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

Uplands Initiative – <strong>Banc</strong> y <strong>Celyn</strong> 20083.1 <strong>Banc</strong> y <strong>Celyn</strong> History and Archaeology3.1.1 Characteristics and comparisonsLike many upland areas, the history of the <strong>Banc</strong> y <strong>Celyn</strong> area is not well documentedand we are dependent on a small number of sources to attempt to construct anunderstanding of the past use of the land included in the study area.An obvious and important characteristic of <strong>Banc</strong> y <strong>Celyn</strong> is that it has remained an areaof unenclosed common land to the present day. Despite attempts at enclosure and landimprovement around the common fringe, the footprint of modern agriculture remainsrelatively light here, and as a result the survival of archaeological features is reasonably good.We are wholly dependent on archaeology to interpret the level and nature of humanactivity on these hills before the Medieval period. The archaeological record begins inthe Neolithic period, for the Bailey Bach chambered tomb (NPRN 275624) is a rareexample of a Neolithic funerary monument in the mid-Wales uplands. It is not the onlysite of relevance to the Neolithic in the area however. The RCAHMW’s BrecknockInventory (RCAHMW, 1997, 290) records that the flint scrapers, a triangular arrowheadand worked and unworked flakes, all of Neolithic date, have been found near WaunGynllwch (SO063415). A Neolithic stone hammer head has also been found atCrickadarn, just to the east of the study area (RCAHMW, 1997, 290).There is considerably more evidence of Bronze Age activity in the study area, in theform of over 20 funerary cairns and barrows. The best preserved of these is a finebarrow, possibly a ring cairn, on Cefn Clawdd (NPRN 305784), and the mainconcentration of these monuments occurs along or adjacent to the western end of theCefn Clawdd ridge. This includes a group of features at Twyn y Post which have beenrecorded as a Prehistoric Monument Complex (NPRN 307215). The group is shown onthe 1831 Ordnance Survey map as consisting of three cairns or barrows. Today, onestone cairn (NPRN 247188) can be seen at Twyn y Post, alongside what may be thevery disturbed remains of a second cairn (NPRN 247189), and an unusual earthworkwhich may well be a ring barrow (NPRN 247190). No settlement sites of the period areknown locally. Some finds of Bronze Age artefacts from the surrounding area indicatefurther activity, including a stone axe from Erwood (RCAHMW, 1997, 294) and asocketed bronze axe from Crickadarn (RCAHMW, 1997, 296). To the west of the studyarea, at Cornelau Uchaf, Upper Chapel, a sherd of possible Deverel-Rimbury ware,apparently from a “globular urn”, has also been reported (RCAHMW, 1997, 72).It is worth noting that there are no round barrows in this study area, unlike those foundless that 5km to the northeast on Aberedw Hill, which was surveyed during 2007-2008(Hall & Sambrook, 2008a). The cairns of <strong>Banc</strong> y <strong>Celyn</strong> are mostly low, denudedmounds composed of small stones, with piles of larger blocks (which are either latermarker cairns or part of the original cairn structure) placed on the cairn body. They varyin size from as little as 4m in diameter (Gwaun Ymryson Cairn IV, NPRN 247251) to18m (Cefn Clawdd II, NPRN 305784).Interestingly, in the northern part of the area there is a notable absence of cairns orbarrows, which mirrors the findings of the upland survey carried out on the SENTA rangeby Trysor in 2008 (Hall & Sambrook, 2008b). The sole prehistoric site recorded on the25