Banc y Celyn, Brecknockshire - Royal Commission on the Ancient ...

Uplands Initiative – <strong>Banc</strong> y <strong>Celyn</strong> 2008Most of these sites are Bronze Age cairns, including round cairns and ring cairns, althougha rare example of a Neolithic chambered tomb is also present in the area.Settlement activity is poorly represented by the Domestic Broad Class, with only 9 sites(2%) although the platforms recorded under Monument are thought torepresent the sites of medieval or early post medieval buildings and amount to at leastanother 21 settlement-related sites (4.5%). As with funerary monuments, thearchaeological importance of the settlement-related sites outweighs their low number.Industrial activity is represented almost entirely by a large number of minor quarries,which tend to be found around the margins of the area. Rarely do these quarries amountto more than small pits or clusters of shallow workings but collectively they arestatistically significant and account for 86 sites, over 19% of the total.Figure 5, below, shows the distribution of sites by Broad Class. Amongst the patternsthat are immediately evident are that there is a concentration of quarrying activity at thesoutheastern corner of the study area. The concentration of prehistoric funerary andritual sites at the southwestern corner of the area is also noticeable.Plate 5: The bracken cover, seen here on the northern flank of Cefn Gledwen, madefieldwork difficult in some areas during the summer months.12