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The Excavation of a Neolithic Stone Implement Factory on Mynydd Rhiw in Caernarvonshire*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2014

C. H. Houlder
C. H. Houlder
Affiliation:
Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales and Monmouthshire
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Extract

The true character of the site described in this paper was first suggested by Mr A. H. A. Hogg, after a visit paid in the course of fieldwork for the Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments in Wales. Examination of photographic prints of the national air cover had revealed a line of three approximately circular hollows on a gently sloping hillside: these were at first thought to be the remains of round huts whose ruined walls were hidden by the vigorous growth of dwarf gorse covering almost the whole of this part of Mynydd Rhiw. Mr Hogg's visit happened to coincide with a periodical burning off of the gorse which made the banks of the ‘huts’ plainly visible (pl. VII, a). The banks were seen to be of earth and small stones; and the latter were observed to be, not the coarse-grained igneous variety represented on the surrounding hillside in general, but a fine-grained flinty rock bearing abundant signs of artificial working. Closer examination showed that this represented the debris of stone axe manufacture.

The source of the axe material was not immediately apparent. Search of the whole hilltop for outcrops met with no success, but other occurrences of this, or similar, stone were noted as small boulders or fragments. It was at first concluded that some erratic boulders of fine-grained rocks had been brought from Snowdonia, or farther away, by glaciation, and that a particularly large one had been completely broken up and worked out on or near the site of these huts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 27 , December 1961 , pp. 108 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1961

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References

page 108 note 1 The site falls within the area of vol. III of the Caernarvonshire Inventory of the Royal Commission (H.M.S.O., forthcoming). This paper is Crown Copyright, and is reproduced by permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office.

page 108 note 2 Sortie 106 G/UK 1642, 10 July 1946, nos. 5029–31.

page 108 note 3 In 1958 the following voluntary helpers were present: Messrs G. J. Wainwright, R. M. Price, G. D. O. Evans, J. S. Hallam, and J. Inglis. Most of these also attended in 1959, as well as Miss I. Yeomans, Miss J. Turner and Messrs R. Harper and D. Abbott.

page 109 note 1 Equipment for this purpose was lent by the Ministry of Works at Caernarvon.

page 111 note 1 See Appendix IV.

page 111 note 2 The presence of Miss J. Turner, of the Sub-Department of Quaternary Research at Cambridge, was valuable, particularly for assistance in the collection of charcoal for C-14 dating.

page 111 note 3 The author is indebted to the active co-operation in the field of the following geologists: Mr J. I. Platt, Drs N. Rast and W. J. Phillips, and Mr R. V. Beavon.

page 111 note 4 QJGS, LXXXVIII, pp. 238–73Google Scholar.

page 114 note 1 Similar arguments to those given here might be applied in the case of Group VIII, which Professor Shotton regards as ‘not a natural group’. Similar conditions of formation would explain past doubts about the area in which the factory lies.

page 115 note 1 After further study this variety has been excluded from Group XXI, but the general argument is still valid.

page 126 note 1 See schedule of sites in Caernarvonshire Inventory, vol. I, pp. xlviii–lviiGoogle Scholar, nos. 6, 62.

page 128 note 1 See in particular Clark, and Piggott, in Antiquity, VII (1933), pp. 166–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, on the presence of similar techniques in flint mines.

page 135 note 1 As for instance in chaps, vii and ix in J. G. D. Clark, Prehistoric Europe.

page 136 note 1 Caernarvonshire Inventory, vol. I, loc. cit.

page 136 note 2 S. Piggott, Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, chap. X, passim.

page 137 note 1 Ibid., p. 278.

page 138 note 1 Piggott, S., Neolithic Cultures of the British Isles, p. 370Google Scholar.

page 138 note 2 The writer is indebted to Miss L. F. Chitty for information and discussion.

page 138 note 3 Caernarvonshire Inventory, vol. 1, loc. cit., 1; Piggott, op. cit., p. 293.

page 139 note 1 The apparent favour shown to this interpretation in the note in Antiquity, June 1960, should be modified by the fuller arguments given here.

page 139 note 2 S. Piggott, op. cit., chaps, xi and xii, passim.

page 139 note 3 Gjessing, G., The Circumpolar Stone Age (Copenhagen, 1944)Google Scholar, fig. 12.

page 139 note 4 Cf. Clark, op. cit., pp. 119–20.

page 139 note 5 The writer is grateful to Dr I. W. Cornwall, of the University of London Institute of Archaeology, for assistance given in the preparation of this report.

page 140 note 1 The formula accurately describes the colour, and is obtained by comparison with the Munsell Soil-colour Chart.

page 141 note 1 A report on the identification of charcoals is given in Appendix IV.