Burial Chambers of Gwynedd & Anglesey
(3000BC – 2000BC)
The Neolithic period starts from 4000BC, around the time when communities started farming and settling in an area, breaking away from the hunter-gatherer way of living. As small tribal communities settled, the population also grew, thus giving more importance to agricultural farming, creating new farmland and transforming the landscape around them.
It is around this time when Megalithic structures were constructed. Chambered tombs such as passage graves were mainly constructed from around 3500BC for the communal burial of the dead. Some would have been multiple burials covered by an earth barrow or stone cairn. Examples of these kinds of burial chambers are to be seen at Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres on Anglesey, probably the most well known of the burial chambers we have in this part of North Wales.
Types of Burial chambers
Passage grave – has narrow passage made of large stones, some have multiple graves (some have corbelled roofs)
Chambered tomb – covered by earth or barrow (mound)
Chambered cairn – a chamber covered by stones (some may be passage graves)
Dolmen (Cromlech) – usually single chambered tomb with flat capstone (portal tomb) – (ancient term for burial chamber)
Barrow (Tumulus) – a rounded earthen mound – bronze age, covering a burial
Long Barrow – a long Neolithic mound covering multiple burial chambers
Cairn – a rounded mound of stones, covering a burial
Not all cairns are mentioned in my list, as there are too many scattered around. Cairns usually consist of piles of stones covering later Bronze Age to Iron Age burials. They are not regarded in the same high regard as the earlier and larger Neolithic stone built burial chambers.
I have included an O/S number on all historical sites to enable everyone to locate using an O/S map
Please click on links below for each area
Gwynedd
Anglesey
