Parc Cwm Long Cairn - Severn-Cotswold Tombs

Severn-Cotswold Tombs

The cromlech at Parc le Breos Cwm is one of 120–30 sites identified as belonging to the category of long barrow tomb known as the Severn-Cotswold or Cotswold-Severn group. Excavations show these tombs to have been built on sites that had already "gained some significance". Archaeologist Julian Thomas theorises that these sites may have been "very long-lived woodland clearances" that had become landmarks and meeting-places.

Constructed during the Neolithic, cairns in the Severn-Cotswold tradition share several characteristics: an elongated trapezoidal (or wedge) shape up to 328 feet (100 m) long; a cairn (a mound of deliberately placed stones or rocks erected as a memorial or marker); a revetment (retaining wall) of carefully constructed dry-stone walling that also defines a horned forecourt at the widest end; huge capstones supported by orthostats; and a chamber (or chambers) in which human remains were placed, accessible after the cairn was completed by way of a gallery (passageway). Diverse internal transept chamber plans exist within the group. The earlier tombs contained multiple chambers set laterally, or pairs of transept chambers leading from a central passageway; the later, terminally chambered tombs, contained a single chamber.

As the name implies, Severn-Cotswold cairns are concentrated mainly to the east of the River Severn, in and around the Cotswolds, in present-day England. However, similar Severn-Cotswold type structures have been identified in south east Wales – between Brecon, the Gower Peninsula and Gwent – and in Capel Garmon (near Betws-y-Coed, Conwy, north Wales), Wayland's Smithy (Oxfordshire, England) and Avebury (Wiltshire, England). As well as monuments to house and to honour their departed ancestors, these cromlechs may have been communal and ceremonial sites where, according to archaeologist Francis Pryor, people met "to socialise, to meet new partners, to acquire fresh livestock and to exchange ceremonial gifts".

Parc Cwm long cairn is one of six chambered tombs discovered on the Gower Peninsula and one of 17 in what is commonly known as Glamorgan. Severn-Cotswold cairns are the oldest surviving examples of architecture in Great Britain – Parc Cwm long cairn was built about 1,500 to 1,300 years before either Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza, Egypt was completed.