold ornaments of different form found in Germany. The only close analogues for the lenticular bosses in Britain, as it happens, occur on bronze bracelets from Melfort and Migdale in the Scottish Highlands, which both belong to the local Food-vessel horizon. The Mold tippet may well be the product of a local school of craftsmanship ultimately of central European origin, but locally established in those lands round the northern part of the Irish Sea which we have already seen (see p. 88) were connected by local Beaker and Food-vessel movements at the end of the Early Bronze Age and saw a pro­ tracted survival of Enlarged Food-vessels in the Middle Bronze Age. The 1 C. F. Fox (1959), Pis. V and V III. 3 W. F. Grimes (1951), nos. 589 and 590. 3 T . G. E. Powell (1953).

91

H . N. SAVORY

jet necklaces which have been found with burials near Holyhead1 and at Llong in Flintshire2 are further evidence of the northern cultural contacts of north Wales in this period. In south Wales it might have been expected that the sea connexions with Wessex implied by the dissemination of Narrow Rim urns along the coastal plain of south Wales would have brought in their train stronger influence from the aristocratic aspects of the Wessex culture. But the area can only show one grave group which could qualify for inclusion in the list of Wessex chieftain graves—that found on Breach Farm, Llanblethian (Glam.)3—and even this proves on closer examination to stand apart from the true Wessex culture (PI. 11). The cast flange axe from this cremation deposit may be an import from Wessex; the few other Welsh examples of this type, and of the ogival daggers that are also characteristic of the Wessex culture have an easterly distribution in Wales. But the exceptionally fine barbed and tanged flint arrow-heads and the ‘Pygmy Cup’ also found in this grave, and for that matter the structure of the grave itself are less unambiguously Wessex. The arrow-heads have Breton analogues and the Pygmy Cup is perhaps the finest example in Britain of the bipartite form, which in its primary phase at least is marginal to Wessex in its dis­ tribution (Fig. 11). Very recently, however, C. Burgess has pointed out the Wessex character of daggers from St. Brides Netherwent (Mon.) and Crug yr Afan (Glam.).4 Pygmy Cups of various types are, of course, common enough in Wessex, but the most characteristic varieties—‘Grape Cups’, ‘Aldbourne Cups’ and openwork cups—are rare or completely unknown in Wales. The writer has argued5 that the bipartite cup, which in its primary form is made of fine ware with delicately furrowed decoration, represents a fresh cultural element introduced, presumably in the first place by new settlers, to the Atlantic seaboard of Wales and south Scotland from Atlantic Europe, probably in the fourteenth century B.C. The ultimate background to the form and decoration of these miniature vessels would seem, in fact, to lie, like that of the Wessex ‘Grape’ and ‘Aldbourne’ Cups, in the Neolithic Chassey culture of France, but, as with the ‘A’ Beakers, the immediate circumstances of their transmission from the interior of western or southern 1 A. W ay (1868), 423-33. 2 X X I I I (1957), 228. 3 W. F. Grimes (1938), For the Wessex Culture, see S. Piggott (1938). 4 X X (1962), 7 5 - 9 4 ­ 5 H. N. Savory (1958b), 96-104.

PPS,

BBCS,

92

THE BRONZE AGE

ASSOCIATED WITH CINERARY URN WITHOUT CINERARY URN

Fig. i i . Biconical Pygmy Gups.

93

H . N . SAVORY

France to the Irish Channel area are obscure. From the primary centres in west Wales and south-west Scotland the bipartite cup spread eastwards; though some of the best examples, as at Breach Farm, were the only pottery in the grave, good specimens have been found with, and sometimes actually inside, Overhanging Rim urns. As one goes eastwards one finds an increas­ ing proportion of cups made of coarse ware like that of the Overhanging Rim urns and with decoration corded like the urns; conversely, there are many urns on this horizon which are decorated with patterns borrowed from Pygmy cups. In the light of this evidence, which the Welsh Pygmy Cups seem to afford, for a renewal of influences upon the western seaboard of Britain from Atlantic France in the fourteenth century B.C., qualifying the domina­ tion of the Urn culture, we may be better able to understand the apparent exclusion of the Wessex culture from south Wales. The fine bipartite cups may stand for a distinct immigrant governing class, blocking the way to further expansion by the Wessex chieftains. This new group also gained a foothold in Ireland, although a less influential one, and perhaps as a result Wales continued to depend very largely upon Irish metallurgy, as the westerly distribution in Wales of haft-flanged axes and halberds seems to suggest.1 Towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age south Wales remains strikingly impervious to the first products of the new school of bronze smiths then established in southern England, although the characteristic bronze palstaves and ornaments of this industry are well represented in Somerset.2 As before, north Wales is more receptive, at least to the imple­ ments, of this new school, and all of the trunnion anvils and most of the early palstaves with shield pattern, known from Wales and the Marches, evidently arrived by the Severn route.3 The diversity of the cultural groups which went to the making of the Middle Bronze Age in Wales is perhaps brought out more than anything else by the persisting differences in burial ritual and structure which the round cairns of the period reveal to careful excavators. The simple prac­ tices of the Beaker Folk were already being complicated in some family groups towards the end of the Early Bronze Age, by ritual observances resulting from a belief in the voyage of the dead. The users of vases and 1 Examples of haft-flanged axes from Allt-y-ferin (Carms.), ‘ Segontium’, Ogmore Vale, Lledrod (Cards.), Trawsfynydd (Mer.) and Fishguard: for halberds see S. P. (!) Riordain, (1936), 313, and add R . W. Banks (1875), 20. 2 H. N. Savory (1958a), 11, Fig. 9, and M. A. Smith (1959). Figs. 8 and 10. 3 H. N. Savory,

ibid.,

94

T H E BRONZE AGE

urns of Food-vessel tradition in Wales built cists which often show a reduc­ tion in size in keeping with cremation and are covered with well-revetted stony cairns of megalithic tradition. Simondston, near Bridgend, is an example of such a cairn,1which is typical of many in the mountain districts of Wales. But it is scarcely surprising that a number of round barrows dug by Sir Cyril Fox in the Vale of Glamorgan between 1939 and 1945 should have revealed in association with Overhanging Rim urns a ritual tradition which could well have been imported by the builders from stoneless but well-timbered regions in southern England. A barrow at Sheeplays Farm, Llandow, typifies this group.2 A fine example of the early phase of the Overhanging Rim urn had been placed with a cremation in a pit covered by a clay dome around which had been placed four concentric rings of stakes, of which the inner two were interpreted as the framework of a ceremonial hut; within the inner ring a turf-stack had later been built and the whole had finally been covered with an earthen mound. The turf-stack idea was also associated with a primary cremation with an Overhanging Rim urn under a small central cairn at the Pond Cairn, Coity3, but here no stake-holes were observed and there was an encircling stone ring under the covering mound. Here we seem to have a form more characteristic of the Highland Zone and probably very common on the Welsh uplands. It is natural that the barrow structure found with a primary Pygmy Cup burial at Breach Farm should embody a different tradition. The broad dry-stone revetment wall surrounding this barrow is matched at other Pygmy Cup barrows, at Llandow (Glam.) and Talbenny (Pembs.) and probably reflects Armorican influences, like the associated pottery and arrow-heads.4 We have already referred to the Bronze Age stone circles of Wales (see p. 96). The careful excavation of a simple circle of the usual small size and diminutive stones at Ynys Hir on the Epynt in mid-Wales5 suggests that these poor monuments continued to be erected and used throughout the Middle Bronze Age. Simple alignments of standing stones and even, in one case, parallel rows of very small blocks associated with circles and round cairns on the moorlands of the interior of Wales represent a ceremonial tradition similar to that of Dartmoor.6 1 C. 3 C. 3 C. 4 C. 5 G. 6 H.

F. Fox (1938), 129-41. F. Fox (1941). F. Fox (1938), 142-58. F. Fox (1959b), 38-70. C. Dunning (1943). N. Savory (1955b), 30-33.

95

H . N . SAVORY

Settlement sites of the Middle Bronze Age are almost unknown, but part of what may be one was revealed recently under a round cairn at Saint-y-nyll, St. Brides-super-Ely (Glam.)1 Here three overlapping rings of shallow post-holes were covered by a thick layer containing abundant charcoal, animal bones, flints, and potsherds belonging mainly to early forms of Overhanging Rim urn, although an evolved form of Neolithic ‘A’ ware and a Food-vase were also represented; the deposit probably belongs to the fifteenth century B.C. The two completely explored overlapping rings of shallow post-holes were oval, one 15 ft. and the other 9 ft. along the main axis (PI. 14). The smaller ring contained several post-holes which had evidently been renewed, and it is more natural to interpret the struc­ tures to which these belonged as part of a settlement occupied for a con­ siderable time than as ceremonial huts like those found under barrows at Llandow and elsewhere.2 It is important to note that the oval plan found at Saint-y-nyll is not followed by the undoubted ritual structures at Llandow, which are circular, but that on the other hand an oval hut of small size was associated with a Peterborough occupation layer at Cefn Cilsanws, Merthyr, explored by Mr. D. Webley.3 The economy revealed by the associated food refuse at Saint-y-nyll is one based very largely upon the raising of sheep and cattle, but at Pond Cairn charred grains found in a ceremonial deposit showed that wheat and barley were cultivated by the Middle Bronze Age inhabitants of the Vale of Glamorgan.

The Late Bronze Age (c . 1000 B .c -400

B.C.)

It is above all in the Late Bronze Age, more than any other period, that the inadequacy and one-sidedness of the archaeological evidence in Wales can be felt. It used to be thought that in default of any considerable body of pottery from burials or settlements which could be ascribed to fresh immigrants in the Late Bronze Age, or even at the beginning of the Early Iron Age, the Middle Bronze Age series of cairn burials, and the more evolved of the urns contained in them, would have to be regarded as con­ tinuing down to the end of the Late Bronze Age and perhaps even later in some areas.4 But recently the evidence for some degree of immigration into Wales during the Late Bronze Age has increased somewhat and the reasons 1 H. N . Savory (1962). 8 D. Webley (1958).

2 C. F. Fox (1941). 4 W . F. Grimes (1951), 93-96.

96

T H E BRONZE AGE

for dating the arrival in southern England of some groups of the immigrant ‘Deverel Rimbury’ ware very much earlier than hitherto have grown much stronger.1 At the same time the chronology of climatic change has become somewhat clearer, and it is likely that the beginning of the first millennium B.C. should be regarded as the time when a return to cold and wet winters would have made the Welsh uplands much less attractive for settlement and reduced the numbers of burials in upland cairns.2 Whatever the chronological range of the later cinerary urns of Wales, the almost total lack of significant associations, especially with bronze implements, makes it impossible to relate the ceramic sequence to that of the main implement types, and we are consequently obliged, after 1000 B.C., to base our inferences as to the cultural history of Wales mainly upon the distribution, typology, and production technique of bronze imple­ ments—a less satisfactory guide than pottery. Before analysing this evi­ dence from hoards and isolated finds of implements, however, it would be as well to consider what evidence there is from burials and settlements. The intrusive Late Bronze Age pottery of Wales consists at present of complete or fragmentary urns probably related to the Deverel-Rimbury ‘globular’ class, from Llantwit Major (Glam.) and Merthyr Cynog (Breckn.), various types of plain bucket- or barrel-shaped urns, with flattened or perforated rims, from Llangynydd (Glam.), Glyntawe (Breckn.), Llannarth (Cards.) and Llandegla (Denbs.), and a small ‘Knobbed Pot’ from the Lesser Garth Cave, Radyr (Glam.).3 The urns from Llantwit Major, Llannarth, and Llandegla were associated with cremations in round cairns of Middle Bronze Age traditions—the first was, in fact, a primary burial— but those from Glyntawe and Llangynydd were in cave deposits disturbed by burials of Romano-British date. Those from the Ogof-yr-esgyrn (Cave), Glyntawe, are of particular interest because they include not only bucketor barrel-shaped jars with flattened rims but a large ovoid jar with imper­ forate horizontal lugs which is closely matched in Dorset, all apparently associated with a bronze dirk of Middle Bronze Age type and a leaf razor of class I. We may thus here have evidence of an intrusive group ultimately of French coastal origin, arriving, perhaps, from across the Bristol Channel, and making its way to the head of the Tawe valley at the begin­ ning of the first millennium B.C.; but it is still impossible to say how widespread such movements were and how profoundly they affected the ibid.,

1 H. N. Savory (1958a), 44-48. 2 27. 3 44-48, and W. F. Grimes (1951), nos. 644 and 658.

ibid.,

97

H . N. SAVORY

cairn-building population of the Welsh uplands. Moreover, some of the pottery from these sites, especially the barrel-shaped jars with perforated rims and those with slack shoulders, may be of much later date, and related to wares which appear at the end of the Bronze Age in various parts of the Irish Channel area. Cave deposits, of course, though suggestive of insecurity, do not in themselves throw much light on the cultural affinities of the new-comers, but there is one Welsh find which may ultimately prove to be of a great value in this respect. Professor W. F. Grimes has suggested1 that an in­ complete shouldered jar found at Marros Mountain, Pendine (Carms.), may be an outlier of an Irish Late Bronze Age ceramic group inspired by bronze vessels of the situla form.2 The jar came from one of a group of small ringworks with dry-stone walls, to which a number of unexcavated enclosures in west Wales may be related, and if the association is real it might be possible to trace the origins of hill-slope and plateau ring-works o f‘Rath’ type in west Wales, as in Ireland, back to the Late Bronze Age.3 Unfortu­ nately the inadequate excavations did not apparently reveal post-holes or other features which could be connected with structures within this ringwork, although there was certainly an occupation deposit. In view of the inadequacy of this evidence for population changes in Wales in the Late Bronze Age it is probably wise for the present to allow for a considerable survival of the indigenous cairn-building population and of Middle Bronze Age cinerary urn forms, at least locally, in Wales during the Late Bronze Age. One of the best examples of the latter is the group of cordoned urns from Llanddyfnan (Angl.),4 which has strong Scottish affinities and may even represent colonization from the Solway area, like that which took place in the early part of the Bronze Age. But there are also some reasons for suspecting that there was a great decline in the manufac­ ture of pottery in Wales during this period and a substitution for pottery of leather vessels for domestic purposes; and, of course, many secondary cremations in cairns which are unaccompanied by urns or other grave goods may belong to this time. It is also very likely, and, in fact, suggested by some implement distributions, that the onset of the unfavourable ‘subAtlantic’ climatic conditions in Late Bronze Age I brought about a con­ 1 W. F. Grimes (1949), 67-68. 2H. O . N. Hencken (1942), 10-27. 3 S. P. (!) Riordain (1940). 4 E. N. Baynes (1909), 312-25.

98

T H E BRONZE AGE

siderable shift of population from the higher uplands to the main valley bottoms and coastal plains, where, in fact, the bulk of the population was when Early Iron Age hill-forts began to be built. We must now return to our main evidence for the Late Bronze Age, which, as we have said, consists of bronze implement finds. These at least show, in broad outline, the vicissitudes of a continuing struggle between two main schools of metallurgy, established in Ireland and lowland Britain respectively, for control of the Welsh market, and they also reveal the emergence of local schools of craftsmen. There is, indeed, a growing ten­ dency in the later Bronze Age for bronze industries to multiply and to become localized, at least partly on a political basis, as a result of folk move­ ments, growing social organization, and the need to develop new sources of raw materials. Towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age a flourishing school of itinerant bronze-smiths had developed on both sides of the English Channel. Many of these smiths specialized in the manufacture of axe-heads, mostly early types of palstave. Their products are found frequently in hoards like that of Acton Park, Wrexham.1 As before, the main route by which these reached Wales was the old one up the Severn valley. Either by this route, or a less active one along the south Wales coast, the characteristic types of the new industry, together with others proper to the north European school of smiths, reached Ireland, and were there adapted by the vigorous local school of bronze-smiths. During the final period of the Middle Bronze Age the trident-pattern and midribbed types of broad-bladed palstaves, produced by the Lowland smiths, were competing on almost equal terms in Wales with the Irish types of mid­ ribbed and plain, narrow-bladed palstave, and socketed axe.2 Throughout this time, however, Wales seems to have continued to use bronze dirks and rapiers and socket-looped spear-heads, possibly largely of local manufac­ ture: moulds found in north Wales and strange types like the double­ looped chisel from Bryn-crug (Caerns.) and the socketed palstave from St. George (Denbs.) may be evidence for a distinct but short-lived north Wales school of bronze-smiths.3 During this same phase Irish gold ornaments, chiefly tores of the ‘Tara’ family, among which is the magnificent compo­ site flanged tore recently discovered in a hoard at Llanwrthwl (Breckn.), were reaching Wales, mainly by the Holyhead route,4 while many more passed on to southern England and even to the Continent. 1 W. F. Grimes (1951), No. 531. N. Savory (1958c),

3H.

2 H. N. Savory (1958a), 22-28.

71-73.

4 H. N. Savory (1958a), 6-14. 99

H . N . SAVORY

In the main part of the Late Bronze Age, after about 8 00 B.C., when socketed axes, riveted spear-heads and leaf swords had come into general use in the lands flanking the Irish Channel, conditions change. Biconical gold ear-rings and narrow-bladed palstaves are still reaching north Wales by the Holyhead route, leaf swords in Wales are nearly all in the Irish tradition, and the objects of sheet-metal characteristic of the period, though they begin with the Nannau Bucket, imported by Irish merchants from west central Europe,1 are otherwise of Irish manufacture and all are coastal in distribution.2 On the other hand, the main English local indus­ tries—first the ‘Wilburton Complex’ with its characteristic slot-hilted swords, tubular ferrules, ogival chapes and lunate spearheads, and then the more southerly ‘Carp’s Tongue Complex’ with its characteristic swords, end-winged axes and ‘bugles’—have much less impact on Wales than their predecessor. The famous hoard from Guilsfield near Welshpool (Fig. 12)3 represents an economic frontier, for the axes which it contains are Irish— narrow-bladed palstaves, winged axes, and socketed axes—but the other types it contains—swords, chapes, ferrules, and spear-heads—belong to the ‘Wilburton Complex’ and otherwise have an eastern, marginal distri­ bution in Wales. This hoard typifies the large founders’ hoard, made up of scrap metal, which becomes common in lowland Britain at this time, but the fact that some of the Irish palstaves in it had not been trimmed may mean that the Guilsfield hoard at least belonged to an Irish craftsman. At a somewhat later date the ‘Carp’s Tongue Complex’, so well represented in coastal France and south-eastern England, is hardly represented in Wales at all. Its place is obviously taken by the so-called ‘south Wales’ axe in­ dustry, which actually served the whole Bristol Channel area and those parts of western England which were not penetrated to any great extent by the products of the ‘Carp’s Tongue’ industry, and no doubt used supplies of Irish copper and Cornish tin which were not available farther east.4 In the final phase of the Bronze Age Wales seems to be divided into four economic provinces: that of the south Wales axe (Fig. 13) in the south-east, that of the ‘Yorkshire’ axe in the north-east, that of continued Irish impor­ tation in the north-west, and that of the socketed axe with multiple mould­ ings at the mouth in the south-west. The north-eastern province is of 1 C. F. C. Hawkes (1957). 2 H. N. Savory (1958a), Fig. 15. 8 32-34. 4 36-37.

ibid., ibid.,

100

T H E BRONZE AGE

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101

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interest, because it seems to be partly incorporated in a northern British province marked, among other things, by Scandinavian influences, such as appear in the famous hoard of horse harness found at Parc-y-meirch, Abergele;1 this province is probably based partly upon exploitation of the Weardale copper deposits. It may not be entirely a coincidence that these four economic provinces coincide almost exactly with the four main tribal territories of Early Iron Age Wales—the Silures in the south-east, the Cornovii-Deceangli in the north-east, the Ordovices in the north-west, and the Demetae in the south-west: here were, in fact, four main concentrations of population already developed in the Late Bronze Age, which probably did not alter basically in the centuries before the Roman conquest, however much the governing class may have been modified by immigration and intermarriage. Two famous bronze hoards found in south Wales seem to break across the pattern of local industries which we have been outlining, and fore­ shadow the technical developments of the Early Iron Age (see p. 113f.). The Llyn Fawr and Cardiff hoards2 both contain, in addition to Irish imple­ ments and cauldrons (PI. 12), bronze fittings and harness of continental types connected with chariots, and the Llyn Fawr hoard, now datable about 600 B.C., contains part of a Hallstatt ‘C’ iron sword and a socketed sickle of Irish form made of wrought iron by an insular craftsman: but neither hoard contains ‘south Wales’ axes, such as occur in several local hoards of the Late Bronze Age. The continental Hallstatt ‘C’ element in these hoards, typified by the Burgundian Hallstatt razor from Llyn Fawr, is probably due to a continuation of those special contacts of the Irish smiths with the craftsmen of the interior of western Europe which brought the Nannau Bucket to Wales, but neglected the coastal, ‘Carp’s Tongue’ products of France either as forms to be imitated or as scrap metal. It is very doubtful whether the Llyn Fawr hoard in particular can be regarded as representing the contents of any household in south-east Wales, and it is perhaps best explained as loot from some passing Irish ship or from an Irish settlement in west Wales. It is impossible to say on present evidence whether the beginnings of insular iron-working, pre­ served at Llyn Fawr, stand at the head of a continuous development in south-western Britain: but the two hoards do at least show how connexions between the west of Britain and the French seaboard were kept alive even ibid.,

1 41-42. a W. F. Grimes (1951), nos. 543 and 690-3.

102

TH E BRONZE AGE

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Fig. 13. Local Late Bronze Age axe types.

103

6

.

H . N. SAVORY

when conditions were generally adverse and point towards the renewal of cultural contacts between the two areas which largely shaped the develop­ ments of the Early Iron Age in Wales.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

a psim o n ,

A.

m.

(1958), ‘Food Vessels’, Bulletin of the London Institute of

Archaeology, I (1958), 24-36.

ATKINSON, R. J. C., PIGGOTT, G. M.,

and SANDARS, N. K.

(1 9 5 I),

Excavations

at Dorchester, Oxon., (1951). j. c. (1956), Stonehenge, London (1956). j. c. (1959), Stonehenge and Avebury, HMSO (1959).

a t k in s o n , r . a t k in s o n , r . banks, r .

w. (1871), ‘On the contents of a Tumulus on Ty Ddu Farm, Llanelieu’. Arch. Camb., 4 Ser., II (1871), 327-30. b a n k s , R. w. (1875), ‘On some Radnorshire Bronze implements’, Arch. Camb., 4 Ser., VI (1875), 17-21. b a y n e s , e . n . (1909), ‘The Excavations of Two Barrows at Ty’n-y-Pwll, Llanddyfnan, Ang.’, Arch. Camb., 6 Ser., IX (1909), 312-32. ca se , h . (1957), see Coghlan, H. H., and Case, H. (1957). g h il d e , v. g . (1947), Prehistoric Communities of the British Isles, second edi­ tion, London (1947). g h il d e , v. g . (1950), Prehistoric Migrations in Europe, Oslo (1950). c h il d e , v. g . (1957), The Dawn of European Civilization, sixth edition, London (1957). c l a r k , j. g . d . (1929), ‘Discoidal Polished Flint Knives’, Proc. PSEA, VI, i (1929), 40-54. ^ g l a r k , j. g . d . (1931), ‘The Dual Character of the Beaker Invasion’, Antiquity, V (1931), 415-26. Cl if f o r d , e . m . (1938), ‘The Soldiers’ Grave, Frocester, Gloucestershire’ PPS, IV (1938), 214-18. c o g h l a n , h . h ., and c a se , h . (1957), ‘The Early Metallurgy of Copper in Ireland and Britain’, PPS, XXIII (1957), 91-123. d u n n in g , g . c. (1943), ‘A Stone Circle and Cairn on Mynydd Epynt, Brecknockshire’, Arch. Camb., XCVII (1942-43), 169-94. f o x , c. f . (1928), ‘Corston Beacon: An Early Bronze Age Cairn in South Pembrokeshire’, Arch. Camb., LXXXIII (1928), 137-74. f o x , c. f . (1938), ‘Simondston and Pond Cairns, Coity, Bridgend’, Arch. LXXXVII (1938), 129-80. f o x , c. f . (1941), ‘Stake Circles in Turf Barrows: a record of Excavations in Glamorgan, 1939-40’, Ant. Journ., XXI (1941), 97-127. 104

T H E BRONZE A G E! B IB L IO G R A P H Y

c. f . (1943), ‘A Bronze Age Barrow (Sutton 268 ) in Llandow Parish, Glamorganshire’, Arch., LXXXIX (1943), 89-125 f o x , c. f . (1959a), The Personality of Britain, fourth edition (new impres­ sion), Cardiff (1959). f o x , g . f . (1959b), Life and Death in the Bronze Age, London (1959). g r a y , h . s t . G. (1908), ‘Report on the Wick Barrow Excavations’, Proc. Somerset Arch. Soc., LIV (1908), 1-78. Gr if f it h s , w. e . (1957), ‘The Typology and Origins of Beakers in Wales’, PPS, XXIII (1957), 57-90. g r im es , w. f . (1931), ‘The Early Bronze Age Flint Dagger in England and Wales’, Proc. PSEA, VI (1931), 340-55. g r im es , w. f . (1936), Map of South Wales showing the Distribution of Long Barrows and Megaliths, Ordnance Survey (1936). g r im es , w. f . (1938), ‘A Barrow on Breach Farm, Llanbleddian, Gla­ morgan’, PPS, IV (1938), 107-21. g r im es , w. F. (1949), ‘The Prehistoric Period’, in A Hundred Tears of Welsh Archaeology, Cambrian Archaeological Association Centenary Volume, 1949, 24-79. g r im es , w. f . (1951), The Prehistory of Wales, Cardiff (1951). h a w k e s , c. f . c., and sm it h , m . a . (1957), ‘On some Buckets and Cauldrons of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages’, Ant. Journ., XXXVII (1957), 131-98. h e n c k e n , h . o ’n . (1942), ‘Ballinderry Crannog No. 2’, PRIA, C, XLVII (1942), 1-76. h u g h e s , h . (1908), ‘The Merddyn Gwyn Barrow Pentraeth’, Arch. Camb., 6 Ser., V III (1908), 211-20. k i t s o n - c l a r k , m . (1937), ‘The Yorkshire Food-vessel’, Arch. Journ., fox,

XCIV ( 1937), 43-63-

(1912), The Heart of Northern Wales, I, Llanfairfechan (1912). (1957), ‘Food Vessels of the Peak District’, Journal of the Derbyshire Arch, and N.H. Soc. (1957), 1-29. p ig g o t t , s. (1938), ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex’, PPS, IV (1938), 52-106. p ig g o t t , s. (1954), The Neolithic Communities of the British Isles, Cambridge

low e, w . b. m a n b y , t . G.

(1954)-

_

(1953), ‘The Gold Ornament from Mold, Flintshire, North Wales’, PPS, XIX (1953), 161-79. 6 r io r d a in , s . p . (1936), ‘The Halberd in Bronze Age Europe’, Arch., LXXXVI (1936), 195-321. o r io r d Ain , s . p . (1940), ‘Excavations at Cush, Co. Limerick’, PRIA, XLV, C (1940), 83-181.

pow ell, t . g. e .

105

H . N . SAVORY

6 r io r d a in , s. p. (1951), ‘Lough Gur Excavations: The Great Stone Circle (B) in Grange Townland’, PRIA, LIV, C (1951), 37-74. o r io r d Ain , s . p . (1954), ‘Lough Gur Excavations: Neolithic and Bronze Age Houses on Knockadoon’, PRIA, LVI, C (1954), 297-459. 6 r io r d a in , s. p. (1955), ‘Lough Gur Excavations: The Megalithic Tomb’, JRSAI, LXXXV (1955), 34- 50 . r u t t e r , j. g . (1948), Prehistoric Gower, Swansea (1948). sa v o r y , h . n . (1951), ‘Bronze Flat Axe from Carmarthenshire’, BBCS, XIV (1951), 250-1. s a v o r y , h . n . (1954), ‘Valley-ward Settlement in the Marches during the Middle Bronze Age’, XV (1954), 305-7. s a v o r y , h . n . (1955a), ‘A Corpus of Welsh Bronze Age Pottery: Beakers’, BBCS, XVI (1955), 215-41. s a v o r y , h . n . (1955b), ‘Prehistoric Brecknock’, Brycheiniog, I (1955), 79 - 125 . s a v o r y , h . n . (1957), ‘A Corpus of Welsh Bronze Age Pottery: Foodvessels’, BBCS, XVII (1957), 196-233. sa v o r y , h . n . (1958a), ‘The Late Bronze Age in Wales’, Arch. Camb., CVII (1958), 3-63. sa v o r y , h . n . (1958b), ‘A Corpus of Welsh Bronze Age Pottery: Pygmy Cups’, BBCS, XVIII (1958), 89-118. sa v o r y , h . n . (1958c), ‘The Origin of British Palstaves with Double Loops’, Arqueologia e Historia, VIII, Lisbon (1958), 69-73. sa v o r y , h . n . (1959a), ‘A Beaker Cist at Brymbo’, Trans. Denb. Hist. Soc., VIII (1959), n-17. s a v o r y , h . n . (1962), ‘The Excavation of a Bronze Age Cairn at Sant-ynyll, St. Brides-super-Ely, (Glam.)’, CJVST, LXXXIX (1959-60)59-25. sa v o r y , h . n . (1963), ‘The Personality of the Southern Marches of Wales in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age’, in I.LI. Foster and L. Alcock (ed.), Culture and Environment: Essays in honour of Sir Cyril Fox, London, *963. 25-52. ^ sm it h , m . a . (1959), ‘Some Somerset Hoards and their place in the Bronze Age of Southern Britain’, PPS, XXV (1959), 144-87. st o n e , j. f . s. (1950), ‘An Axe-hammer from Fifield Bavant, Wilts., and the Exploitation of Preselite’, Ant. Journ., XXX (1950), 145-51. s t r u v e , k . w. (1955), Die Einzelgrabkultur in Schleswig-Holstein, Neumiinster (1955). th o m a s , h . h . (1923), ‘The Sources of the Stones of Stonehenge’, Ant. Journ., Ill (1923), 239-60. w a r d , j . (19 i 9), ‘Prehistoric Burials, Merthyr Mawr Warren, Gla­ morgan’, Arch. Camb., 6 Ser., XIX (1919), 323-52. 106

T H E BRONZE A G E : B IB L IO G R A P H Y

(1868), ‘Ancient Interments and Sepulchral Urns found in Anglesey and North Wales’, Arch. Camb., 3 Ser., XIV (1868), 217-93. (1958), ‘A “Cairn Cemetery” and Secondary Neolithic Dwelling on Cefn Cilsanws, Vaynor (Breckn.)’, BBCS, XVIII (1958), 79-88. (i960), ‘Twyn Bryn Glas: the Excavation of a Round Cairn at Cwm Cadlan, Breconshire’, BBCS, XIX (i960), 56-71.

w a y ,

a.

w e b le y ,

d.

w e b le y , d .

107

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CHAPTER FIVE

Early Iron Age Wales

Introductory An investigation of the Iron Age, at least in any part of Southern .Z"\_Britain, must be linked with the framework of A-B-C cultures, first put together in 1931, and now, nearly thirty years later, improved and strengthened by its original designer.1 It seems likely to require little further modification for many years. Most of this chapter, however, had reached its final form before the publication of that definitive paper, so it seems best to discuss the relation of the Welsh Iron Age to the revised ‘A-B-C’ in a separate section. This not only avoids the difficulties inherent in patching an account already written, but has the advantage that the results obtained by independent investigation of a limited area can be con­ sidered in the light of a comprehensive survey of the whole field. The main body of the chapter, however, is not completely uninfluenced by Professor C. F. C. Hawkes’s work, as the writer is indebted to him for making available, in advance of publication, information on some matters directly relevant to Wales. [This chapter was written in 1959; apart from bringing references up to date, additions made in 1963 are enclosed in square brackets.] Today, as a third of a century ago,2 one of the most striking character­ istics of the Iron Age in Wales remains its poverty in ‘museum objects’, 1 C. F. C . Hawkes (1931), (1959)-

2 R- E. M . Wheeler (1925).

109

A. H . A. H O G G

save now from one exceptional site. But this is counterbalanced by a con­ centration of fortified sites denser than in any other part of southern Britain except Cornwall; and work on these (see Appendix, pp. 1 3 3 -4 8 ) has shown that almost all are likely to be pre-Roman in origin. It has also become evident, even in many cases without excavation, that they may incorporate anything up to five or six structural periods, though it is unfortunately unusual for them to produce so many datable relics. The student of the Welsh Iron Age is therefore faced with two alter­ natives. He can limit his consideration of the period to a discussion of the few objects recognizably related to the cultural system established for south-eastern Britain, and to the even fewer sites where these are associated with structures; or he can attempt to arrange the development of the hillforts into a coherent scheme, and to relate this scheme to the cultures and chronology of the south-east. Both approaches have their merits and disadvantages. The first pro­ vides a safe conservative interpretation, which is hardly open to criticism, but leaves out of account the great mass of material potentially available in the hill-forts. Moreover, the Iron Age has already been studied very well and adequately using this approach.1 The second approach is more dangerous, as it involves assumptions which, though generally true, are certainly incorrect in some cases (see, for example, p. 122). But occasional errors will not affect the general validity of arguments, provided that they are based on massed distributions and not on isolated individual examples. Moreover, it makes it possible to in­ corporate most of the available evidence into a single scheme. It has there­ fore been selected here. The assumptions made have been explicitly stated, so that the extent to which they are verified or otherwise by future work can be checked. Using this approach, it becomes possible to divide up the museum objects, as well as the half-dozen structural periods recognizable among the hill-forts, into three main phases, though their absolute dates retain a very wide margin of uncertainty. There remain, however, various subjects the evidence relating to which is slight, and which can more con­ veniently be discussed for the Iron Age as a whole, rather than under these three phases; these will be dealt with before attempting this chrono­ logical analysis. i e.g. W. F. Grimes (1946), 70-79; (1951), 115-34-

110

EARLY IRO N AGE WALES

Social Organization There is a very obvious distinction between the character of forts on the Marches and those in the west. The latter include a much larger proportion of small forts less than 3 acres in area, and relatively few of the large fortresses. In both areas there is a fairly continuous gradation of size so although the largest must correspond to fortified ‘villages’ or even ‘towns’, and the smallest to the ‘castles’ of single families, it is not possible to assign a particular acreage as the dividing fine between the two types. But it is clear that on the Marches the majority of the inhabitants lived in ‘towns’ or ‘villages’, or at any rate in groups sufficiently coherent to combine when a defensive position became necessary; whereas in the west the most usual type of settlement would be that of a single family with its dependants. These differences probably, though not certainly, corresponded to a greater or lesser degree of unified political control.

Dwellings and Farms Inside the forts, the dwellings seem invariably to have been round, varying from 15 up to 25 or even 30 ft. in diameter. The arrangements for support­ ing the roof varied. Perhaps the most usual was a ring of posts set 4 or 5 ft. from the fine of the wall; but a single central post, or even a roof of wigwam type with no supports within the house, was quite frequent. The method chosen seems to have depended mainly on the size of the dwelling, and to have had no cultural significance. The walls were normally of close-set upright timbers, but in the north-west, and occasionally in Pembrokeshire, they were stonebuilt.1 As the stone walls have a rather restricted distribu­ tion, it is possible that they indicate a different cultural origin. Outside the forts the problem is complicated by the lack of any satisfac­ tory dating evidence, and for much of Wales by the rarity of recorded sites. The ‘enclosed hut-groups’ of Anglesey, Caernarvonshire, and Merioneth, though ‘native’ in appearance, almost all seem to date from the latter half of the Roman period;2 and their character suggests that they are not the result of local evolution, but that they represent the introduction of a new 1 e.g. see W. E. Griffiths and A. H. A . Hogg (1956); A. Williams (1945). 2 e.g. W. E. Griffiths (1958), (1959).

Ill

A. H . A. H O G G

design of farmstead from elsewhere, perhaps accompanied by new in­ habitants also. These structures sometimes overlie irregular layouts of round huts and enclosures similar to remains found in the surrounding districts, but the fact that the enclosed groups are placed on the irregularly planned hut sites does not prove that the latter were occupied before the first half of the Roman period. Attempts have been made to relate the irregular settlements to dated sites in Devon and elsewhere,1 but their characteristics are not distinctive enough for certain dating on those grounds. One type of dwelling is perhaps of a sufficiently definite type to justify placing it in the Iron Age by comparison with dated examples outside Wales. This is the free-standing round hut placed near the centre of a round enclosure, sometimes with a second external ring.2 The Iron Age site of Kes Tor in Devon3 is of this type. The only example excavated in Wales, however, at Llwyn-du-bach in Caernarvon­ shire, produced no datable relics, though on a priori arguments it has been assigned to the early post-Roman period.4 Against this dating is the evi­ dence of what seems to be a similar site at Rhostryfan,5 which is almost certainly either early Roman or Iron Age, as it has been utilized as part of a field-system of a type associated here and elsewhere in Caernarvonshire with the late-Roman ‘enclosed hut groups’. Structures of this type, with a single enclosing ring, may prove to be widespread. An example in timber has recently been identified (though not yet excavated) near Crug yr Afan in Glamorgan, and air photographs suggest that other examples may exist on the mountains in that county. [Excavations near Crug yr Afan in 1962 showed that the slight ditch was superficial, not a palisade-trench, and probably post-medieval.] The ancient field-systems which are a conspicuous feature in north­ west Wales seem to be almost exclusively of the Roman period, and it is likely that the Iron Age economy was based mainly on pastoral farming. Excavations in the hill-fort at Conway Mountain, however, produced two complete saddle-querns and several fragments, so some grain must have been cultivated. 1 e.g. W. E. Griffiths (1951), 68-71. 2 e.g.

R C A M (Caerns. II),

no. 790, and note 5 below.

3 A. Fox (1954). 4 G . Bersu and W. E. Griffiths (1949). For dating, C. A. R. Radford, (1949) 6 H. Williams (1922), Fig. 2, p. 339.

112

EARLY IRON AGE WALES

Art All examples of fine metal-work of the Iron Age found in Wales can be explained as imports brought either by traders or by refugees. There seems to have been no local school of craftsmen.1

Religion Nothing has been found that can be identified as a temple or shrine, but two small lakes have produced remains which can almost certainly be regarded as votive deposits, and it seems reasonable to infer that sacred lakes formed one element of the pre-Roman religion in this area through­ out the Iron Age. By the nature of such sites, the discovery of the objects sacrificed in them must be unusual. Llyn Fawr in Glamorgan2 produced cauldrons, and the iron objects of late Bronze Age type mentioned below (see p. 102). Lyn Cerrig Bach, in Anglesey,3 contained about ninety objects, one of the most remarkable collections of this period found in Britain, far exceeding in number those from all the rest of Wales. They date from the first two centuries B.C. The origins of many can be located fairly accurately, and these came from almost all parts of Britain outside Wales. From the standpoint of the Iron Age in Wales, therefore, their chief importance is an indication of how widespread and profitable must have been the religious influence of the Anglesey priest­ hood.

The Earliest Iron Objects Although one characteristic feature of the period as distinct from the Bronze Age seems to be the erection of fortresses, the earliest use of iron is not related to these, but occurs in objects of late Bronze Age character and associations. The most important find was that in Llyn Fawr, where a votive deposit of objects of late Bronze Age type included a sword, spear­ head, and sickle of iron.4 The sword is probably an import, but the sickle 1 O n Iron Age art in general, C. Fox (1958). 2 R . E. M . Wheeler (1921); C. Fox (1939). 2 C. Fox (1946). 4 C. F. C. Hawkes and M . A. Smith (1957), 187-8, and as note 2 above.

113

A. H . A. H O G G

is a very skilful copy in iron of a bronze type native to Britain. This must imply that iron-working settlers from abroad had established an iron in­ dustry in this country, and were supplying the local inhabitants. These latter were still formally in the Bronze Age, and their conservatism forced the smiths to copy, in forged iron, implements of forms designed for cast­ ing in bronze. The result is striking evidence of the craftsman’s skill, not, as has sometimes been suggested, of unintelligent efforts to produce familiar types in an unfamiliar metal. The location of the iron industry cannot be established with certainty at present (though it is to be hoped that trace elements may one day give the answer), but Sir Cyril Fox’s arguments in favour of the Forest of Dean carry conviction. The other iron object of Bronze Age type from Wales is a socketed axe, with a single loop,1 from the Berwyns, not exactly located. It is one of a small group of implements of this type found widely dispersed throughout Britain. The group can be subdivided into two: one, like the Berwyns axe, with a slightly asymmetrical cutting edge; the other symmetrical. Similar axes are found on the Continent, but they are considerably longer than the British examples, and it seems likely that these latter also were made in this country. Whether they came from the same forges as the Llyn Fawr sickle cannot now be known, but it seems on the whole to make fewer demands on the imagination to suppose that all these British-made ‘Bronze Age’ iron objects spread by trade from a single area than that iron-working commenced at many centres throughout the county, and that almost all the smiths made closely similar copies of bronze axes. The associated objects found at Llyn Fawr are attributed to the sixth century B.C. The Berwyns axe, like most others of its kind, had no datable associations. But an example of the other sub-type, with symmetrical edge, was found at Traprain Law in Scotland at the same level as, and close to, bronze objects dated to c. 6 00 B.C., including socketed axes. In the recent valuable survey of metalwork from that site, it is argued that this associa­ tion must be discounted (and a date about the beginning of the first century a . d . is suggested), because there can have been no iron industry in Scotland so early2. If, however, the axe is regarded as an import from the south, this argument has no force, and the association may be accepted at its face value, as evidence that these axes are of about the same date as the Llyn Fawr deposit. 1 H. N. Rainbow (1928).

2 E. Burley (1958), 126, 211, no. 473.

114

EARLY IRO N AGE W ALES

The Hill-forts and their Succession Multi-period hill-forts for which the sequence of development has been worked out, either by excavation or by surface examination, almost in­ variably show a sequence from univallate or simple bivallate forms (some­ times preceded by palisaded enclosures), to more complex multivallate types. Usually, too, the simpler types of fortification are associated with Iron Age A relics (if any), while the more complex types seem to belong to the B cultures. And wherever the A, B, and C cultures have left traces on the same site, A proves to be earliest and C latest. It seems reasonable, therefore, to regard the majority of simple uni­ vallate hill-forts as representing an early phase of settlement, mainly of‘A’ origin, and the multivallate forts as later; the detailed reasons for selection are given under the appropriate phases. Before discussing these, however, something must be said about the method of classification of the forts, and the significance of the resulting distribution patterns. On the area covered by the maps a total of about 580 forts are recorded. Ideally, each of these should have been visited and accurately planned, but, in fact, the writer is only acquainted with about a quarter, and apart from a few excavated sites hardly any really accurate plans exist for forts outside Caernarvonshire and Anglesey. Any classifica­ tion, therefore, must be based almost entirely on the large-scale Ordnance Survey Maps. Here the writer would like to record his gratitude to the Archaeology Department of the Ordnance Survey for making the Index to their forthcoming Iron Age map available in advance of publication— though they should not be blamed for the way it has been used, and the writer has not invariably followed their classification. Any attempt at analysing the distribution and development of un­ excavated hill-forts runs into particular difficulty with the smallest enclosures. Not only is it hard to recognize their character from the map, but among those few which have produced evidence of date more than half are post-Roman (excluding sites of the twelfth century or later). These known late fortlets are all less than one acre in internal area, so in order to circumvent these difficulties all enclosures of less than this size have been arbitrarily omitted from the maps. This almost certainly excludes nearly all the early post-Roman sites, and all those twelfth century castles which have managed to pass as hill-forts, but it undoubtedly eliminates also an unknown but considerable number of genuinely Iron Age enclosures. The 115

A. H . A. HO GG

distribution patterns, however, are not much altered save in Merioneth, which is left almost blank; the forts there seem generally to resemble those known to be post-Roman rather than those known to be Iron Age, so it is likely that this drastic purge has resulted in a truer indication of pre-Roman fort-building in that county. In addition to these very small fortlets, three larger ones have also been excluded: Dinas Emrys, shown by excavation to be post-Roman; Caer Carreg-y-Fran which shows similarities; and Carn Ingli, which in the writer’s opinion also has post-Roman features. The difference in average size of forts characteristic of Wales as compared with most of the rest of southern Britain is emphasized by the fact that of the 580 sites recorded on the map area (as already noted), 240, or about 40 per cent, enclose less than one acre; three-quarters of these lie on the west half of the map. The remaining 340 forts are classified mainly according to whether they are uni- or multivallate, and by size, the classes being over 1 acre to 3 acres, over 3 acres to 8 acres, over 8 acres to 20 acres, and over 20 acres. These subdivisions were chosen before publication of the O.S. Iron Age map, but seem more convenient for this area. Only sixteen forts of more than 20 acres are recorded. Further special points are noted under the individual phases.

The significance of the distributions requires some general comment. It is shown below that univallate forts, for example, are not necessarily either early or Iron Age A, though the majority probably are. It follows, there­ fore, that arguments can be based safely only upon massed distributions, not on isolated sites. In Cardiganshire for example, there is a group of about twenty-four univallate bank-and-ditch forts. Evidence from else­ where in Britain suggests that at least two out of every three such forts are of Iron Age A culture, so this distribution corresponds to a scatter of at least sixteen Iron Age A sites. This is a significant concentration, even though it cannot be said with certainty that any particular individual fort in the group belongs to the Iron Age A culture. In Merioneth, though, the presence of a single fort provides no evidence for ‘A’ setdement. Further, if any sort of order is to be imposed on the hill-fort sequence, it is necessary to assume that the construction and reconstruction of hillforts correspond to times of widespread disturbance, separated by intervals of quiescence when the defences were allowed to decay. The times of dis­ turbance may be of considerable duration, and need not, in any individual case, extend over the whole of Wales, but it is reasonable to suppose that 116

EARLY IRO N AGE W ALES

in a limited area their effects will always occur in the same sequence, where they occur at all. It should perhaps be emphasized that useful though this assumption is it cannot be established at present on unshakeable evidence. There can be no absolute logical certainty, for example, that the first periods of construction at Garn Fadrun and Garn Boduan are approxi­ mately contemporary, though they are adjacent forts of similar character. The excavations at Ffridd Faldwyn indicated five structural periods, so that for Wales as a whole at least five ‘times of disturbance’ must be postu­ lated. In fact, it is difficult to reduce the number below six, or more probably seven. Present evidence is insufficient, even with the most liberal use of assumption, to enable every structural period in every fort to be assigned to one of these six or seven ‘times’, but it is possible, with con­ siderable plausibility, to separate them out into three phases, Early, Middle, and Later. (On the use here of the term ‘phase’, see p. 131).

The Early Phases (Fig. 14) The factual material shown on this map is mainly the distribution of univallate forts, omitting, as in all three maps, those of less than one acre internal area, as well as those for which excavation or other evidence suggests a date in the first or second century B.C. The sites which have produced Iron Age A pottery are also shown,1 as are the four find spots of early metal-work, though two of these (Llyn Fawr, Berwyns) are included merely for convenience and should probably be assigned to a considerably earlier period than any other item on the map. The map may be interpreted as representing the impact of Iron Age A invaders. It is probable that the effects of at least two ‘times of disturbance’ are included, corresponding to the first two periods at Ffridd Faldwyn, and perhaps at Pen Dinas (Aberystwyth) also. Taking the bank-and-ditch forts as normally representing the actual work of Iron Age A peoples, a consistent pattern emerges. There is a move­ ment of invaders entering all along the Marches; a fairly high proportion of their settlements He between 3 and 8 acres in area, and several exceed 8 acres, though none exceeds 20. In addition, there is occupation of Glamor­ gan, and of Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire. The Glamorgan forts are 1 L. Alcock (1961). I am much indebted to him for allowing me to use this material in advance of publication.

P.E.W .—I

117

A. H . A. H O G G

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118

EARLY IRON AGE WALES

comparable in size-distribution to those of the Marches, but in the other two districts there is a preponderance of smaller enclosures, which would be even more marked if forts of less than one acre were included. This difference in character must presumably correspond to a preference for individual fortified farms in the western areas, as contrasted with villages in the east. The bank-and-ditch forts are normally of very simple construction, so far as surface evidence goes. In plan, they form either an oval following the shape of the hilltop, or a fairly straight rampart cutting across the neck of the promontory. The entrance appears as a simple gap. The present appearance of the defences is usually a grass-grown bank and ditch with no berm visible. There is sometimes an indication of stone revetting to the bank, and it seems likely that this was, in fact, common; on one site, Caer Euni, vitrifaction indicates that the rampart was timber-laced. In the north-west, however, the character of the forts is different. In the area bounded by fines joining the tip of (Llyn Lleyn) and Moel Hiraddug to Craig Rhiwarth and including those two sites, the map shows twentyseven forts, of which only seven are of bank-and-ditch type. The remaining twenty are all defended by a dry-stone rampart, with no ditch. It seems reasonable to regard this concentration of forts of a different type as sig­ nificant. The most probable explanation would seem to be that the stone forts represent the reaction of the Late Bronze Age inhabitants to the appearance of the Iron Age A invaders, the method of fortification used being a local invention. Professor R. J. C. Atkinson has suggested1 that the hill-fort idea may have been introduced to this area by invaders bringing Hallstatt influences from the north-east. This hypothesis, however, is not supported by Dr. Savory’s distribution maps of the latest Bronze Age objects,2 which are shown to be relatively scarce in the north-west and which barely penetrate at all into Caernarvonshire, where the main concentration of stone-walled forts occurs. Moreover, it does not seem necessary to postulate external influences, other than those making defence necessary, to account for fortifications of the type found in this region. As the description which follows will show, they are the very simplest type of defence possible in the conditions which prevail there. At present, therefore, these stone-walled fortresses may best be 1 R . J. C. Atkinson in lecture at Bangor, September 1959. 2 H. N. Savory (1958), Maps 9, 10, 11, pp. 62-63.

119

A. H . A. H O G G

regarded as the work of a Secondary Iron Age people in north-west Wales, i.e. survivors into the Iron Age of late Bronze Age cultural group.1 This is not to deny, of course, that further evidence may make it necessary to reconsider this view. Typically, these forts are defended by massive but simple stone walls built from loose rocks picked up from the surface. The entrances are plain gaps, sometimes with slight thickening of the adjacent rampart, but without any elaboration of the defences. Craig Rhiwarth may be taken as an example in the south-east of the area, but the finest specimens of these forts occur in Caernarvonshire, at Gam Fadrun and Garn Boduan, where there are remains of second-period work in the same style. There are also in that county smaller forts of similar character, usually with superimposed multivallate bank-and-ditch forts. At Craig Rhiwarth there is no second period, so that the fort could be attributed to the Middle Phases of the Iron Age, but it has been assigned to the Early Phases because it would appear likely a priori that the areas occupied by the Secondary Iron Age groups would tend to contract under the pressure of new invasions. The recognition of this group of untypical forts suggests search for others which could be identified with more Secondary Iron Age survivors; but with the exception of the scatter near Titterstone Clee, which is marginal to the map and will not be further discussed, there is no such obvious group in the south. The single large fort at Carn Goch, however, has features in common with the northern forts, and stands out among its neighbours as so exceptional that it is probably justifiable to regard it as the work of a south-west Welsh Secondary group. It will be seen from the map that there are one or two other wall-type forts in the area which could also be taken as their work, but they are not so distinctive. Moel Trigarn, as also Gaer Fawr near the coast twenty miles farther west, are doubtful; they may well owe their character merely to the ease with which stone could be collected on those sites. And Wooltack Point, a large promontory fort defended by a bank or wall following the top of a natural scarp, may also owe its type of defence to the character of the site. It could, indeed, plausibly be regarded as the base of invaders arriving at the little port of Martin’s Haven, immediately outside the fortress. Three Welsh forts show features which do not seem to occur elsewhere in southern Britain, and which suggest possible influences from abroad. The writer has as yet found no good parallel to the arrangement of the ‘ A. H. A. Hogg (1958).

120

EARLY IRO N AGE WALES

Small Enclosure in the first period at Conwy Mountain, and no suggestion can be made as to the source from which it was introduced, but the other exotic feature, the chevaux-de-frise, occurs also on the Continent. In Wales it is found at Craig Gwrtheyrn in the south and at Pen-y-gaer (Llanbedrycennin). One is said to have existed at Cam Goch also, but there is no con­ firmation of this. Outside the British Isles, the only area where chevaux-de-frise are recorded as elements in the defences of hill-forts is north-central Spain,1 where they are common in association with single dry-stone ramparts, generally without ditches. In these Spanish forts, however, the dwellings seem invariably to have been rectangular, whereas in Wales they are round. The inland position of the two Welsh forts makes it clear that they cannot be regarded as the settlements of invaders, but there is nothing inherently improbable in the idea that small groups of refugees from some disaster in Spain could be accepted among the Iron Age inhabitants of Wales, introducing this method of defence; it has long been recognized that there was frequent contact between the two areas during this period. And the suggestion is strongly confirmed by the fact that the small ditch which limits the outer edge of the chevaux-de-frise area at Pen-y-gaer finds an exact parallel at one of the Spanish forts. Although the scarcity of accurate studies of hill-forts, as contrasted with museum objects, may make the comparison of structural features difficult and unfamiliar, the hypothe­ sis of independent invention seems at least as unlikely, when applied to this localized and distinctive method of defence, as when applied, say, to the use of a particular type of stamp for the decoration of pottery.

The Middle Phases (Fig. 15) The items shown on this map are, mostly, hill-forts with bi- or multivallate defences. Univallate forts are included (and excluded from the map of Early Phases) when they represent the second or later structural period in a fort, when they are associated with relics which are regarded as belonging to the Middle Phases, or when they incorporate a type of sharply-inturned entrance which for reasons given below is regarded as of late date. Sites at which certain types of pottery have been found are also indicated. 1 A . H. A. Hogg (1957).

121

A. H . A. H O G G

The distribution is interpreted as representing the impact of Iron Age B settlers, and as in the earlier phases it must include the effects of at least two times of disturbance, which can only be separated out in limited areas with the evidence at present available. The earlier of the two disturbances to which an approximate date can be assigned was the arrival of Western Second B settlers in about 150 B.C. at Llanmelin, Lydney, and Sudbrook. Their typical pottery is the chevrondecorated ‘flower-pot’—a deep wide-mouthed jar with a slightly bulging side. At Llanmelin the fort probably to be associated with them was bivallate, perhaps utilizing an earlier site. At Sudbrook, however, the defences comprised three ramparts with accompanying ditches, apparently all of one period. Other forts, unexcavated, which from their surface appearance may have been the work of these settlers, occur at Porthkerry Bulwarks, Pen-y-crug near Brecon, and perhaps at Dunraven. At Lydney, though, the associated fort was probably univallate. The other dated disturbance was the introduction of the Western 3rd B culture about 100 B.C. In the area covered by the map this has been identified at various sites near the upper Wye, notably at Sutton Walls. The characteristic pottery is barrel-shaped, with a line of stamped decora­ tion near the rim. The most common impression is S-shaped, generally regarded as a very degenerate descendant of the naturalistic ducks found similarly placed on wares in northern Portugal and Brittany. The fortresses seem to have been defended by a single bank and ditch. At Bredon Hill, for example, the earlier defence was formed by a bank, the front of which formed a continuous slope with the inner face of the ditch, and which had a row of posts embedded near its top, presumably for a breastwork. Without excavation, it is, of course, impossible to distinguish this type of rampart from any other earthen univallate bank-and-ditch defence, so it is practically certain that some forts which should properly have been recorded on the map of the Middle Phases have, in fact, been included among those of the Early Phases. The unexcavated hill-forts allocated to the Middle Phases, however, and even some of those which have been excavated, cannot be assigned to any particular time of disturbance, so the effects of the B invasions must be discussed as if they were a single event. There is no essential change in the general distribution pattern, but the greater complexity of the defences makes possible a more detailed sub­ division into types. The majority of the bi- or multivallate forts in Glamorgan 122

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A. H . A. H O G G

almost exclusively from Ptolemy. The Deceangli, though not mentioned by him, are attested by epigraphic evidence. The Gangani appear as a tribe in north-west Ireland, but the tip of the Llyn peninsula is called the Promontory of the Gangani. It seems likely, therefore, that members of this tribe also inhabited at least part of Caernarvonshire, foreshadowing the Irish connexions which are well attested in late Roman and early post-Roman times. This may account for some of the exceptional features of Caernarvonshire archaeology. Comparison of the maps of the Middle and Later Phases (Figs. 15 and 17) will show that the tribal areas correspond quite well with the areas of distribution of various types of fort. The Demetae, in Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, correspond to the spread of forts with wide-spaced ramparts; the Silures, to the area suggested for the Llanmelin - Sudbrook culture, which later received some C influences; and the Dobunni1 to the area in which the stamped pottery occurs, as also some coins which can be recognized as belonging to that tribe. In the north, the Gangani would seem to correspond to the north-western Secondary group, but it must remain uncertain whether they were a sub-tribe of the Ordovices, or whether the latter did, in fact, occupy territory farther south, in which case the north Cardiganshire forts should perhaps be assigned to them. The fort distribution indicates no obvious difference between the Deceangli and the Cornovii, and between them they cover much the same area as the sharply inturned entrances. Apart from a few strays, the coins are concentrated in the area of the Dobunni and no doubt represent their normal currency, but all the objects of fine metal-work are foreign to Wales, and except for the religious deposit at Llyn Cerrig Bach they are almost all isolated finds. Some may be derived from trade, but they can best be regarded in most cases as the treasured possessions of refugees driven out by the Roman invasions, or perhaps by the Belgae;2the dating of these objects is not precise enough to distinguish between the possibilities. The tankard from Trawsfynydd (PI. 15) and the remarkable helmet from Ogmore Down (Fig. 16) exemplify finds of this kind. The final stage of the Iron Age occupation of several forts is associated either with an apparently rough and hurried fortification as at Ffridd Faldwyn or by extensive slighting of the defences as at Breiddin. At Pen-ycorddyn there seems to have been both refortification and slighting, and Roman sherds were found beneath the slighting. 1 C . A . R . Radford (1954), 16 -17, 26.

128

2 C . Fox (1946), 72.

EARLY IRON AGE WALES

Finds of early Roman material seem to be limited to the north and south coastal regions. It is tempting to regard the blank in central and west Wales as an indication of punitive action against the Ordovices, a penalty for their long-continued resistance. But there is a corresponding gap in the distribution of fine metal-work, which is regarded as having reached Wales some time before the Roman armies. There may, therefore, be some other explanation, perhaps merely the distribution of active archaeological research.

The Welsh Iron Age and the A B C As already noted, this chapter had mostly been compiled before ‘The ABC of the British Iron Age’1was published. Any attempt at assigning absolute dates to the Early, Middle, and Later Phases was, however, deliberately deferred, as it seemed essential to connect events in Wales to that relatively secure foundation. And in addition to the chronology, it is of interest to see how the results obtained here fit into the larger framework. References below which apply to Professor C. F. C. Hawkes’s work are preceded by H. The provinces and regions are shown on H., Fig. I, p. 173. All Wales lies within the Western Province, which extends up to fifty miles east of the boundary of the map used here; that includes Regions 22, south Wales; 23, mid-Wales; 24, west Wales; 25, north Wales; and parts of 21, Wye/ Cotswold, and 26, Northern Marches. These regions correspond well to the distribution of types of hill-forts indicated on the map of Middle Phases (Fig. 15) here, and to the tribal divisions. It is, of course, not sur­ prising that significant differences occur between the regions, as they represent areas which are topographically distinct; but the agreement is satisfactory, as it confirms that the characteristics plotted are genuinely distinctive features. It is desirable to summarize Hawkes’s scheme here, though reference should be made to the original paper. The chronological framework is of three periods, 1, 2 , 3 , each subdivided into phases, la, etc., with approxi­ mate absolute dating as follows. 550 B.C. - la - 400 - lb - 350 - 2a - 300 2b i - 250 - 2b ii - 200 - 2 c - 150 3a - 100 - 3 b - 50 - 3 c i - 15 B.C. 3 c ii - A.D. 10 - 3 c iii - 43 - 3 d - A.D.S0 (H., pp. 174- 5 ). The cultures (H., pp. 175- 6), which are fitted into this framework but which are not -

‘ C. F. C. Hawkes (1959).

129

A. H . A. H O G G

necessarily coincident with different phases, are designated by their main type, A, B or C, by the Province in which they develop their individual characteristics, (mostly as represented by their pottery) and by the se­ quence (1st, 2nd, or 3rd) in which they developed; so the full description of a particular culture is of the type ‘Western 2nd B’, for example. The application of this scheme to the Western Province is summed up diagram­ matically in H., Fig. 3 , p. 178, but this diagram is amplified throughout the paper. The earliest distinctively Iron Age settlement in Wales (excluding the Llyn Fawr finds) is regarded as that at Castell Odo, of Western 1st A cul­ ture at the transition between Phases la and lb, i.e. c. 400 B.C. Elsewhere in the Western Province, 1st A is found only in Provinces 20 and 21. A century later, at the end of Phase 2a (c. 300 B.C., the date of the Cerrigydrudion bowl), 2nd A has spread over the whole of the Western Province. The 1st B culture, brought at the beginning of Phase 2b by invaders probably from north-east France, was confined to parts of the Southern and Eastern Provinces, and did not reach Wales. At this time 2nd A univallate forts were multiplying in the Southern Province, and they have counterparts in the Northern Marches (Region 26), as, for example, the univallate phase at Ffridd Faldwyn (H., in lit.), though these are not closely dated (H., p. 179). The main bulk of Welsh univallate forts, how­ ever, are assigned to Phase 2 c and the end of Phase 2 b ii (c. 270-150 B.C.). Western 2nd B, typified by Lydney and the earlier material at Llanmelin and Sudbrook, reached Regions 21 and 22 during Phase 2c, i.e. soon after 200 B.C. (H., p. 181, and in lit.). It did not spread over the whole of Wales, and in part at least of the North Marches (Region 26) the new arrivals mingled with the 2nd A to form a Western A B culture, represented by the first bivallate stage at Ffridd Faldwyn (H., in lit). At the beginning of Phase 3b (c. 100 B.C.), an intrusive culture, of apparent Spain-Portugal affinities, reached the Wye-Cotswold area (Region 21). This is typified by the Sutton Walls fort (H., p. 182). The isolated specimen of stamped ware from Pen Dinas near Aberystwyth is also assigned to the beginning of Phase 3b. The Welsh multivallate forts begin in this phase and continue to the end of 3d (H., Fig. 3 ). In about 50 B.C. some influences of South-Western 3rd B from the Glastonbury area in mid-Somerset reached the coastal regions of south Wales (Region 22) (H., in lit.). And finally, towards the end of Period 3 c ii 130

EARLY IRO N AGE WALES

Western 3rd C was established among the Dobunni in east Somerset (Region 20), and shortly before the arrival of the Romans had also begun to spread over Region 21, the Wye-Cotswold area (H., p. 182). It remains to consider the material of this chapter in relation to the ‘A B C \ Here, perhaps, it should be noted that the word ‘phase’ in this chapter and on the accompanying maps was not applied by the writer in the precise sense in which it is used in the ‘A B C’. Comparison of the maps (Figs. 14, 15, 17) with the A B C scheme for the Western Province shows that the dates separating the material shown on the Middle Phases map from the Earlier and Later Phases are consistently earlier towards the east. It is convenient to visualize the distribution of forts and objects in space and time as represented by a solid model, in which the horizontal base is the map and the vertical height of an item above the map represents the date at which it was constructed, or for a portable object at which it reached its find-spot. The phases of the A B C are then represented by layers separated by strictly horizontal planes parallel to the map. The material shown on the Early Phases map, however, is separated from that shown allotted to the Middle Phases by a curved surface rising from about 200 B.C. (the start of 2 c) in the south-east corner of the map to about 130 B.C. (the middle of 3 a) on the north and west coasts. Similarly the Middle Phases are separated from the Later Phases by a surface which runs roughly horizontal at perhaps about A.D. 20 (mid-3 c iii) over most of the area, but which curves down to, say, 10 or 20 B.C. (mid-3c ii) in the south-east corner. It is convenient to consider the details in reverse chronological order, working backwards from events which are fairly well dated and located. Here also Mr. Varley’s analysis1must be taken into account. There can be little doubt that the traces of systematic slighting are to be assigned to the Roman Conquest in the last third of the first century a .d . The late hurried refortification could alternatively be a reaction to the arrival of the Belgae, but archaeologically it is impossible at present to distinguish between the alternatives. Similarly, the arrivals of the Western 3rd B in the Wye valley and of Western 2nd B in Monmouthshire, in late 3 a (c. 100 B.C.) and in mid 2c (c. 170 B.C.) respectively, present no difficulties. Apart from isolated finds, however, the remainder of the Iron Age in the Western Province outside the Marches (Regions 21 and 26 ) is at present (a .d . 10)

1 W. J. Varley (1948).

131

A. H . A. H O G G

tied to the chronology of the rest of southern Britain by two links only, the Castell Odo pottery and the stamped ware at Pen Dinas. The latter, which probably belongs to the penultimate period of the fort, fits in well with its subsequent development, a single strengthening of the fortifications which may have been made partly bivallate. But although it proves the existence at the beginning of Phase sb of a univallate fort (presumably of culture which can properly be described as A B), it does not seem justifiable to place all Welsh multivallate forts later. The Western 2nd B defences of Llanmelin and Sudbrook were bi- or multivallate, probably in Phase 2c, and similar' defences of presumably similar date and culture extend throughout South Wales (Region 22). In the North Marches (Region 26 ), also, it is difficult, though not impossible, to crowd the three bivallate periods of Ffridd Faldwyn into the interval after 100 B.C.; an additional century would seem to fit the evidence better. And finally, it will be shown later that the earlier date proposed by Varley for the first appearance of bivallate forts seems also to agree better with the evidence from north Wales (Region 25). It would seem preferable, therefore, to take the appearance of bi- or multivallate forts back into Phase 2c, i.e. somewhere between 200 and 150 B.C., throughout Wales. This would agree fairly well with the date, 200 B.C. in round figures, suggested by Varley. If this is accepted, the surface dividing ‘Early’ from ‘Middle’ Phases become nearly horizontal, in Phase 2c, not long after 200 B.C. The evidence for the start of the univallate fortifications is slight, but there again there seems to be some indication that Phase 2b ii is too late. At Pen Dinas, for example, the arrival of the stamped pottery, c. 100 B.C., was preceded by at least three structural periods, more probably four; to crowd these into a little over a century is possible, but a longer period would seem preferable. In Caernarvonshire, too, it is tempting to relate the two periods of for­ tification of the larger forts to the two similar periods found at Castell Odo, the only site which has produced dating evidence. At that fort, however, the pottery, assigned to Western 1st A and c. 400 B.C., had apparently been preserved from weathering by the rampart built over it. This makes it desirable to carry the earlier period, for all the major Caernarvonshire forts, back to as early a date as seems possible. This could perhaps be accounted for, without disturbing the scheme for other regions, by accept­ ing the suggestion of Hallstatt origins (see p. 119). On the whole, it seems preferable to accept Varley’s date of c. 300 B.C. (early in Phase 2b i) for 132

EARLY IR O N AGE W ALES

the first construction of univallate forts, corresponding to the arrival of Western 2nd A culture. It must be admitted, though, that the evidence is very slight and that at present the date chosen must depend largely on subjective preference.

Conclusions The analysis of the Welsh Iron Age given in this chapter was based, as stated earlier, on various initial assumptions as to the development of hill­ forts which were not necessarily true, though they appeared reasonable. The results of the analysis have proved reasonable and self-consistent, and are generally consistent also with the more broadly based work of Professor Hawkes. It seems justifiable therefore, to claim that the initial assumptions and the results form an approximation to the correct interpretation of the events of the period. But the writer would like to emphasize that at the best only a first very rough approximation has been obtained, and that a very large amount of further work is needed, directed to improving the general picture, correcting errors of interpretation, and clarifying detail. It is hoped that the interpretation suggested here may stimulate such research even if the stimulus is no more than a desire to prove the analysis wrong at every point.

APPENDIX I N O T E S O N H IL L -F O R T S R E F E R R E D T O IN T E X T

These notes are arranged in alphabetical order (with allowance for mutations). Their purpose is to make available a brief description of each site mentioned in the text, with the principal references, and thus to avoid the necessity for interrupting the main chapter. The numbering of periods at any site follows that of the excavator, but only those of the pre-Roman Iron Age are included. Thus Period I (Neolithic) at Ffridd Faldwyn and Period IV (late Roman) at Breiddin are not mentioned. Where the writer’s and the excavator’s interpretations differ they are distinguished by initials, and any suggested additional period is indicated by la, Ila, etc., as, for example, at Llanmelin. Areas given are merely approximate. The hill-forts, of which plans are reproduced here (Figs. 18-22), P.E.W .-K

133

A. H . A. HO G G

BO SH ER STO N ^ SR 970949 O ^-^.FEET .

300

Fig. 18. Bosherston.

were chosen from those particularly relevant to this chapter for which no satisfactory accounts exist. The plans, however, are merely based on a combination of pace-and-compass traverses, aerial photographs, and the old 1/2500 O.S. maps, so that although they give good representations of the remains they are not accurate surveys of the type reproduced in, for example, the recent R.C.A.M. inventories. To save space, detailed descriptions are given only where they are directly relevant to the material of this chapter. (SR 971948). 5 acres. Midden in ditch excavated: Arch. Camb., LXXXIII, 1928, 177. No adequate description. Pembs. Inv., no. 48. The defences (Fig. 18) cut off a promontory between two steep-sided valleys which now contain fishponds, but which may originally have been marshy or may have been open to the sea. There are three parallel lines of defence separated by wide level spaces. The outermost comprises two strong banks and ditches. The next is a single bank, almost as strong as the outer rampart and joined to it at each end by slighter banks. The b o sh e rsto n

134

A PPEN D IX I : N O TES ON H IL L -FO R T S

innermost is a bank and ditch, much eroded, probably the defence of an earlier fort; it does not seem to have been noted previously. The entrance through each rampart is a simple gap. Within the enclosure there seem to be traces of one or two slots for the walls of round timber huts. The multiple outer defence and the wide space between the ramparts suggest that the fort belongs to one of the ‘B’ cultures, but the midden, said to be not earlier than the main rampart, produced a ring-headed pin of characteristically Iron Age A type. b r e d o n h il l (SO 958400). Excavated 1935-37 b y Mrs. T. C. Hencken: Arch. Journ., XCV (1938), i - m . I. Twelve acres defended by ditch and ‘glacis’ rampart with timber revetment. Overlapping entrance. Stamped pottery found in association. II. Area increased to 22 acres, within new outer defence formed by a ditch separated by a berm from a bank with a vertical stone revetment in front. Entrances were through long stone-walled passages, two in outer defence, one in inner. Pottery with linear ornament preponderates over stamped ware. III. Slight changes in entrances. Occupation terminated b y massacre. b r e id d in (SJ 292144). c. 70 acres. Excavated 1933-35 b y B. H. St. J. O’Neil: Arch. Camb., XCII (1937), 86-128. I. Occupation with coarse pot now identified by Mr. Alcock as Iron-Age A; no defences. II. Defences erected. Inner stone wall, slighter outer wall, and bank and ditch about 300 ft. farther down hill. No dating evidence, but re­ garded by O’Neil as all of one period and erected as defence against Romans. There seems, however, to be no satisfactory evidence either way as to whether the defences are of one, two, or three periods (A.H.A.H.). III. Entrance defences slighted, probably by Romans. c a e r c a r r e g - y - f r a n (SH 547627), 2J acres. Plan, etc., Caerns. Inc., II, no. 1314. Single stone wall on rocky site, enclosing round huts. Resemblances to Dinas Emrys suggest late Roman or Dark Age date. c a e r e u n i (SJ 001413). Merioneth Inv., no. 174. Unsatisfactory plan and account: Arch. Camb., 4 Ser., X II (1881), 307-15. Single bank and ditch enclosing long oval area of about 3 acres, with simple entrance at each end. Much vitrified material in bank. g a e r f a w r (SM 896388). Pembs. Inv., no. 554 (i). Sketch plan, Proc. PSEA, VII (1932), 104. Three ramparts, widely spaced on craggy hill, some being stone walls, some bank and ditch, enclosing small inner area with single hut-platform. Probably of several periods, the latest perhaps post-Roman, but cannot be analysed without excavation. 135

A. H . A. H O G G

(SH 2 19 8 2 9 ). 17 acres. Good account and plan: Willoughby Gardner, Arch. Camb., LXXXIX (1 9 3 4 ), 1 5 6 -7 3 ; also Anglesey Inv., p. 24. Single stone rampart. Simple entrance. No huts. Slighting on north side seems likely to be the result of Roman practice manoeuvres rather than destruction at conquest, as length levelled is too small to have much permanent effect on strength of fort. (A.H.A.H.) g a r n b o d u a n (SH 310393). 35 acres. Excavated 1954 by A. H. A. Hogg. Report, Arch. Journ., CXVII (i960), 1-39. Caerns. Inv., Ill, no. 1524 (forthcoming). Two periods of defence, both of a single stone wall en­ closing numerous round stone huts. No dating evidence. g a r n f a d r u n (SH 280352). Plan and description forthcoming in Caerns. Inv., Ill, no. 1650. Two periods of defences, both of a single stone wall: I enclosing 12 acres, II 25 acres. Simple entrances. Some round huts inside enclosure, but extensive extramural settlement at foot of hill on north-west. c a r n g o c h (SN 691243). 25 acres. Unsatisfactory plans and descriptions in Carmarthen Inv., no. 427, q.v. for other refs., and in Carm. Co. Hist., I, pp. 72-74. A single stone rampart much ruined (Fig. 19) encloses the top of a ridge. It is very strong where it crosses the ridge at the north-east and south-west ends, exceptionally so at the latter. The principal gateway, much ruined but apparently a simple gap, was at the north-east end, and there were at least four narrow ‘posterns’; more may be concealed in the ruins. All were lined with upright slabs. The ‘posterns’ are an unusual feature, but similar entrances occur at Tre’r Ceiri. There seems to have been no gateway through the south-west end. Unlike many of the stone forts of the north-west, the interior shows few traces of dwellings. There are two roughly rectangular stone buildingfoundations, ancient but of uncertain date, and a single round hutplatform. g a r n in g l i (SN 063372). 4 acres. An inaccurate plan and description in Pembs. Inv., no. 815. The fort has similarities to the post-Roman nuclear forts of Scotland, and may well be late or post-Roman. c a s t e l l o d o (SH 18 7 2 8 4 ). \ acre. Excavated b y L. Alcock, 1 9 5 8 -5 9 , Arch. Camb., CIX (i9 6 0 ), 7 8 -1 3 5 ; Caerns. Inv., Ill, no. 1472, forth­ coming. The earliest occupation, associated with Iron Age A pottery, comprised timber dwellings and an unfinished palisade. Over their burnt remains was built a round fort, 170 ft. in internal diameter, with two slight c a e r -y -t w r

136

A PPEN D IX I : N O TES ON H IL L -FO R T S

ramparts without ditches about 50 ft. apart. These show evidence for reconstruction and finally slighting. (SH 760778). acres. Excavated 1951-52; report in Arch. Camb., CV (1956), 49-80. The defences show two periods of construction, both of a single stone wall, generally with no ditch. In each, the fort comprised two enclosures, c o n w a y

m o u n t a in

E

m%\'•lDa. Ei. i1 I '& 115 g| ? b vif*''-' A \\

ntrance

ENCLOSURES

,.HUT ^CAIRN

poster ^ lA C C P T

CARN

GOCH

SO O

ii

X >)

A. H . A. H O G G

with the defences, has been eroded by the sea. The entrance is a simple gap. The site seems to be of one period. A good landing-place is adjacent. d in o r w ig (SH 549653). i \ acres. Caerns. Inv., II, no. 1170, also a good account by Dr. Willoughby Gardner, Arch. Camb., XCVIII (1947), 231­ 48. Unexcavated. I. A single stone wall surrounds an area pear-shaped in plan with apex to north, with simple gaps forming entrances to north-west and north-east. II. Strong double banks and ditches were built a short distance outside the stone wall, obstructing the north-east entrance, but with the new entrance corresponding to that on the north-west. A single bank and ditch protect an annexe of 1 acre, with no access from the main enclosure. d u n r a v e n (SS 887728). 18 acres. No adequate description. Multiple ramparts cut off a promontory overlooking a possible landing-beach. The remains probably include several periods, but these cannot be dis­ tinguished without excavation. f f r id d f a l d w y n (SO 217969). Montgomery Inv., no. 802. Excavated by B. H. St. J. O’Neil: Arch. Camb., XCVI (1942), 1 ff. A very important and complex site. The excavations were interrupted by the 1939 war and could not be resumed. They were limited to the south end of the fort. II (the first Iron Age occupation). A double palisade probably en­ closing an oval space of 3 acres, with a slightly recessed entrance. III. A large timber-laced rampart with two ditches widely spaced and a bridged gateway was built over the palisade. The timber-laced rampart was destroyed by burning, probably deliberate and hostile. IVa. A very large bank with a ditch was built on a new line to enclose about 10 acres. The south entrance was defended by a system of over­ lapping banks. This period was recognized by O’Neil, but not numbered, as in his view it did not appear in any section. It is possible, however, that the rampart found buried under a later rampart about 200 ft. west of the entrance to the earlier fort did in fact belong to this period (A.H. A.H.), although O’Neil regarded it as an outwork of Period III. IV. A large stone-revetted rampart and ditch, built mostly on the line of IVa, but leaving out the entrance defences at the south apex, enclosed about 8 acres. The small earlier fort was enclosed by a new rampart with internal ditch, and its interior was set with a great number of large posts arranged in regular lines. V. The Period IV defences, which had fallen into decay, were hastily repaired and enlarged. gaer

see under c a e r .

140

A PPEN D IX I : N O TES ON H IL L -FO R T S garn

see under c a r n .

LLANBEDRYCENNIN See PEN-Y-GAER. l l a n m e l in

(ST 460925). 3 acres. Excavated

Arch. Camb., LXXXVIII (1933), 237-346.

by

V. E. Nash-Williams:

I a (?). In A.H.A.H.’s opinion, the plan and sections indicate that the earliest fortification was a single bank and ditch, now generally covered by the line of the later main outer rampart, but remaining as a salient on the north-east. No relics seem to be associated with this rampart, and it was not regarded by Nash-Williams as a separate structural phase. I. A bank-and-ditch fort, mostly bivallate, with the inner bank stonerevetted. The associated pottery was characterized by a type called (as at Lydney) a ‘Flower pot’, a deep wide-mouthed bowl or jar with outturned rim and slightly incurved side, often with a chevron pattern be­ neath the rim. Similar ware was found at Lydney and Sudbrook. It belongs to the Western 2nd B culture, and can now be dated to about 150 B.C. II. The entrance was remodelled with an inturn on the north-east side to give a deeper passage; annexes, of unknown purpose, were added out­ side the fort. The pottery apparently to be associated with these altera­ tions was related to ware found at Glastonbury (South-Western 3rd B), of about 50 B.C. There seems to have been continuous occupation up to the arrival of the Romans, but no further reconstruction of the fortifications. l y d n e y (SO 616027). 5 acres. Excavated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, 1928-29: Soc. Ant. Research Report IX (1932). An inland promontory was fortified by a single strong bank and ditch across the neck. An outer bank and ditch produced no dating material, but was regarded on tactical grounds as part of the late Roman reinforce­ ment of the defences. (The plan, however, suggests an early bivallate fort later reduced in area on the east side, and the excavation results do not seem completely to rule out the possibility of this. It would, indeed, pro­ vide an explanation of the contrast between the dump construction of the Period I rampart in Section 2, containing about forty prehistoric relics, and the more elaborate arrangement in Section 1, with stone kerb and rampart wall, and with only a single prehistoric object in the make-up. A.H.A.H.). At Llanmelin and Sudbrook the earliest pottery was similar to the earliest ware from Lydney, and was found in association with double or multiple defences. The pottery sequence here was also the same, but there seem to have been no pre-Roman alterations to the ramparts (unless the suggestion made above by A.H.A.H. is correct). 141

A. H . A. H O G G

(SN 158336). Pembs. Inv., 1183. Excavations in interior, b y S. Baring-Gould and others, 1899: Arch. Camb., 6 Ser., I (1900), 189-221. The fort comprises a main inner enclosure of about 3 acres, a second enclosure of about 2 acres lobed out from this on the north and east, and a third enclosure of 2 acres on the east. The defence of each enclosure is a single rampart with no ditch, partly of dry stone and partly of revetted earth. That of the third enclosure is slight. It has been suggested (drawing in N.M.W.) that the inner rampart displays two structural periods, but in default of excavation this must remain uncertain; neither can it be decided whether the three enclosures are contemporary or, as seems more likely, successive. House platforms occur in all enclosures, and are very numerous indeed in the inner two. The excavations produced spindle whorls (one decor­ ated), stone cups, small potsherds, a few iron fragments, and some beads, including one of a type found at Meare lake village. m o e l y g a e r (SJ 149617). 7 acres. Denbs. Inv. 285. Slight excavations by W. Wynne Foulkes, c. 1850: Arch. Camb., I (1850), 174-87; see also Ellis Davies, Prehistoric and Roman Denbighshire (Cardiff, 1929), 186-9. The defences (Fig. 21) are formed mainly by a bank and ditch with counterscarp surrounding a spur of the Clwydian Hills. On the north­ east, the only easily accessible side, these are strengthened by a further bank with an internal ditch. Vitrified material occurs near the north-east apex of the enclosure, but it is not now clear whether this lies within or beneath the rampart. There are two sharply inturned entrances. Hut platforms are not frequent, but one is visible near the north side. A Roman potsherd (Samian?) was found on the floor of the inner ditch. m y n y d d b y c h a n (SS 963756). Excavated by Dr. H. N. Savory: Arch. Camb., GUI (i 954 )» 85-108;; CIV (1955), 14-51. I (Iron Age B). An area of about b an acre was enclosed by a strong rampart and ditch with counterscarp bank. A group of timber-framed circular huts stood in the enclosure. II (Iron Age C). Three round huts on drystone foundations were built within the ruined defences. o l d o sw e s t r y . (SJ 296310). 15 acres. Excavated 1939-40 by W. J. Varley and B. H. St. J. O’Neil: no full report, but some details of results in Varley 1948. II. Bivallate, with inturned entrance. This period produced part of ‘. . . a furrowed carinated bowl . . . clearly an intrusive import from the A province’. It is not clear from the account whether ‘bivallate’ here m o e l t r ig a r n

142

A PPEN D IX I ! N O TES ON H IL L -FO R T S

.r^NSN

*NV

” 4. *55, 224) 225

Frederick V I I , K in g o f Denmark, 11 Frocester, Soldier’s Grave, 830 Frontinus, 159, 166 Fron-ucha (Carms.), 4 m G aer Fawr, 120, 135 G alla Placidia, Mausoleum of, 203 Gangani, 128, 160 Garamantes, 1 s6n

G arn Fadrun, 117, 120, 125, 136 G arn Goch, see Carn Goch G arn Turne (Pembs.), 49 Garn-wen, 54 G arryduff (Co. Cork), 181 Gelli-gaer, 162, 165 Geoffrey o f Monmouth, 4, 5 Germanus o f Auxerre, St, 227 Gesail Gyfarch, 215 G eta, 168 G ibraltar, Straits of, 24 Gibson, Edmund, 6 Gildas, 201, 220, 226f Giraldus Cambrensis, 217 Glam organ, V ale of, 95, 187 glass, 193 Glasserton (Wigtons.), 200 Glastonbury. 130, 141 Glenn, T . A ., 56 Gloucester, 156, 157, i62n G lyntawe (Brecks.), 97 Gododdin, 222 Gododdin, 234f Godwin, H ., 37 Goidelic, use on funerary stones, 204f., 2 i8f gold ornaments, Irish, 99 Gomer, 8 Gop H ill (Flints.), gfif, 59, 60, 64 Gorsygedol (M erion.), 173 G raig Lw yd, 36n, 6of, 63 graves: chieftain, 9 1, 92; separate, 74, 81 Gravettian culture, 29 Great Langdale (Westmld,), 62 Gresham, C . A ., 4 m Griffiths, W . E., 173 Grimes, W . F., 2, 35, 36, 98 Guilsfield complex, 100, 101 G wallaw g, 228 Gwaunysgor (Flints.), 56, 60 G wern Einion, 50 Gwynedd, 216, 217, 224, 226 Hallstatt, 132 Halton, i6 5n Ham burgian culture, 30 hand-axes, 2 i ff Hardings Down West, 124 Hatfield Chase, 223 Haverfield, F., 160 Hawkes, C . F. C ., 109, 129, 133 H ay, 156 Hearne, Thomas, 6 Heinin, 233n helmet, from Ogm ore Down, 123 Hemp, W . J ., 35, 41 and n, 42, 46, 53 Hencken, Mrs T . C., 135 H enry, Fran^oise, 180, 203

239

IN D E X Hereford, 156 Heywood, Mrs, see Swinbank, B. H ighland Zone, 17, 29, 7 i f H igh Rochester, 169 hill forts, see forts Hindustan, 9 H ogg, A . H . A ., 136, 147, 164, 178 Holmes, Professor, 21 H olyhead, 92, 170 Homo sapiens, modern type, appearance, , 25 hornfels, 62 H oulder, C . H ., 36, 62 house-plans, Neolithic, j 8 Hughes, H . H ., 145, 147 hunter-gatherers, density, 17 Hussa, 228 hut, free-standing round, 112 hut-groups, enclosed, 111 H w icce, 224

24

Iceni, 171 lie de R6, 78n Illtud, St, 199, 227 Ilsen H ohle, 27, 29 Interglacial Phase, G reat, 18 Iona, 181 Ireland, 3- 4, 5 9 ; et passim-, and Beaker folk, 7 5 ; bronze industry, 84, 86; bronze-smiths, 99; and fifth-century art, 180; use o f cross in, 203 iron, earliest use, 113F; industry, fifthcentury, 192 Isca Dumnoniorum, 162 Isca Silurum, 162 Isgwennant, Llansilin (Denbs.), 84n

Lautsch point, 26 leather, 191 L agio: II Adjustrix, 162; II Augusta, 162; X I V , 162; X X , 162 Leicester, 228 Leintwardine, 163, 168 Leire, 228 Leland, John, 4, 5 Lesser G arth Cave, R ad yr (Glam .), g7 Letterston (Pembs.), 86 Levels, land and sea, 36 Lhuyd, Edw ard, 6ff Llanaelhaearn (Caerns.), 217 I.lanbedr (M er.), 43 Llanbedrycennin, 12 5; see also Pen-y-gaer I.lanberis, 159 I.lanbryn-mair, 163 Llancarfan (G lam .), 173, 187, 215 Llandaw ke (Carms.), 218 I.landdyfnan (Anglesey), 98 Llandegla (Denbs.), 97 Llandeilo (Carms.), 2 17n I.landdewibrefi (Cards.), 235 Llandovery, 161 Llandow (G lam .), 95, 96; Sutton Barrow,

83

Llanelieu (Brecks.), 79 Llanelltud (M er.), 79 Llanerfyl (M ont.), 215 Llanfaelog (Anglesey), 219 Llanfair-ar-y-bryn, 16 1, 163 Llanfair Caereinion, 163 Llanfihangel-ar-arth, 161 Llanfrynach (Brecks.), 172 Llanfyrnach (Pembs.), 218 Llangadw aldar (Anglesey), 202, 223 Llangian (Caerns.), 215, 217 Jackson, K . H ., 201, 202, 217, 218, 221, Llangurig, 161 Llangwnnadl, 215 222, 233 Johnson, Samuel, 13 Llangyndeyrn (Carm s.), 54 Llangynog, 138 Jones, H arry Longueville, 12 Jones, Row land, 8 Llangynydd (G lam .), 97 Llanharry (G lam .), 84 Jones, Thomas, 230 Jones, Sir W illiam , 9 Llanio, 161, 165 I.lanllyr (Cards.), 235 Kenchester, 174 Llanm elin, 122, 130, 132, 133, 141 Llanm adoc, 80 Kendrick, Sir Thom as, 3, 4, 14 K en t’s Cavern, T orquay, 10, 23, 27, 30, 31 Llanm elin-Sudbrook culture, 128 Kenyon, K . M ., 145, 147 I.lannarth (Cards.), 97, 218 Kerm incham , 224 Llan-non (Carms.), 79 Kes T o r (Devon), 112 I.lannor (Caerns.), 215, 2 i7 n L lansadw m (Anglesey), 215, 216 Kinvaston (Staffs.), 157 I.lanthony, 215 K irk, G . S., 234, 235 knife/knives: bifacially trimmed, see spear­ Llantrisant (Anglesey), 215, 216 Llantw it M ajor (G lam .), 97, 17 1, 199 head, bifacial; discoidal, 85 I.lanwrthwl (Brecks.), 99 K unzing, i6 in Llanychaer (Pembs.), 219 I.lech yr A 't , 4on Lagore (Co. M eath), 181 Lledrod (Cards.), 94n lakes, sacred, 113 Lancaster, 170 Llety-y-filiast, 46 I.anchester (Co. Durham ), i68n L leyn, see Llyn L a T en e art, 179, 205 Lloegr, 228n L atin, sixth-cent. use, 214 L long (Flints.), 92

240

IN D E X Lloyd, Sir John Edward, i , 2, 8, 14, 202, 213, 226 L lugw y (Anglesey), 59 L lugw y valley, 159, 161 Llw yd, Humphrey, 4f Llwyn-du-bach (Caerns.), 112 Llyfni, river, 156 L lyn (Caerns.), 37, 119, 12 8 ,160, 217 L lyn Cerrig Bach, 113, 128, 155 L lyn Fawr, 1 13F, 11 7 , 130; hoard, 102 Llystyn, 160, 164, 169, 215 Llyw arch Hen, 232 Loire estuary, 78 London, 181, 182 Longbury Bank Cave (Pembs.), 185, 200 Longhouse (Pembs.), 43 Longtown, 157 Lough G ur (Co. Lim erick), 59, 78, 79, 82,

86 Loughor (Glam .), 161, 218, 221 Low er Palaeolithic, distribution o f finds, 2 lf L ydney (Glos.), 15, 122, 130, 141, 179 Lyell, Sir Charles, 10 M acCalm an, R ., 31 M acC ana, P., 220 M achynlleth, 161 M acW hite, E., 220 M aelgw n Gwynedd, 2 17, 226f, 231, 233 M aen Ceti, 54 M aen M adog, 206 M aen Pebyll, 46, 55 M aentwrog (M er.), 216 M aen-y-bardd, 55 Maes Cogwy, 232 M agdalenian culture, 19, 3of Maglemosian culture, 18, 34 M agnus Maximus, 168, 213 Magonsaetan, 224, 225 Mam Cymru, 155 Maridunum , see Carmarthen Marros (Carms.), 54, 98 M artin’s Haven, 120, 147 Maserfelth, 232 M athri (Pembs.), 218 M aund, 224 M axen W ledig, 168 M eare, 142 Mediterranean, fifth-cent. trade with, i82ff M editerranean race, 63 M eigant, 233 M eini G w yr, Llandysilio East (Carms.), 86 meini hirion, 87 M elfort (Scotland), 91 M ercia, 224f M erthyr Cynog (Brecks.), 97 M erthyr M aw r W arren, 78 metre, primitive Welsh, 233f M eyrick, Samuel, 13 M igdale (Scotland), 91 M ilankovitch, 20

milestone, from Caerhun, 167 millefiori, 180 M indel glaciation, 18 M oel Fenlli (Denbs.), 187 M oel H ebog (Caerns.), 77, 82 M oel Hiraddug, 119 M oel T rigam , 120, 142 M oel y Gaer, 142, 143 M old (Flints.), 91 M ona, see Anglesey Monmouth, 185 M onnow valley, 157 M ontgomery, 158 moorlog, 18 M orda, river, 225 mortaria, 192 M other G rundy’s Parlour (Derbysh.), 34n Mottershead, 224 Mousterian industry, 20, 22, 23f, 27 M ynydd Bychan, 126, 142 M ynydd C a m Llecharth (Glam .), 4 m M ynydd M yddfai, 161 M ynydd R hiw (Caerns.), 36n, 50, 62 M ynyddaw g M wynfawr, 234f N ana’s Cave, Caldey Island, 3 1, 34 Nannau bucket, 100, 102 N ant Carfan, 215 N ant Crew , 2i8 n N ant Ffrancon, 159 N ant Gwnnadl, 215 N ant Hodni, 215 N ant M aden, 83 Narrow R im urns, 90, 92 Nash-Williams, V . E., 14 1, 145, 157, 177, 200, 201, 202, 203, 217 Neanderthal man, 22, 25 Neath (Glam .), 161, 162 necklaces, jet, 92 Nennius, 3, 223, 229, 230, 233 Neolithic dating, 36n Nero, 162 New Grange, 7 Newstead, 169 Nicholaston (Pembs.), 44 Ninian, St, 200 Nodens, 179 Nottage (Glam .), 57, 58 N uada, 179 O ffa ’s Dyke, 5 , 225 O gam inscriptions, 20off, 218, 220, 22i n; distribution, 2o6f Ogm ore Down, 125, 128 Ogm ore V ale, 94n Ogof-yr-esgym, 97 O na (Patagonia), 19 O ’Neil, B. H. St J ., 135, 140, 142, 147 Ordovices, 102, 128, 129, 15 1, 154, 155,

i59> 2'7

Osric of Deira, 223 Ostorius Scapula, 158 Oswald, 232

IN D E X Oswestry, 23211 Oswestry, O ld, 126, 142 O w en, George, 5, 7 Oysterm outh, 172 paganism, Celtic, 179 Palazallo Acreide, 184! palstaves, 94, 99 Pant-y-saer (Angl.), 35^ 53, 82, 189, 194flf; date, 1946! Parc le Breos (Pembs.), 4111 Parc-y-llyn (Pembs.), 51 Parc-y-meirch, Abergele, 102 Parry, Thomas, 8, 230 Parys M ountain, 156 passage graves, 42 f Paulinus, 216 Paviland, 23, 27, 29, 31 “ Paviland, R ed L ady o f” , 10 peat deposits, 37 Penbryn (Cards.), 217 Penck, A ., 20 Penda, 223, 224 Penderyn, 75 Pen Dinas, 11 7 , 124, 130, 132, 144 Pengw em , 228 peninsular character, Britain’s, 18 Penmachno (Caerns.), 210, 215, 216 Penmaen Burrows (Pembs.), 44n Penmaen-mawr, 60, 86 Penmon (Anglesey), 199 Pennal, 160, 161, 163 Pennant, Thom as, 12 Pen Prys, 215 Penrhosllugwy (Anglesey), 219 Pentraeth (Anglesey), 84 Pentrefoelas, 159 Pentre Ifan (Pembs.), 5, 35n, 49, 59 Penycoedcae, 157 Pen-y-corddyn, 126, 128, 144 Pen-y-crogbren, 163 Pen-y-crug (Brecks.), 122, 145, 146 Penydarren, 162, 166 Pen-y-gaer (Llanbedrycennin), 12 1, 145 Pen-y-garn-goch (Brecks.), 4 m Pen-y-gwryd, 159 Peterborough ware, 4 1, 57, 59, 63^ 73 Petrie, Flinders, 14 petrology survey, 60 Phillips, C . W ., 35, 43n Phoenicians, 9 picrite, 62 Piggott, Stuart, 4, 59 Pike o f Stickle, 62 pins, double-spiral-headed, 181 Pipton (Breckn.), 35n, 44, 56 Pitt-Rivers, A . H ., 14 place-names, Irish, in north W ales, 219 Plas-y-Cefn (Denbs.), 23f Platt, T . I., 36 Pleistocene, dating, 21 Plot, Robert, 6 Plynlimon, 158

poets, 227f Polydore Vergil, see V ergil Pond Cairn, Coity, 95 Pontsticill (Brecks.), 218 portal chambers, 50 Porth Dafarch, 173 Porthkerry Bulwarks, 122, 145 Portskewett, 171 potassium-argon dating, 2of pottery: decline in manufacture, 98; distri­ bution map, 38-3 9 , 40; imported fifthcent., i82ff, 192 Powell, T . G . E., 43, 5 m , 91 Powys, 223, 225, 226 Preselite, 6 i f Presely hills, 5 1, 84, 85 Prestatyn (Flints.), 160, 225 Primrose H ill, Gorsedd at, 8 proto-Solutrean culture, 28, 29, 30 Ptolemy, i62n Pughe, W illiam O wen, 8 Radford, C . E. R ., 215, 217 radio-carbon dating, 20 Raths, 98 Ravenna, 203 R ay, John, 7 reclamation, land, 64 religion, early Iron A ge, 113 Rhineland, 181, 182 Rhinoceros tichorinus, 31 Rhos-ddigre (Denbs.), 57 Rhostryfan, 112 R huallt, 158 R hun son o f Urien, 227n Rhys, Sir John, 2, 7, 14 Richards, M elville, 219, 220, 2 2 in ring-cross, see Chi-Rho R inyo-Clacton W are, 73n, 90 Risingham, i67n, 169 Riss glaciation, 21 Roberts, E. Stanton, 35n Robinson, G . W ., 64- 65n Robinson, Tancred, 7 Ross-on-W ye (Herefs.), 185 Rowlands, Henry, 7, 8 R ow ley Burn, 223, 23m Rufus Sita, 157

sacerdos, meaning,

2 i5 f St Asaph, 158 St Brides Netherwent (M on.), 92 St Davids (Pembs.), 199 St George (Denbs.), 99 St Joseph, J. K ., 157, 161 saints, Celtic, 199 Saint-y-nyll, 57, 96 Salisbury Plain, 91 Salzgitter, 23 Sammes, A ylett, 9 Sannan, 228n Sauveterrains, 18 Savory, H . N ., 35, 4 m , 44, 50, 57, 119 , 138, 142, 148, 173, 178, 187, 188, 190

IN D E X Saxon raids, 182 Scandinavian influence, 102 Schleiermacher, W ., 170 Schiissenquelle, 31 Scott, Sir (W.) Lindsay, 35, 53 Scotti, 3 scroll, bird-headed, 179 Scythians, 3, 7 Seaton tile, ifo n Sedbury cliff, 225 Segontium, 15, 94n, see Caernarvon Seiriol, St, 199, 227 Selyf ap Cynan, 228, 233 Sheeplays Farm, Llandow, 95 shoreline, changes, 36f Shotton, F. W ., 36 Shrewsbury, 158, 228 sickle, Llyn Fawr, 113 signal-stations, 170 Silures, 102, 128, 15 1, 154, 156, 157, 159, 171 Simondston, 95 Simpson, Grace, i66n Sloane, Sir Hans, 7 Soergel, 20 soil science, 64! Sollas, Professor, 27 Solutrean culture, 25, 30 ‘S O M ’ culture, 79, 90 Somme valley, 22 Spain, forts, 121 spear-head, bifacial, 25, 26f spinning, 60, 191 Spritsail Tor, Llanm adoc (Glam .), 82n standing stones, 87 Stenton, Sir Frank, 223 Stevens, C . E., 213 Stogursey (Som.), 78 stone circles, 86, 95 Stonehenge, 4n, 6 1, 86, 87, 91 stones, inscribed, 20off, 214F; distribution,

205ff

Stow, John, 5 Strachey, Lytton, 4 Strathmore, 158 Stukeley, W illiam, 8 Sudbrook, 112, 130, 132, 141 Suetonius Paulinus, 155, I56n, 158 Sutton Walls, 122, 130, 145! Swinbank, Brenda, 166 Swine’s (Sweyne’s) Houses, 54 Szelethian, 25 Tacitus, I 5 iff, 157, 160, 162 Talbenny (Pembs.), 95 Talhaern Tataguen, 233 Taliesin, 228, 230, 231, 233 Tal-y-cafn, 158 Tal-y-fan, 158 Tam worth, 224 Tan-y-coed, 42, 46, 56 T arvin (Ches.), 224 T aw e V alley, 97

Teifi, river, 221 temples, 179 T haw valley, 171 Thomas, H. H., 85 Thomsen, Christian, 10 T hree A ge System, io f ‘times o f disturbance’, 117, 123 Tinkinswood (Glam .), 35, 44n, 59, 60,

75n>82

Tintagel (Cornwall), 192, 198, 203 tippet, ceremonial, 91 Titterstone Clee, 120, 147 tombs, chambered, 37, 38-39, 40 ff, 206; classification, 42 Tomen-y-mur, 160, 161, 169 tores, “ T a ra ” , 99 Torquay, see K e n t’s Cavern Totnes, 4 trade, fifth-cent., 181 ff T rajan , 165, 166 Traprain Law. 114, 174, 2 i7 n Trawscoed, 161 Trawsfynydd (M er.), 94m 128 Trecastell Mountain, 161 Trecastle, 218 Trefignath (Anglesey), 47 Treflys (Caerns.), 216, 218 Trelissey, I72n Trelyffant (Pembs.), 51 Trem adog, 160 T re ’r Beblic, 17 m Tre-r Ceiri (Caerns.), 125, 126, 136, 147, 174, 188 Tresewig, Llanhowel (Pembs.), 50 Tripolitania, i6 7n Trojans, 4 tuff, rhyolitic, 62 Tum m el Bridge (Parths.), 195 Tushingham, 224 T w lc y Filiast (Carms.), 35n, 50 Twynbrynglas, 83 T w yne, John, 9 Twyn-y-Briddallt, 157 T yddyn Bleiddyn (Denbs.), 47 Ty-isaf, 35n, 44, 46, 47, 56, 69, 60, 82 T y M awr, 156 T y Newydd (Anglesey), 35n, 43n Tysilio, 228n uniformitarianism, 10 U pper Palaeolithic: dating, 20; new technique, 25 U rien Rheged, 228 U rn culture, 87 urns: cinerary, 88; Late Bronze age, 9 7 ; Overhanging rim, gof, 94f Usk, 1 6 1; river, 15 7; valley, 161, 205

243

Valens, 171 Valentinian, 7 Vandals, 183 V arley. W . J ., 13 1, 132, 142 V ergil, Polydore, 5

IN D E X villae, 17 1, 172 Villedieu (Deux-S^vrcs), 7811 V ortipor, see Voteporix Voteporix, 20i f, 207, 2 ig f Vortigern, 220, 223, 225f Votadini, 222 voyage o f dead, 83, 94 W alter, Archdeacon of O xford, 4 W ard, John, 13, 14, 35n, 165 W arm ingham , 224 W arren, S. Hazzledine, 61 W a t’s D yke, 225 W aycock valley, 171 W ebley, D ., 57, 65, 83, 96 W elsh language, formation, 222 W erneth, 224 Wessex, 63, 64, 86, 8 7; culture, 9 1, 92, 94 W heeler, Sir Mortimer, 1, 2, 3n, 5, 13, I f> > I I> l66> W hitchurch, 157 W ick Burrow, see Stogursey (Som.) W ilburton complex, 100

4 35 4

>74

W illiam o f Newburgh, 5 Williams, M rs A ., 36, 57 Williams, Edward (Iolo M organw g), 8 Williams, Sir Ifor, 223, 231, 232, 233, 235 Williams, Jane, 2, 13 Williams, R ev. John (ab Ithel), 12 Winwaed, battle at, 224 W oodward, B. B., 9, 13 W ooltack Point, 120, 147 Worsaae, J. J . A ., 11 Wrekin, the, 125, 126, 147 Wroxeter, 14, 157, 158, 16 1, 162, i68n, 224 W iirm glaciation, 18, 23, 24 W ye valley, 83, 13 1, 156 Y Gaer, 15 Ynys H ir, 95 Y Pigwn, 157 Ystradfellte, 85, 157, 218 Ystum-cegid-isaf (Caerns.), 43 Zinjanthropus, 21 Zone Beakers, Rhenish, 77

244