CM334

Bancbryn platform cairn  

10/01/2005  

Designated  

Carmarthenshire  

Cwmamman  

268950  

209987  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

Platform Cairn  

Prehistoric  

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Monument. The monument comprises the remains of a platform cairn, a ceremonial monument probably dating to the Bronze Age (c.2300 BC - 800 BC). It is situated within open moorland in between two large Bronze Age cairn cemeteries on Bancbryn, a local summit on the E side of Mynydd y Betws. The stone-built cairn is circular on plan and measures about 11m in diameter and up to 0.3m in height. The cairn has several kerbstones visible on its NW arc and a level interior. There is a possible small satellite cairn situated immediately to the SW and within the scheduled area. The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of prehistoric burial and ritual. The monument is an important relic of a prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape and retains significant archaeological potential, with a strong probability of the presence of both intact burial or ritual deposits and environmental and structural evidence, including buried prehistoric land surfaces. The topographical association of the cairn with two Bronze Age cairn cemeteries (CM333 and 335), situated about 0.35km to the NW and 0.25 to the SE respectively, further enhances the importance of the monument and emphasises the importance of the area in the prehistoric funerary and ritual landscape. The area scheduled comprises the remains described and an area around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive. It is circular and measures 20m in diameter.