Grinsell, Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Wales

These are the ‘England’ pages from what is now a rare book Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain (London: David & Charles, 1976)

Grinsell, Leslie V. Folklore of Prehistoric Sites in Britain

Rescue News 94: 6. , 2006

Parts of my review now seem very dated! The discovery of a better-preserved structure at Llandegai suggests that these were indeed dwellings. The devastating cuts to the National Museum of Wales in recent years, and the highly controversial (and frankly bizarre) decision to re-locate its archaeological collections to the St Fagans Folk Life Museum where only a tiny portion is now on display, was all in the future.

R e p o r t N o . 7

Archaeologia Cambrensis 173, 2024

In the closing years of the seventeenth century, Edward Lhwyd and three assistants journeyed through Wales, inter alia conducting surveys of various antiquities. This pioneering project generated some of the earliest plans of Welsh hillforts, though these survive solely as anonymous copies made some years after the tour in Wales ended in 1699. One of the most informative plans depicts Pen y Gaer in Caernarvonshire, complete with chevaux-de-frise, the first known illustration of such a phenomenon anywhere in the British Isles, where fewer than twenty instances have yet been reliably demonstrated, despite the profusion of hillforts in certain regions. Their early recognition of the Pen y Gaer chevaux-de-frise testifies to perceptive archaeological fieldwork by Lhwyd and his team, though no version of their plan reached print in over 260 years. Regardless of repeated recent claims to the contrary, it remains the only chevaux-de-frise yet identified in north Wales, and one of only five on record throughout Wales. Reviewing of numerous published accounts of Pen y Gaer and certain other hillforts reveals how an over-reliance on secondary referencing can result in disconcerting misconceptions.

CIFA Wales/Cymru, 2023

Early medieval archaeology in Wales is particularly challenging. There is little diagnostic material culture and comparatively few sites have been identified and excavated. Nevertheless, the period since the last review has witnessed significant advances and knowledge. The publication of Professor Nancy Edwards' monograph on Life in Early Medieval Wales (2023, Oxford University Press) heralds a major watershed, to which readers are referred for a comprehensive and detailed overview of the current state of knowledge. This revision of the Research Framework offers an opportunity to re-evaluate its content, structure and scope. The fundamental issues that were set out in the three earlier versions of this Research Framework are still relevant. Thus, key research priorities remain: the identification and investigation of settlements, cemeteries, and ecclesiastical sites; improvement of chronological frameworks; analysis of artefacts, ecofacts, paleoenvironmental and osteological data; the further of understanding of power and authority; and also of the development of understanding of frontiers and dyke systems. The failure to significantly address and move on from these priorities demonstrates the severity of the challenges to the realisation of research potential for the early medieval period in Wales. In the light of this and the fact that Professor Edwards' monograph offers an up-to-date synthesis of the archaeology of the period, this revision of the Framework aims to set priorities that will facilitate and maximise opportunities for research, funding, and collaboration. This document considers nine overarching themes: working better together; maximising fieldwork potential; improving resources; sharing knowledge; improving and refining chronology; landscape perspectives on sites, monuments, social and economic processes; artefact and ecofact/biofact analysis; burials; power and authority; and community and engagement. Recent publications (post 2016) are noted in a separate bibliography.

Cadw, 2022

Late Bronze Age/Iron Age expert panel

Abstract: Several caves in North Wales have yielded archaeological and palaeontological material of undoubted interest. Most notably, two caves in Denbighshire are the only archaeological sites in Western Europe to lie north of the Last Glacial Maximum limits and yet still contain archaeological material pre-dating it, offering a rare glimpse of what has been lost elsewhere. Although many North Welsh caves are documented in the scientific and caving literature the record of sites is dispersed and incomplete. Comments are offered here on the archaeological contents of these caves, and more generally about the current record of caves in the region. A selected inventory of sites that may be of potential interest to archaeologists is presented.