Finds from Meillionydd

As the soils are acidic, no animal bone assemblages have been retrieved and the site evidently mainly belongs to the aceramic Iron Age, due to the absence of pottery. The finds from Meillionydd include a typical assemblage of later prehistoric stone artefacts, such as rubbing stones, pestles, spindlewhorls, and hammerstones. Two of the spindlewhorls are unfinished, in that the perforations have not been completed, indicative of manufacture activities on the site and at the same time, of a complex abandonment rite when buildings went into disuse.

One of the hammerstones was crafted from Mynydd Rhiw stone, which had potentially been extracted from the Neolithic axe factory on the top of Mynydd Rhiw, and several other chippings and flakes of the same material were recovered from trenches at Meillionydd. The presence of Mynydd Rhiw stone is quite interesting – Steve Burrow’s excavation of the axe factory produced radiocarbon dates in the Late Bronze Age (Burrows pers. comm.), suggesting that the stone was of significance to communities in the early centuries of the first millennium BC.

A piece of a jet bracelet and two lead spindlewhorls as well as four glass beads have also been recovered from the trenches. We have one very small fragment of undiagnostic pottery which may be from a later Iron Age imported pottery vessel, or it may even be Romano-British in date. We are waiting to get this fragment identified.

We have a large assemblage of charred twigs from various features in the site which will be used for radiocarbon dating once we obtain funding. First radiocarbon dates for the roundhouse sequence in our trench 3 indicate an occupation of the site between c. 750 and 200 cal. BC. We have also collected and processed a large number of environmental soil samples, which will provide information on the plant assemblages on the site.

A collection of stone objects from the excavations.

The jet bracelet which was found at the bottom of a posthole in trench 1

The later Iron Age lead spindlewhorl, found in the upper fills of one of the stone roundhouses.

A decorated glass bead found at the bottom of a posthole during the 2015 excavations.

Please click here for a 3D image of one of the unfinished stone spindlewhorls.
Please click here for a 3D image of one of the lead spindlewhorls.
Please click here for a 3D image of the fragment of the jet bracelet.