The First Stones: Penywyrlod, Gwernvale and the Black Mountains Neolithic Long Cairns of SE Wales

[@cncshrops]

Fascinating presentation, thank you.

[@liamredmill9134]

Fascinating ,thanks

[@christopherbutcher9090]

Great to see the slides in colour. Never occurred to me they weren't B&W.

[@ladyflibblesworth7282]

every time I go to the black mountains I feel weird, like somethings not right, the same way I feel about Drumau mountain in Skewen, or dan-yr-ogof and many other places in south Wales. I feel like the landscape is hiding something, the geography just seems special, the minerals seem interesting and the forests are like graveyards for ruins that seem to be buried. History as it is written just doesn't seem to fit what I am seeing and it just fills me with a delicious suspicion and curiosity. Sometimes the evidence seems questionable and the conclusions always seem to be aiming for the same objective that just doesn't make sense to me at all. It's like putting together hundreds of different jigsaws, only every single one turns out be be some sort of duck, only after you put in the last few pieces. Either I'm crazy or the Romans are still diddling in our affairs :) our preserved history is always someone else's - Norman, Roman, Christian, Saxon. All our native history is either hidden, buried under new forests or making up flat stone walls on farmland. It's just a little hobby to keep me fit and active, but what a fun hobby it is :)

[@TheSithari7]

I feel quite the same. I believe that the stones could have been used as information storage/exchange points & possibly charging points. Also way markers. Our native history is a mystery & a fantastical magical one at that.

[@jdjones4825]

Your crazy 😂 And I'm qualified and experienced in these things so I can usually tell🥳 But I do agree with your statement whole heartedly

[@naradaian]

Wow. Thorough stuff. You didnt dwell much on the idea these are the 1st stone structures

[@phillipchadwick8269]

Hi there, I don't know if this is of any interest. I have a large mound in the gardens of my home. It might well be a natural hillock and my guessing of dimensions may be in accurate. It rises about 25 feet from the lane and has a flat top about the size of a tennis court. It's about 100 feet above the river Usk between Abergavenny and Usk. It is perfectly aligned in an East West access and is below an Iron age fort, about a mile away and another about 2 miles away. I've often wondered if it's an ancient monument or just a natural hillock. It does have wonderful views up the Usk valley to both the Black Mountains and the Blorenge. If you'd like to have a "butchers" please get intouch. Regards Phillip

[@peterjarvis9367]

The only skull that Hubert Savery showed me, soon after excavation from Pen y Wyrlod, seemed to us female - no occipital process, no supraorbital ridges. She was in a niche and apparently when the farmer took a digger to the mound and the stone fell away, leaving the skull for him to see, he rightly informed the local policeman, who was archaeologically inclined and sent to the NMW. We thought she had been a good-looking young lady - teeth not much ground, probably a dimple in her chin. The skull also had some deposit on her molar teeth, which suggests that she cannot have eaten much for a fortnight or so before her death. We can think of various conditions that would cause this. DNA was not around for archaeology in those days. So presumably the face reconstructed for the model must have been from another skull. I am just wondering where he was found.

[@catmalogen23]

"Whoever can lucidly read the mountains shall know the future".

[@onenewworldmonkey]

This got me thinking. Had the same body, killed with a flint arrowhead, been found here in America no one could touch or examine it. That got me thinking about the differences between my hunter gatherer ancestors and Indians. Mine had wheels, pottery, and different animals. The Iroquois that used to be here only had pottery a few hundred years ago. Yet in South America they had pottery 2500 BC. Why did it take 3000 years for pottery to get here? Perhaps Polynesians gave pottery to South America?? China had it 18,000 years ago. All of this is very interesting to me. I feel many of the big stones in the UK were Gods to them. I never thought that pottery, in a way, is a man made stone. See what happens when you get me thinking?

[@christopherbutcher9090]

Something else to think about is the habit of placing pots upside down in funerary sites. I often wonder if it has something to do with looking down at reflections in water.

[@onenewworldmonkey]

@@christopherbutcher9090 I think there should be a place where regular people can discuss these ideas.