Neolithic Tombs of Wales

This article is from Current Archaeology issue 429

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REVIEW BY KEITH RAY

Neolithic Tombs of Wales is a revised edition of a book with similar scope that was published 20 years ago by the same publisher. It is fundamentally a field guide to around 100 sites whose remains are broadly intelligible today, out of a known total of some 250. The author discusses these chambered tombs in nine regional groupings, identifying the five different types that they are customarily assigned to. With over 70 examples (if tilted-capstone sites are included – referred to here, curiously, as ‘earth fast sites’), dolmens are the most numerous category of site among Neolithic tombs in Wales.

It is worth noting the sparsity of sites in inland (central) Wales, so reinforcing the idea that, although some river valleys were occupied early on in the 4th millennium BC, in many areas the practice of building communal monuments appears not to have taken hold. This is a puzzle that cannot easily be resolved: surely it was not a result simply of loss of sites, or even of a near-total absence of settlement?

Neolithic Tombs of Wales
George Nash
Logaston Press, £25
ISBN 978-1910839720