Neolithic site in South-west Wales reveals significant date for a cremated burial
Trefael, an ancient monument in a windswept field near the village of Nevern in South-west Wales, has been giving up its secrets to a team of archaeologists from the Welsh Rock Art Organisation (WRAO). The monument was previously classified as a standing stone, probably of Early Bronze Age date (c 2,200 BC), and received little attention until, in 2009, an archaeological team, led by Dr George Nash of the University of Bristol, Carol James (Welsh Rock Art Organisation), Adam Stanford (Aerial Cam) and Thomas Wellicome (University of Southampton), undertook a geophysical survey. Read more
Archaeologists are to exhume and analyse human bones found under a prehistoric monument only recently identified as a burial site cap. The Trefael Stone in Pembrokeshire was thought to be just one of many linked to nearby Bronze Age locations. But it has now been reclassified after a survey established it as the capstone of a Stone Age ritual burial chamber. Read more
Standing stone may have guided the ancients through 'sacred landscape'
A solitary stone in a windswept Welsh field has helped shed light on how our neolithic ancestors came together in worship thousands of years ago. A recent excavation programme at a standing stone known as Trefael, near Newport in Pembrokeshire, has revealed at least two unique episodes in its early history. Archaeologists say as well as being a portal dolmen a tomb made of giant stones the standing stone was probably used as a ritual marker to guide communities through a sacred landscape. Read more
This site is known as Trefael a single slab with at least 28 cupmarks, 17 of which are shallow depressions. Lynch suggests that this stone may well be a capstone from a now destroyed monument. Nash suggest that the cairn exists around the site, much of it incorporated into the surrounding field boundaries and is probable that part of an upright or the lower section of the slab is located underneath this stone. Photographed during an Archaeology Safari of Pembrokeshire 29th November 2003. Read more