GM568

Coetgae'r Gwartheg barrow cemetery  

28/11/2003  

Designated  

Merthyr Tydfil  

Vaynor  

302255  

211493  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

Round Cairn  

Prehistoric  

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument. The monument comprises the remains of a prehistoric barrow cemetery, probably dating to the Bronze Age (c.2300 BC - 800 BC). The cemetery contains the remains of five round cairns, roughly aligned from north-north-west to south-south-east along the Coetgae'r Gwartheg ridge. The cairns are circular on plan and measure between 10m and 22m in diameter and up to 1.6m in height. The central cairn is the most impressive, being situated on the summit of a locally imposing knoll. Several of the cairns may be augmented natural knolls; however, the location, size and shape of the resulting mounds (and the structural kerb of stones visible on the southernmost) would certainly indicate their use as burial cairns. The monument is of national importance as 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 traces of a buried prehistoric land surface underneath the cairns. The scheduled areas comprise the remains described and areas around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive.