Welsh Journals

PREHISTORIC FUNERARY AND RITUAL SITES: SOUTH-EAST WALES The first year of this Cadw-funded project was intended to produce a rapid survey of all known prehistoric funerary and ritual sites in the unitary authorities of Bridgend, Rhondda Cynon Taff and Merthyr Tydfil. However, owing to restrictions imposed for the control of foot- and-mouth disease, work on some sites remains to be completed. The overwhelming majority of prehistoric funerary and ritual sites in the area are round barrows and cairns; over 275 examples have been noted, though some of these have been destroyed and are now known only from antiquarian accounts. Fourteen sites of standing stones have been recorded, but most of these are likely to be track markers rather than ritual monuments. The most convincing examples of ritual standing stones come from the lowland areas, on the fringe of the Vale of Glamorgan. Within the survey area, there are also two possible henges or hengiform monuments, three chambered tombs and four possible cists. In the lowlands, few cairns have been recorded, but this may simply be a result of agricultural clearance. The largest lowland group is to be found at Merthyr Mawr Warren, where sand inundation seems to have begun in the Bronze Age (records from early in the twentieth century speak of barrows composed largely of sand), and has possibly protected the monuments from more recent damage. However, no barrows are reported from a comparable site at Kenfig Warren, only a few miles north-west along the coast. The greater part of the area under investigation consists of upland; the southern edge of the Brecon Beacons and much of the west and central area of the Glamorgan ridges. The location of cairns within this upland area is not uniform and some areas appear to have been favoured above others. Most ridges have at least one or two cairns. Their distribution along any particular ridge is generally not regular, and many reveal clusters of cairns interspersed with areas where they are lacking. By far the greatest concentration of cairns is on the ridge at Gelligaer Common, where the greatest density is concentrated towards the northern end. The neighbouring ridge also has a concentration towards its northern end, on Gelligaer Common, but