Rediscovering Neolithic Anglesey
Creative events let communities dig deeper into Welsh archaeology
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Among the rich legacy of millennia of continuous settlement and resettlement, Anglesey is abundant in Neolithic burial and ritual monuments — built around 5,000 years ago. This helped propel Anglesey to near the top of the RSA’s Heritage Index in 2015 — second only to neighbouring Gwynedd.
Dr. Ffion Reynolds, Heritage and Arts Manager at Cadw — the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, explains the range of ways people are discovering new aspects to the ancient monuments in their local landscape, and creating new interpretations.
Among the most remarkable of these monuments are what archaeologists call ‘passage tombs’. They are impressive mounds that cover stone-lined passages and chambers for bones and grave goods such as pots. Inside these chambered rock tombs is some of the most peculiar and enigmatic art that dates from this period, and we are fortunate to have two well-preserved passage tombs in Anglesey — Bryn Celli Ddu and Barclodiad y Gawres.
This type of tomb was built across the west and north of the British Isles around 3000 BC but the reason for building them is still open for discussion. Religious and seasonal ceremonies may have played a large part, as well as the need of successive generations to build bigger and more complex monuments.
Bryn Celli Ddu has a very special quality: the chamber and passage are aligned to the rising sun on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. This may have been significant — the farming community relied on the sun for their crops to yield a good harvest.
Over the past three years, Cadw and the Anglesey Druid Order have been inviting the public to take part in a summer solstice dawn celebration at Bryn Celli Ddu and witness how the sun streaks into the inner chamber, casting a shadow on the back stone. The image of the sun reaching into the chamber is awe-inspiring and stays with me for the rest of the year. Cadw has supported public archaeology projects and excavations — in 2015 discovering four new unrecorded rock art outcrops.
One of Cadw’s objectives is to increase visitors’ understanding and enjoyment of our sites. This goes beyond the familiar projects to improve car parks and information boards. An Archaeology Open Day in 2016 offered workshops, art installations, and tours of the Bryn Celli Ddu monument, and the excavation and a stargazing event.
Working with local schools, artists and archaeologists we’ve run interactive events, highlighting the many pioneering developments of the time, from pottery-making and farming, to rock art and shaping flint. Local schoolchildren have even recorded music inspired by the rock art at Bryn Celli Ddu, using the ancient images as a graphic score and interpreting them using electronic sounds and effects. Heritage Together is a project which allows visitors to take photographs of tombs which are then used to create 3D-models. We’ve also commissioned a series of comics to engage young people.
Combining new technology and the arts with the fascinating history of these sites is a great example of how Cadw is developing new ways of bringing Welsh heritage to life. We want visitors be able to reflect on what these special places mean to them and to Wales.
This quote has been adapted from articles Ffion has published
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-history-month-tale-two-7817131
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