DisgrifiadA number of prehistoric (Neolithic and Bronze Age) flint tools and artefacts were discovered here by T. Driver and R. Charnock during fieldwalking.
The flint finds from this area were divided into areas A-C. Area A yielded eleven pieces of flint; these included a larger core (Fig 4, a) made on pebble flint, the striking platform being formed by the splitting of the pebble with a single blow, a method used with other pebble-flint cores found on site (see Fig 4, b & c).
Area B produced an interesting concentration of ten flints from a relatively small area; These included three cores, one on brown/white pebble flint and heavily worked (Fig 4, b), one on black, glossy pebble flint, worked on one face only (Fig 4, c), and a small core on grey pebble flint.
Also from Area B was a wedge-shaped fragment of white patinated, fine-grained igneous stone (30mm across) preserving one curving, polished surface (30mm x 28mm) bearing traces of a flake-scar. There is every possibility that this is a fragment from a polished-stone artefact, possibly an axe.
Twelve pieces of flint were recovered from Area C. These included two cores and a core-cleaning flake. The best preserved was a fine pyramidal single-platform core (Fig 4, c), whose compact shape and deep brown patination (from iron deposits in the river gravels) may suggest a Mesolithic origin. It is identical in colouration to a small curving blade retouched at its distal end, (Fig 5, f) found to the north-west of Area C (marked by a small star in Fig 3) which is also Mesolithic in appearance. Also a pressure flaked artefact and a flint blade.
Two flints from Area C were of particular interest; these were a fragment of a well-made artefact on honey-coloured flint (Fig 5, D), pressure flaked across one side and apparently snapped across the middle. The second was a blade on black flint, retouched at its proximal end on the dorsal surface (Fig 5, B). This blade was collected using the 5m collection grid noted above, laid out over the site of the plough-levelled burial mound (NPRN 305836). The find spot corresponded with the southern arc of the inner concentric ditch. The pressure-flaked artefact is a high-quality find for the locality, while the blade on black flint is one of only three pieces of the fifty four found not to be made from grey or brown pebble flint. Both finds taken together may be considered unusual enough, in a local context, to once have formed part of the primary deposits of the burial mound.
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Paper published in Studia Celtica XXXV (2001), by Driver and Charnock, describing the finds in detail. The finds now reside at the Ceredigion Museum, Aberystwyth.
T Driver. 24 July 2002.
