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The stone circles of South Wales are tiny things compared with the great monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury in Wiltshire, but, none the less, they are in the same tradition. Archaeology, of course, can never tell us the details of the religion which used these circles on the lonely hills and any guess which we may make is valueless. About a dozen circles are known in South Wales, normally formed of small stones, rarely more than 3 feet tall, and usually with some of the stones now missing. Sometimes they are enclosed within a low earth bank, as at Ysbyty Cynfyn, Cardiganshire, and Meini-gwyr, Llandyssilio East, Carmartenshire. Quite often they are close to a standing stone, as at Nant Tarw, Traianglas, Brecknockshire, and Gors Fawr, Mynachlogddu, Pembrokeshire. In two cases (Trecastle Mountain and Nant Tarw, Traianglas, both in Brecknockshire) a pair of circles stand side by side, while at Cerrig-Duon, also in Traianglas, there is a standing stone and a short avenue formed of two parallel lines of stones as well.
These circles often lie on the barren moors and hills where many of the Bronze Age barrows are also to be found. We must remember that in the Bronze Age the climate was warmer and drier than it had been in Neolithic period or was to be in the Iron Age, which meant that the moors and hills were less forbidding than they are today.
Only two of these circles have been excavated. Meini-gwyr, Llandyssilio East, which lies within sight of Carn-meini, the source of the Stonehenge bluestones, is one of the circles enclosed within a low bank. It has a narrow entrance to the west, opposite the two remaining stones. The excavation in 1938 showed that the bank was formed of turf and clay scraped from around the monument, and that, originally, there were seventeen stones set in a circle 60 feet in diameter. The entrance had also been lined with stones. Although so close to Carn-meini, it bears little resemblance to the circles of Wessex, but looks rather to Ireland, where similar earth-embanked circles are known. It was most probably built in the Beaker period, as one of the stone holes had been disturbed by a hearth containing the fragments of a food vessel, which suggests that the circle had gone out of use by 1400 B.C.
The second excavated circle is at Ynys-Hir on a ridge of Mynydd Epynt, Brecknockshire. It stands by a Middle Bronze Age burial cairn and is probably of the same date, around, or just before, 1300 B.C. It had originally consisted of twenty-seven stones set in a circle 56 feet in diameter. There was no bank. The relatively late date of this circle shows that the old religion lasted long in Wales.
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