CM335

Bancbryn cairn cemetery [east]  

10/01/2005  

Designated  

Carmarthenshire  

Cwmamman  

269202  

209919  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

Round Cairn  

Prehistoric  

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Monument. The monument comprises the remains of an extensive burial cairn cemetery, probably dating to the Bronze Age (c.2300 BC - 800 BC) and situated within open moorland on the lower SE-facing slopes of Bancbryn, a local summit on the E side of Mynydd y Betws. The cairn cemetery comprises at least 14 grass and heather covered cairns or barrows. The cairns range in size from 4m to 9m in diameter and between 0.2m and 0.6m in height. A ring cairn is situated on the W side of the cemetery. The heather-covered ring cairn is circular on plan and measures about 10m in diameter within a substantial stony ring bank about 1.5m in thickness and up to 0.4m in height. The interior of the ring cairn has been infilled with loose stones. 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 cemetery with a further Bronze Age cairn cemetery (CM333) and platform cairn (CM334), situated about 0.6km and 0.25 to the NW 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 rectangular and measures 200m from NW to SE by 100m transversely.