Trysor are carrying out a detailed field survey of 30 square kilometres of the north Carmarthenshire uplands as part of the Uplands Initiative project run by Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments in Wales. The project has been running for over 20 years and has by now covered a large proportion of the land above 244 metres in Wales.
The heart of Mynydd Mallaen was surveyed in the mid-1990s and a number of medieval settlements known as long huts were recorded. A number of Bronze Age cairns have also been recorded on the higher ground.
The present survey is covering a larger area around the outer edge of Mynydd Mallaen, as well as detached blocks of upland further north as far as Blaen Twrch, above Ffarmers. It is expected that it will take about 17-20 days to cover the whole area, with the Mynydd Mallaen work taking about 7-8 days, depending on the weather.
Most of the first week has been spent on Mynydd Mallaen and the results have been very encouraging. Several new medieval settlements sites have been found, including long huts and some impressive house platforms, often associated with areas of cultivation. This shows that people lived and raised crops on the high ground at locations such as Rhiw Cilgwyn during medieval times, when the climate was warmer and drier than at present. A small metal mine has been surveyed and recorded in Cwm Merchon, where traces of a mineral called malachite found on rocks on the spoil tips suggest that copper was mined.
Perhaps the most interesting find is that of a small Bronze Age cairn cemetery, some 3,500 years old. This is located to the north of Nant y Rhaeadr, where the burial cist of one cairn is exposed. Cists of this sort aren’t commonly found, but they represent the chamber in which cremated remains would have been placed, in a funerary urn, before a cairn was constructed over it.
These new discoveries are going to enable us to produce a very different map of the archaeology and heritage riches of the local uplands than has previously existed and remind us that human communities have used the hills for many thousands of years.
Part of the project is to deliver a public presentation to the local community at the conclusion of the work. We hope we will be able to give a talk in Cilycwm by the early summer.
Jenny Hall & Paul Sambrook
Trysor
www.trysor .net
Find out more about the RCAHMW at www.rcahmw.gov.uk
Visit their Coflein website to find out more about local archaeology www.coflein.gov.uk
mynydd mallaen – lle sanctaidd i ddianc o’r byd!
i look forward to the public presentation in cil-y-cwm. from what i’ve read on the websites, much of the oral history of the place has not been recorded. e.g. in the picture on the home page – to the right of the gwenlais stream is a location known as “llety’r ficer”.
Really interesting to hear that people were living thousands of years not far away from where my son is living today. Makes one realise what a tiny speck on this worlds surface we reall are!