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A study of
Neolithic burial sites can be found all over Wales, the UK and across Europe.
I have visited many of these sites and have posted information on them here such as
What makes the site at Duffryn Ardudwy different is that there are two tombs close together.
Visit Date May 2023
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The two dolmens are just 30 feet apart within a much bigger mound.
The chambers were built sometime between 4000-2000 BC, probably as a communal burial site. The entire monument was probably originally covered by a mound of small stones.
The investigation following the excavation seems to explain that there had been two different periods of construction at the site.
First, the smaller, western, dolmen had been put up and surrounded by an oval cairn.
Sometime later, a larger Eastern tomb was constructed with a trapezial design which was needed to combine both tombs.
Today the site consists of an elongated oval, running up a slight slope, with one large chamber at the top eastern end of the slope and a smaller chamber beneath the branches of a tree at the lower western end. Beside the upper chamber is a solitary standing stone.
The site was excavated in 1961-2 by T.G.E. Powell. Although the tomb had been rifled, at the smaller dolmen a pit containing fragments of five Neolithic pottery vessels was found sealed by the cairn in front of the tomb.
This tomb has a small prehistoric cup-mark carved on one of its portal stones.
The second, larger megalithic tomb was built to the east and was set within a large, rectangular cairn which incorporated the earlier tomb. This later tomb produced both Neolithic and Bronze Age pottery.
Other finds included a fine, broken, stone pendant.
It was found necessary in 1961-62 to provide additional support for the great roofing stone on the eastern dolmen and a buttress was built on either side of the chamber for this purpose.
There is little doubt that the two tombs were built several generations apart.
Stones from this site have been used in the past as building materials and this is often the case at these sites but there is still a vast amount of stones around the site.
In his book, 'Guide to Ancient Britain' Bill Anderton writes that: “As part of an outbreak of light phenomena, columns of light were seen issuing from the ground here in 1905.
The site stands on the Morchras geological fault.
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