Welsh Journals

given, though it is consistently described as 'small'; however it must have been in the region of 30-40ft (9-12m) across, and Mr Hayes has confirmed that it was about that size. The rest of the barrow is described as follows: 'over this cairn was laid a layer of sandy gravel containing fragments of charcoal. Above this was a darker gravel in which was set a layer of stones; this was capped by a solid layer of light clay. Two more layers originally covered this clay, a layer of gravel and another layer of different clay, but most of these have now been ploughed away.' In 1955 another narrow trench was cut in an E-W direction to complete the cross-section of the barrow. It is not clear whether or not this was off-set from the line of the 1954 trench and its dimensions are never given. The work lasted for almost two weeks, from 21 July to 2 August, and, in addition to the long trench, two areas were cleared extending southwards from it, one following the barrow edge and the other in the vicinity of the primary burial. Their shape and position on the diagrammatic plan are derived from photographs and are no more than approximations. Photographs also suggest that a small trench was opened on the south side to establish the edge there. The nature of the 'edging' is never fully described. It is variously called a 'ring' and a 'wall', but the photographs suggest that both these terms are optimistic, and that it consisted of no more than a reasonably consistent line of slightly larger river pebbles, none more than 10-12in (0.25-30m) across laid at the edge of the mound. They might have been the remnants of a final stone-capping to the mound. Somewhere along the main E-W trench the primary burial was found. Photo- graphs suggest that it was not far from the apparent centre of the mound on which the cross trenches had been set out to achieve the traditional 'quadrant excavation'. The stone cairn here rose to the modern surface and this visible pile of stones must have attracted previous notice for a small but deep disturbance was recognized at its centre, a point which later proved to lie directly above the primary burial, which had not been reached by the robbers. This mass of stone at a high level occasioned the extension of the trench to the south, but the southern half of this extension was not excavated to any great depth. The work in this area revealed that the barrow had been built over a small natural hillock of coarse sand and that the primary burial had been placed in a shallow grave dug into its summit. The dimensions of the grave are not given, but the crouched body in it occupied a space about 35in x llin (0.89 x 0.28m) and depth measurements given suggest that the grave pit must have been about 12in (0.30m) deep. However, the body was not on the bottom, but lay at about the level of the old ground-surface on a filling of stone and clay. Nothing was found in this filling, but the caption of a photograph states that there was a great deal of charcoal around the bones. The body was very tightly flexed, suggesting that it might have been bound before rigor mortis set in. The bones were badly decayed, but the skull and long bones could be preserved and were sent for examination. This examination had not been completed by 1958, and there is no record of its eventual