The Meillionydd Project
This third excavation season at the double ringwork enclosure of Meillionydd, near Rhiw, is aiming to produce additional information on the nature of these hilltop monuments, which are largely confined to the Llŷn Peninsula. Despite having some of the best prehistoric settlements and hillforts in Wales, the archaeology of this area remains poorly understood. The emergence and development of monumental foci, such as the hillforts and ringworks, remain particularly enigmatic. Whilst displaying a large variety of forms, characteristics, size and chronological sequences, these monuments were the focus for extensive settlement and gathering practices. Their creation required substantial resources and considerable human labour, creating networks of debt and obligation between different groups, and thereby new communities. They also indicate that attachments to specific places became important in the first millennium BC.
North Wales is special, because early phases of hillfort construction occur already in the Late Bronze Age, such as on The Breiddin in Powys, Moel y Gaer Rhosemor in Clwyd and Castell Odo in Gwynedd.
These structures are located on low hilltops and consist of two circular concentric banks with internal roundhouses. They are likely to have been occupied by several family groups, and it seems likely that they also were places where larger communities gathered seasonally, when specialised activities or events were carried out, such as artefact production, ceremony and feasting. The enclosures have parallels with the artefact-rich Late Bronze Age ringwork enclosures of eastern England, such as Mucking North Ring and Springfield Lyons. Furthermore, the curvilinear shapes of the enclosures are similar to other dated sites on the Llŷn and suggest that some may even have been initially occupied as early as the second millennium BC (e.g. Sarn Mellteyrn).
The double ringwork enclosures offer a unique and as yet largely untapped resource for studying the origins of settlement monumentality in the Late Bronze Age and Earliest Iron Age (c. 1000 – 600 BC).
* From open day pamphlet of 2011 excavation, written by Kate Waddington & Raimund Karl
North Wales is special, because early phases of hillfort construction occur already in the Late Bronze Age, such as on The Breiddin in Powys, Moel y Gaer Rhosemor in Clwyd and Castell Odo in Gwynedd.
These structures are located on low hilltops and consist of two circular concentric banks with internal roundhouses. They are likely to have been occupied by several family groups, and it seems likely that they also were places where larger communities gathered seasonally, when specialised activities or events were carried out, such as artefact production, ceremony and feasting. The enclosures have parallels with the artefact-rich Late Bronze Age ringwork enclosures of eastern England, such as Mucking North Ring and Springfield Lyons. Furthermore, the curvilinear shapes of the enclosures are similar to other dated sites on the Llŷn and suggest that some may even have been initially occupied as early as the second millennium BC (e.g. Sarn Mellteyrn).
The double ringwork enclosures offer a unique and as yet largely untapped resource for studying the origins of settlement monumentality in the Late Bronze Age and Earliest Iron Age (c. 1000 – 600 BC).
* From open day pamphlet of 2011 excavation, written by Kate Waddington & Raimund Karl