BR339

Garn Las platform cairn  

26/09/2006  

Designated  

Powys  

Llywel  

282778  

224791  

Religious, Ritual and Funerary  

Platform Cairn  

Prehistoric  

The following provides a general description of the Scheduled Ancient Monument. The monument comprises the remains of a platform cairn, probably dating to the Bronze Age (c.2300 BC - 800 BC) and situated within open moorland on a terrace on the NE-facing slopes of Garn Las, on the lower N-facing slopes below the main summit ridge of the Black Mountain. The platform cairn is circular on plan and measures about 18m in overall diameter and between about 0.3m and 0.5m in height. The cairn displays no evidence of original 'bulk' and boasts a well-defined edge; it is thus interpreted as a large low platform cairn. The monument is of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of prehistoric burial and ritual practices. The well-preserved 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. The likelihood that the cairn is an example of a more unusual structural class of cairn, the platform cairn, further increases its importance, as does the topographic association with the contemporary ring cairn situated c. 250m to the NNE. The scheduled area comprises the remains described and an area around them within which related evidence may be expected to survive. It is circular and measures 30m in diameter.