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V.—Two Bronze Age Cairns in South Wales: Simondston and Pond Cairns, Coity Higher Parish, Bridgend

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

Cyril Fox
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Extract

In the angle between the rivers Ogwr and Ewenny on the northern margin of the Vale of Glamorgan, east of the town of Bridgend, Brackla Hill (287 ft.) is the outstanding feature. Its pastoral slopes are linked to higher ground on the north by a saddle, on the east side of which there is a gentle fall to a tributary of the Ewenny, and on the west to a rivulet which flows into the Ogwr. Coity village lies at the point where the saddle merges into the upland.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 87 , 1938 , pp. 129 - 180
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1938

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References

page 129 note 1 It should be added that one of the mounds is now destroyed, and the other may at any time be removed.

page 131 note 1 The description of the formation is provided by Dr. North.

page 132 note 1 The identifications of the charcoals in this paper are derived from Mr. Hyde's report, Appendix IV.

page 132 note 2 This and subsequent geological descriptions are based on Appendix V.

page 133 note 1 See Windle, Remains of the Prehistoric Age in England, fig. 60, p. 144.

page 133 note 2 See Wheeler, Prehistoric and Roman Wales, p. 82, and Bulletin of Board of Celtic Studies, viii, 270.

page 133 note 3 Wheeler, op. cit., p. 82, and at Bargoed, Glam. (unpublished).

page 135 note 1 Identification by Dr. North (see Appendix V).

page 135 note 2 Lying to the south-east of thrust block III (see plan) is a small and thin slab of grey limestone conglomerate tilted on a floor of small stones set in clay. It looks like the lower members of a thrustblock unit. But its position precludes such an interpretation, and I cannot explain it.

page 135 note 3 This feature is recorded in the case of a cairn at Wedlake, Dartmoor (Devon. Assoc. Trans., 1899, pp. 152–3).

page 135 note 4 Isolated stones similar to those in the cairn structure were found to be scattered around outside the present irregular limits of the cairn on the south, but very few on the north. On the south, again, these stones were seen to extend far down the gentle slope along the trench shown on the plan. On the other hand, a trench cut beyond the original limits of the cairn on the north side showed not a single stone. The cairn, then, collapsed, or was thrown down, mainly to the south—the side where the thrust blocks are. None of these ‘loose’ stones is plotted on the plan, save possibly in the northwest quadrant, where the irregularly placed stones on the rim of the cairn may or may not be in situ.

page 136 note 1 Those shown on the plan are secondary. See below.

page 136 note 2 Flecks of charcoal were present everywhere in the original surface soil, inside and outside the cairn limits; I do not think they have any significance. Occasional spalls of flint were also met with.

page 136 note 3 Bearing in mind my experience at Ysceifiog, Arch. Camb., 1926, p. 52.

page 136 note 4 Dr. North has determined its source: see fig. 2 and Appendix V.

page 138 note 1 Outside the burnt clay ring, ordinary clayey soil was packed up against adjacent stones.

page 139 note 1 For these points, and for the identifications, see Appendix V by Dr. F. J. North.

page 139 note 2 Dr. F. J. North's description.

page 141 note 1 Using the terminology and chronology adopted by the Organizing Committee of the First International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Handbook, 1932, p. 32 (M.B.A. = 1700–1400 B.C.).

page 141 note 2 Such occur freely in neolithic long barrows (Proc. Prehist. Soc, 1937, p. 174): many are recorded by Greenwell in round barrows on the Yorkshire wolds, in words which might have been used for the Simondston examples (British Barrows, p. 9).

page 142 note 1 Since the reader can hardly fail to notice differences between the technique of the work carried out here and that at Simondston, I may be permitted to mention that while Simondston was a ‘rush job’ carried out at a time unsuitable for field work, and when the writer had other pressing duties, the Pond cairn was examined under conditions the best possible in every respect.

page 143 note 1 This and later references to the lithology of Pond cairn are based on Dr. F. J. North's survey. See Appendix V and fig. 2.

page 143 note 2 This slab must have been brought from the north-east of Coity village. See fig. 2, and Appendix, p. 180.

page 143 note 3 Description in Appendix I.

page 143 note 4 Mr. Hyde's valuable report on this and other charcoals at Pond cairn will be found in Appendix IV.

page 144 note 1 If it is permissible to compare small things with great, the plan of Bryn yr hen Bobl may be cited. See Arch., lxxxv, 1936, p. 256, and Mr. Hemp's comments, pp. 274–5.

page 145 note 1 Very kindly made by Dr. C. A. Seyler, F.I.C.

page 147 note 1 Dr. North examined this charcoal; no coal was present in it.

page 148 note 1 These conclusions were arrived at in the course of a discussion on the spot with Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler and Professor Forde, to whom I am much indebted. There is a possible parallel in Devon. A barrow at Halwill, Burrow Park Tolly, showed ‘a band of fibrous wood-charcoal 7 ft. long and 3–4 in. thick covering apparently the whole of the summit of the mound’ (Devòn Association Transactions, 1896, pp. 86–9).

page 149 note 1 Dr. North reports: ‘Lias of peculiar littoral type—of local origin.’

page 150 note 1 The Lias rock was proven here at 1 ft. 3 in. below original ground level.

page 150 note 2 See Appendix V.

page 152 note 1 A sample of the ash was handed to Dr. North; he finds ‘there is no appreciable amount of coal present’.

page 153 note 1 It has not been cleaned; the whiteness is the result of weathering in situ.

page 153 note 2 My colleague Mr. H. A. Hyde has since found wheat grains in the material from hearths A + B also; and he has found chess (Bromus secalinus).

page 154 note 1 To complete the history of Pond Cairn it should be pointed out that small spalls of flint were found in various places during the course of operations; some were burnt, some unburnt. See Appendix V.

page 156 note 1 Proc. Camb. Antiq. Soc, vol. xxvi, 1925, p. 101.

page 157 note 1 Burnt human bone was detected in the charcoal. See Appendix II.

page 157 note 2 Specially burnt for the occasion? It was not from the pyre, for no burnt bone was found in it anywhere.

page 157 note 3 Thus the person carrying out the dedication faced west, as did the person concerned in the ritual of the urn deposition.

page 157 note 4 More grain was found at the top of the deposit than in its mass.—A. F.

page 157 note 5 It was densely compressed by the weight of the stone-heap and yet was of considerable thickness.

page 158 note 1 For detailed summaries of the character of each cạirn see pp. 141 and 156.

page 158 note 2 A. Fox, ‘The Dual Colonization of East Glamorgan’, Arch. Camb., 1936, maps I and II, and p. 101.

page 159 note 1 See Appendix V by Dr. North, p. 180.

page 159 note 2 This was the only piece of red Trias at Pond Cairn, and it had to be fetched from some distance (see fig. 2).

page 160 note 1 Wheeler, Prehistoric and Roman Wales, p. 82.

page 160 note 2 Ward, Arch. Camb., 1919, p. 327, fig. 1. The vessel was ‘very coarse’ and ‘rudely decorated’ (Abercromby, type 3).

page 160 note 3 Arch. Camb., 1928, pp. 137 ff.

page 160 note 4 Two collared urns and a pygmy-cup are in the British Museum, and one cordoned urn is in the museum of the Royal Institution of Swansea. See Arch. Camb., 1856, pp. 63–7, and Bronze Age Guide, British Museum, 1st ed., 1904, fig. 20.

page 161 note 1 A. Fox, loc. cit, Arch. Camb., 1936, map II, and p. 110.

page 161 note 2 Now published: Proc. Prehist. Soc, 1938, pp. 107–21.

page 161 note 3 Proc. Soc. Ant., 1887, xi, 430. There is no plan of the barrow in the article, but a reconstruction based on Mr. Hilton Price's description and measurements produced the result described. Two of the urns are in the British Museum.

page 162 note 1 Proc. Som. Arch. Soc., LIV (ii), 1908, pp. 1–77.Google Scholar

page 162 note 2 The reference numbers of the society for these barrows are T. 13, T. 14, and T. 20, but they are not yet published, and I am much indebted to Professor E. K. Tratman for information concerning them.

page 162 note 3 Rep. and Trans. Devon Assoc, 1902, pp. 104–46, especially p. 107.

page 162 note 4 The original account is in vol. 5 of the Transactions, 1872, pp. 554 ff. An obviously secondary cremation burial was associated with a gold- and amber-hilted knife-dagger. Thus the structural form represented at Pond Cairn was present in Devon at an early date.

page 162 note 5 Trans., 1905, pp. 93–4.

page 162 note 6 It must be stated that the excavations and records here referred to leave much to be desired in accuracy and completeness. The ‘scale’ drawing of this barrow, for example, does not tally with the measurements of its elements given in the text.

page 163 note 1 While this paper was in the press a valuable article by Stuart Piggott on ‘The Early Bronze Age in Wessex’, appeared in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society for 1938, pp. 52–106. This suggests that the burials under discussion may represent an extension into South Wales of a culture originating in Brittany and centred in Wessex.

page 164 note 1 B.A.P., ii, 23.

page 164 note 2 Mortimer, Forty Years, 111–12.

page 164 note 3 Trans. Devon Assoc., 1870–71, p. 646: ‘We observed a grain of … wheat lying in the débris of the heap (of ashes and burnt bones).’ ‘Without doubt it found its way into the barrow when the mound was heaped up.’

page 164 note 4 Liddell, Hembury, Proc. Devon Arch. Explor. Soc., 3rd Report, 1932, p. 180.

page 164 note 5 A study by E. Cecil Gurwen of ‘The Early Development of Agriculture in Britain’ (Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 1938, pp. 27–51, esp. pp. 40–1), which appeared whilst this paper was in the press, should, be consulted in this connexion.

page 165 note 1 The amount of such rough pasture in the Coity area would depend on the number of grazing animals, to whose activities the reduction of forest may be mainly attributed. The process is, I think, too gradual to be recognized by any one generation of men. See Fox, Personality of Britain, 3rd edition, p. 62.

page 166 note 1 38th Congress of Arch. Soc, First Report Research Committee, 1931, p. 32.

page 166 note 2 My colleague Mr. W. F. Grimes, who kindly prepared the sectional drawings, remarks: ‘I suggest that the decoration may be finger- or thumb-nail impressions which have been dragged downwards over the pot. In some places (though rarely) the characteristic outline is distinct; in others an incised line in the bottom of the depression may be due to the finger-nail itself.’

page 169 note 1 Pond urn, 1:64; Simondston, 1: 72.

page 175 note 1 This covers also the botanical results of the Simondston excavation described on next page.

page 176 note 1 In order to obtain first-hand information on the native woodland vegetation of the neigbourhood a rough transect was made through Coed y Morfa, a small wood on the northern slope of Brackla Hill (Lower Lias Limestone) and within half a mile of Pond Cairn. The wood was found to have been felled some years previously and replanted with spruce (Picea Abies Karsten). The natural growth had not, however, been kept in check, and the wood is now fast reverting to ash-wood, the spruce trees being almost suppressed. At present birch (Betula spp.) is as abundant as ash, but is being out-distanced by it and will probably become quite subordinate to it. Other associated species include wych elm (Ulmus glabra Huds.), hazel (Corylus Avellana L.), oak (Quercus sp., one sapling only), maple (Acer campestre L.), hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna Jacq.), and goat willow (Salix caprea L.). Woodland with a preponderance of ash is, therefore, the natural growth on the Lower Lias hereabouts. The extreme paucity of the Pond and Simondston Cairn charcoals in ash points inevitably, I think (as suggested in the body of the report), to extensive local deforestation prior to the date of the cairns.

page 177 note 1 It is assumed that the Simondston Cairn material is all of Bronze Age date.

page 178 note 1 See footnote 2, p 135.