_______________________________________________________________________
A study of
Ty Newydd Burial Site
Tŷ Newydd burial chamber although ruined,
is still a good example of a megalithic dolmen.
Set on a natural outcrop it would originally have been
covered with a mound or cairn now marked out by the
small bollards that surround it.
Visit Date May 2023
_______________________________________________________________________
Ty-Newydd has a massive cracked capstone, about 4.0m by 1.8m and up to 1.2m thick, that rests on three of the four remaining uprights. The Capstone is likely to have originally been wider as part of the southern edge has broken off.
The chamber was originally part of a passage grave. One theory is that the tomb was originally similar to Bryn Celli Ddu (the subject of a later project), with a second chamber joined to the first by a passage, and the entire tomb was covered by a large earth mound which was later removed.
Early reports claim that the second larger chamber existed close by, this has long since been broken up and carried away as has any surface evidence of a covering stone cairn so it is impossible to establish the original layout of the site although several small concrete markers around the chamber hint at the possible extent.
It is said to have once been enclosed by a circular wall about 32m in diameter and this may reflect the form of the cairn.
The huge tilted capstone is split and is now partly supported by brickwork and concrete. This does distract from the natural beauty of this site however one suspects that without this intervention the capstone would now be on the ground.
There is a photo in 'The Ancient Stones of Wales' by Barber and Williams, which purports to show Ty Newydd in 1900, with the capstone resting on 3 uprights, without all the modern brickwork.
The chamber was excavated in August 1935 by Charles Phillips.
There was a lot of charcoal, suggesting evidence of a large fire that formed this thick layer of charcoal as well as a quantity of quartz.
There were no human remains found at the site however the finds included five flint flakes, a burnt flint arrowhead, a small chip from a polished flint axe, and some small fragments of pottery. Phillips believed that the pottery fragments were from the Beaker culture, suggesting a Bronze Age reuse of this earlier Neolithic monument.
More recently, prehistoric artwork termed ‘cup marks’ have been detected on the capstone.
Thank you for viewing my project
