page_title: Parc Cwm long cairn
section_title: Excavation
hierarchical_section_title: Parc Cwm long cairn / Excavation
context_page_description: Parc Cwm long cairn, also known as Parc le Breos burial chamber, is a partly restored Neolithic chambered tomb, identified in 1937 as a Severn-Cotswold type of chambered long barrow. The cromlech, a megalithic burial chamber, was built around 5850 years before present, during the early Neolithic. It is about seven ​¹⁄₂ miles west south–west of Swansea, Wales, in what is now known as Coed y Parc Cwm at Parc le Breos, on the Gower Peninsula.
  A trapezoidal cairn of rubble – the upper part of the cromlech and its earth covering now removed – about 72 feet long by 43 feet, is revetted by a low dry-stone wall. A bell-shaped, south-facing forecourt, formed by the wall, leads to a central passageway lined with limestone slabs set on end. Human remains had been placed in the two pairs of stone chambers that lead from the passageway. Corpses may have been placed in nearby caves until they decomposed, when the bones were moved to the tomb.
  The cromlech was discovered in 1869 by workmen digging for road stone. An excavation later that year revealed human bones, animal remains, and Neolithic pottery. Samples from the site show the tomb to have been in use for between 300 and 800 years.
context_section_description: Workmen digging for road stone discovered the site in 1869. John Lubbock and Hussey Vivian excavated it that year, believing it to be a round barrow. The excavation revealed human bones that were "much broken and in no regular arrangement", animal remains ("deer and swine's teeth"), and sherds of "plain Western Neolithic pottery". The bones, initially thought to heve been disturbed by repeated access or subsequent interments, were at first thought to be from 20–24 individuals, all of whom except three were adults. Archaeologists Alasdair Whittle and Michael Wysocki note that such estimates were commonly based on the "numbers of skulls or mandibles", and recent analysis has shown the bones to be from at least 40 individuals. Following the excavation, most of the human remains were reburied in clay pots beneath their original contexts, some are held in the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, England – with the animal and pottery remains – and the whereabouts of the remainder are unrecorded.
  An excavation led by Professor Glyn Daniel in 1937 identified the site as a chambered long barrow. However, more recently, long barrows have been defined as having long earthen mounds with wooden internal structures, whereas chambered tombs, while also being covered by a long mound, have internal chambers built of stone. No long barrows with wooden internal structures have been identified in southeast Wales, perhaps because long barrows were usually built where there was no suitable stone.
  At Parc Cwm long cairn a variety of mortuary practices was evident and the deliberate ordering of skeletal parts noticeable. Whittle and Wysocki (1998) note cremated human remains were placed only in the front, right (south–east) chamber, where females and males, and all age ranges were represented. The south–east chamber was also unusual in that it contained nearly three times as many individuals as in each of the other chambers, which contained the remains of all representative groups except younger children and infants. At the forecourt entrance Atkinson recorded finds, deposited in groups, including: flint debitage, lithic cores and a bladelet (burnt and unburnt); a leaf-shaped arrowhead (burnt); pieces of quartz; pieces of stalactite (now missing); sherds of Neolithic pottery; and cremated bone fragments. Atkinson speculated that the stalactite originated from Cat Hole cave, which (along with Tooth Hole cave) Whittle and Wysocki note as a possible source of the quartz too.
  Following the excavation led by R J C Atkinson in 1960, the cromlech was placed under the guardianship of the then Ministry of Public Building and Works
  and, in 1961, was partly restored. Atkinson made "minimal" excavation records, and no report of it was published until Whittle and Wysocki's detailed report in 1998. In it, they suggest that corpses may have been placed in caves near the cromlech until they decomposed, when the bones were moved to the tomb; a process known as excarnation.
caption: Parc Cwm long cairn from the south
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