Survey and Excavation of Ring Cairns in SE Dyfed and on Gower, West Glamorgan

Abstract

Ring cairns in Wales have been viewed as a discrete form of structured cairn, a stony ring enclosing an open central area, dating to the second millennium be, whose distinctive character may reflect a particular role not primarily connected with the interment of the dead. Fifteen likely ring cairns were noted in cairn groups on five ridges in SE Dyfed and on the Gower Peninsula. Although the position of ring cairns on these ridges to some extent overlaps that of other cairns, ring cairns tend towards locations particularly dominated by higher ground which are not so favoured by the other cairns. A range of structural elaborations was present amongst the ring cairns including kerbing, in-filled interiors, orthostats in the bank, and breaks in the ring possibly representing entrances. Two ring cairns adjacent to each other, GCRC I and II, on Cefn Bryn, Gower were excavated. GCRC I was a stony ring bank, originally with two entrances, one of which had been blocked in antiquity. It enclosed an open area at the centre of which was a pit containing a very little burnt bone. GCRC II comprised a ring bank of stone with inner kerb, against which was a pit containing earth and charcoal flecks. It certainly had one entrance, which was deliberately blocked perhaps at the same time as the interior was filled with stone to the level of the top of the kerb. The pit contents at the rings each gave mid-ind millennium be radiocarbon dates. It is possible that the pit fill at GCRC I came from an earlier burial elsewhere so the determination may not reflect the time of deposition at GCRC I. A case can be argued that ring cairns in the area were built for the public performance of ceremonial on the basis of the apparent absence of formal burial at GCRC I and II, and the structure and siting of the monuments suggesting their suitability as arenas. Ceremonial may have been connected with mortuary ritual, although undated evidence for early agricultural activity in the vicinity of the rings indicates a potentially wider social and economic context for their use. While aspects of the evidence for activity at the two excavated ring cairns may be paralleled at structurally similar monuments in N Wales and S W England, some variations in form and activity are apparent which could indicate differences of emphasis during the time they were in use across the region. Finally, ring cairns are not the only form of broadly contemporary monument to which a ceremonial role can be assigned, and the differences in monumental form could well reflect different ritual requirements, or even social distinctions though too little work has been undertaken as yet on possible social models for the region for this idea to be developed.

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