Analysis
Few human remains survive in Great Britain from the early Neolithic (c. 6400–c. 5850 BP), although they are comparatively well preserved in the Black Mountains (Mynydd Du), the Gower Peninsula and the Vale of Glamorgan (Bro Morgannwg) where up to 50 individuals have been interred – men, women and children – in each cromlech.
The skeletal remains of over 40 individuals were recovered from the cromlech at Parc le Breos Cwm, some of which showed evidence of weathering and of biting and gnawing by animals. This suggests the corpses lay exposed to decompose and were interred in the burial chambers defleshed, as parcels of bone. Skeletal remains from the passageway were part–articulated, showing no sign of animal scavenging, suggesting they were placed in the cromlech as fleshed corpses. Whittle and Wysocki note that among the human remains are the bones of "8 dogs, a cat, a red deer, pig, sheep and cattle". They speculate that the two caves near the cromlech were used as depositories for the corpses prior to decomposition, and that when the bones were collected from the caves for reinterment others already lying in the cave were unwittingly gathered too.
Radiocarbon dated samples from the cromlech show the tomb was accessed by many generations over a period of 300–800 years, and that the human bones are the disarticulated remains (i.e., not complete skeletons) of at least 40 individuals: male and female adults, adolescents, children, and infants. One of the red deer bones has been radiocarbon dated to between 2750 BP and 2150 BP, showing that at least some of the bones entered long after the site had been deserted.
Read more about this topic: Parc Cwm Long Cairn
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