Parc le Breos Cwm Transepted Long Cairn, Gower, West Glamorgan: Date, Contents, and Context

Abstract

First investigated in 1869, the transepted long cairn of Parc le Breos Cwm was re-excavated in 1960–61 but without a report being published. This account presents a number of radiocarbon dates and a detailed re-examination of the human bone assemblages, and attempts to put the monument in local and regional context. Radiocarbon dates place the long cairn in the later part of the earlier Neolithic, and support a fairly long span of time over which its mortuary deposits were accumulated; they also show secondary re-use of the passage, and perhaps also the deliberate incorporation of very old animal bone from nearby caves. The analysis of the human bone assemblages indicates prior exposure of the remains found in the chambers, in contrast to those in the passage. Variation in musculoskeletal stress markers may indicate a mobile lifestyle for at least some of the male mortuary population. Other lifestyle indicators are noted, and isotopic evidence is presented for a terrestrial and mainly meat-oriented diet in the sampled group. The isolated context and hidden setting of the Parc le Breos Cwm long cairn and the apparently low density of south Welsh monuments are stressed.

Special Issue Entheseal Changes and Occupation: Technical and Theoretical Advances and Their Applications

“…EC have become the dominant method for studying activity due to the perception that they record specific muscle use, that recording them involves low levels of intra‐observer and inter‐observer error (Hawkey & Merbs, ), and the apparent idea that they do not have a multi‐factorial aetiology. This has led to their use to study many aspects (often more than one in each study) of life in the past, for example, the effect of subsistence strategy changes or differences (Hawkey, ; Churchill & Morris, ; Steen & Lane, ; Eshed et al , ; Papathanasiou, ; Clapper, ; Doying, ; Villotte et al , ; Stefanovic & Porcic, ), cultural changes or differences (Chapman, ; Al‐Oumaoui et al , ; Groves, ; Lieverse et al , ; Zabecki, ; Lieverse et al , ; Rojas‐Sepúlveda et al , ; Shuler et al , ), tool use, specific or habitual activities (Lai & Lovell, ; Peterson, ; Whittle et al , ; Lovell & Dublenko, ; Lukacs & Pal, ; Jordana et al , ; Molnar, ; Cope, ; Weiss, ; Molnar, ; Üstündağ & Deveci, ), sexual differences in labour (Jiménez‐Brobeil et al , ; Perry, ; Rodrigues, ; Aranda et al , ; Hagaman, ; Peterson, ), occupational differences (Villotte et al , ; Milella et al , ), social stratification (Rodrigues, ; Porčić & Stefanović, ; Havelková et al , ; Palmer, ) and disability (Hawkey, ). They have also been analysed in early hominids and non‐human primates (Belcastro et al , ; Drapeau, ; Cashmore, ; Mariotti & Belcastro, ) as well as other mammals (Bendrey, ).…”

Cleaning the dead: Neolithic ritual processing of human bone at Scaloria Cave, Italy

“…As the taphonomic study of deathways-or archaeothanatology (Duday 2009)becomes more common, even groups once thought to practise simple single inhumation, such as those in the Italian Neolithic (Robb 2007) and the Central European Linearbandkeramik, actually had highly varied ritual programmes that deposited many, perhaps even most, bodies in other ways, often as scattered, disarticulated bones. Well-documented Neolithic funerary treatments include secondary burials (Whittle & Wysocki 1998;Smith & Brickley 2009;Beckett 2011), massacres (Wahl & König 1987;Teschler-Nicola et al 1999), cannibalism (Villa et al 1986;Boulestin et al 2009) and complex ritual processing of the dead (Orschiedt & Haidle 2006). Human bone was even sometimes used as a raw material, for instance to make a flute-like musical instrument at Riparo Gaban (northern Italy) (Graziosi 1975).…”

Mesolithic and Neolithic Human Remains from Foxhole Cave, Gower, South Wales

“…Another unspecified human tooth (FX-59) from the 1997 excavations provided a similar date (OxA-8317, 4625 ± 40 bp , 3618–3143 cal bc ) and isotopic values (−20.6‰ and 9.7‰ for δ 13 C and δ 15 N, respectively). If, as seems likely, the confusion was between these two samples, it will unfortunately not be possible to resolve, as there is nothing remaining of sample FX-59 for reanalysis, either in the laboratory or in the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, where the 1997 finds have been deposited.

Fig 9Median of cal bc dates and δ 13 C values on human bone/dentine collagen from Foxhole, Paviland, Caldey Island (Mesolithic) and Parc le Breos chambered tomb (Neolithic) (Whittle and Wysocki 1998; Pettitt 2000; Richards 2000; Schulting and Richards 2002). Note the anomalous position of one sample from Foxhole (FX97-41), currently being investigated

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