Welsh Journals

A Study of Coastal Village Abandonment in the Swansea Bay Region, 1270-1540 L. A. Toft1 Introduction Compared with inland settlements, those on the coast had, until modern times, the advantage of relatively easy communication with distant centres and a virtually inexhaustible alternative food supply. Sites close to a sandy shoreline, however, can suffer from the ability of sand to move inland when the conditions favour this, and the extent to which sand movement is an ever-present threat can be gauged from the accompanying map (figure 1). In the area covered by the Glamorgan-Gwent Archaeological Trust, which includes the whole northern shore of the Bristol Channel, there are medieval sites which now lie beneath the sand and two of them (Rhossili and Pennard) in the Gower Peninsula have received some, albeit limited, archaeological investigation in recent years. Reports on excavations at besanded sites are not complete without some attempt to investigate the conditions leading to their abandonment, and stories of catastrophic besandment occur in the local folklore. Thus sand movement formed an obvious starting point, especially as both archaeological investigations took place at sites well above sea-level where inundation by the sea could not have been the reason for their abandonment. There are, however, other sites in the Swansea region (figure 2) where, because they are close to sea- level, the sea may have played a part. The sand-dune areas on the South Wales coast were the subject of an extensive study published by L. S. Higgins in 1933. Since that date, however, studies of phenomena associated with particle movement in air and other gases have led to a greater knowledge of sand movement parameters than was available to Higgins. A greater understanding of the physical processes involved and knowledge of mean sea-level change together with further historical data justify reassessing the surviving historical record.